25.) Avenio (Avignon, 2018)
Most of the restaurants on this list are either tasting menu spots or places with a wide array of small plates that can sometimes work as mini-tasting menus. Avenio is not one of those. But it is a classical french restaurant that served, as I would come to learn is fairly standard, set 3/4-course meals, at a relatively high fare and great level. The main dish I remember is an exquisite duck preparation, and their dessert was fantastic with a take on a lime pie. I would like to go back to Provence to try more of their great food; Avenio was a nice appetizer in that sense.
24.) The Pot Luck Club (Cape Town, 2018)
OK, now we're talking. The Pot Luck Club is a small plates restaurant, where you can order 4-5 of them per person making it something of an effect of a tasting menu. The food is slightly less well plated than a formal tasting menu restaurant, but was fantastic all the same - my favorite dishes being a lamb ras el hanout with aubergine caviar, a confit quail with peanut sauce or their desert of an apple tart with cinnamon ice cream. The Pot Luck Club was the sister restaurant of the fancier, classical tasting menu based The Test Kitchen, which closed during the pandemic - The Pot Luck Club lives on and in a future trip to Cape Town, which certainly is happening, I'll make a return visit.
23.) Eucalyptus (Jerusalem, 2018)
Eucalyptus has a tasting menu, but its mostly a sampling of menu items at a smaller size. Instead since I went with my parents on our trip to the Holy Land, we ordered our own sampling of the menu to share, which were all fantastic. They were plated well, seasoned well, prepared well, from a duck pastilla which was excellent to fish kibbeh to my favorite dish which was their mansaf - essentially their take on lamb biryani. The restaurant was also in a lovely setting down a wide, green alley near the Jaffa Gate, a perfect scene for a great Christmas Dinner.
22.) Noir: Dining in the Dark (Ho Chi Minh City, 2019)
This restaurant has great food, but also a better story. Noir puts diners in a completely black room, a level of black and darkness that seems impossible. Your given feed that you don't know what it is, but are told to eat and experience it with your sense other than sight. It seems a bit gimmicky, but they're committed to it and they also employ disabled people (blind or deaf) as the wait-staff. What really makes the mark, though, is the food itself is excellent and might have been on this list. Sadly I don't have pictures, but remember it being a mix of Vietnamese and Thai, from great little bowls of red curry, to galangal soup, to great beef preparations. Even the desserts were great, with maybe my favorite asian dessert I've ever had, with a dragon-fruit pannacotta. For the great idea, the excellent execution, and better food than you would expect from what is openly a fairly gimmicky concept, Noir was a full success.
21.) Mak N Ming (Vancouver, 2018)
From here on out these are all tasting menus, with one exception. This is also the first one on this list to have since closed due to the pandemic. Anyway, Mak N Ming was a husband/wife teamed restaurant in Vancouver that served an excellent, if a bit heavy, tasting menu, all with a refined, modern Asian bent. From an excellent Ramen, to a dish they called 'dirt' which looked like a pot filled of dirt that you ate (honestly, forgot exactly what it was), to two excellent tartares. Mak N Ming was a great restaurant with a clear focus. I think it also set a good squeeze between overly fancy, "tweezer" food with just great tasting food. My only one complaint isn't even a fair one in that it was a heavy meal. Then again, they really gave you your moneys worth.
20.) Ryunique (Seoul, 2022)
Ryunique is fairly new in the Seoul restaurant scene, and I think it is on the way to being even more seen as a leading restaurant in a leading food city. The food was generally beautiful, the only knocks is there were a few courses that looked better than they tasted, and their main, while excellently cooked, was a bit basic. They had a few standout dishes though, like maybe the best set of desserts that I've had at a tasting menu.
19.) Field & Main (Virginia, 2021)
I went here twice last year, first with my parents for an early 30th birthday present, and then ater in the fall with parents, sister and fiance. Both times we got their tasting menu, and while it is less plates than most on this list, each dish is about perfect, cresting with a large meat plate, from bison (2nd visit) to prime rib (1st visit) accompanied by a rich, complex, brilliant black garlic sauce. Earlier dishes included a charred, curried carrot, great miso-glazed fish dishes, perfectly in-season butternut sqaush, fish tartare, and much else. The place is also idyllically set in a small, rural Virginia town, just a perfect hidden gem in the middle of nowhere.
18.) Le Du (Bangkok, 2022)
There are many top restaurants in Bangkok, and Le Du is one of the few that focus on actual Thai food (quick shout out for the now closed Bo.Lan, a place I never was able to make it to). Their thai focused tasting menu was excellent, with great use of thai veggies, thai spices, thai curries, everything. The only real knock I can have is there was no standout meat dish. But there were excellent catfish, crab, shrimp, so much more. Le Du also had the most reasonably priced wine pairing I've seen, and good win to boot. The restaurant is doing some great things showcasing a cuisine that so rarely is featured in upscale venues in its own capital.
17.) Restaurante 99 (Santiago, 2018)
We were hoping to go to Borago, which is Santiago's top rated restuarant, but 'settled' for Restaurante 99 instead, which was excellent. The food is based on local ingredients but is more of modern fusion than any real 'Chilean' focus, but it was still excellent. It was early January, so we sat outside and because of that the pictures are a bit blurry, but do show off some of the inventiveness of the menu. There was a dish with aout six or seven preparations of mushrooms, including one constructed mushroom using two different preparations to make it look like a large mushroom. There was a bowl of perfectly seasoned little cockels, two great amouse bouches, and honestly I think my favorite set of desserts ever at a tasting menu spot - one called a 'red pepper' which was a sorbet with bits of red pepper again constructed to look like a red pepper. Restaurant 99 was a great spot, our best meal on maybe my favorite trip of all time.
16.) Janse & Co (Cape Town, 2018 & 2020)
Janse & Co is a pick your own adventure tasting menu, where you can select 5-8 courses of their list of about 15-20, with everything just looking great. The dishes are all fantastic, and in reality little separates Janse from the two restaurants above it. My favorite dishes generally are their meats, between a lamb tartare with huacatay and coriander, fish with cumquats and mushrooms, a jacopever (south african fish) with watermelon, to oyster and mussels with a large oyster cracker. The dishes are inventive, feature local proteins, in a classy setting Sadly, this is on of the places that have since shut down, a huge gap now created in Cape Town's culinary scene. RIP to a great, great restaurant.
15.) Canis (Toronto, 2019-20)
The last restaurant on the list to have closed during the pandemic might be the saddest loss of all. Toronto's Canis became a refuge for me a few times when I had flights cancelled returning from Toronto. It was a small tasting-menu only spot with a seven course beautiful meal with Canadian ingredients and inventive preparations. It was proper tasting menu small portions, quick bites, but just incredible presentation. They always started with two amouses, one of which would be a tartare on cracker, then always a small half-pie of duck terrine. The rest of the menu would change, from a couple fish or seafood dishes (they had a great lobster dish) to a couple great meats (honestly, had good lamb and beef, but their best dish was a duck that was braised for two days. Their sauces and consommes were always perfect. They were great in turning what was written as a 6-course meal into 8 with some throw ins. The place truly was special, and I really hate that they had to shut down.
14.) Belly of the Beast (Cape Town, 2020 & 2022)
This place is still open god willing, and was just a fantastic experience. Housed in a warehouse in a area of the town being gentrified. The six course meal is served at a very leisurely pace, with the focus being on the food and its creativity. The dishes were all made with such heart and mixed a lot of interesting components - from ones like a South African take on babaganoush with venison tartare, then three giant mussels with various sauce toppings, then a beautiful chantarelle mushroom dish, a peri-peri dusted flaky hake, and a karoo lamb with a perfect sauce. The desert was even a warm, lovely cake. It wasn't the fanciest, but each dish was impeccably prepared. Pretty soon we'll start getting into restaurants that go more in the gastrology route - but there are some brilliant restaurants that are just 'normal" in a sense that still are worth going out of your way to eat at.
13.) Pier (Cape Town, 2022)
Pier is run by the group that runs even more notable restaurants in the Cape Town area, and is located in the heart of the most touristy area of the city in the V&A Waterfront, not an area for a truly creative explosion of primarily seafood, but all Capetonian food. The restaurant had some incredible dishes with incredible presentations, uncluding a pork jowl and crayfish soup, a mussel and ham sauce put within an oyster, to an incredible lamb flash-grilled in front of you with a million different fixings and sides and incredible sauces. Pier was so clean, so smart, such a great restaurant in a city full of them. Even the cheese course was amazing. Pier was a truly great experience.
12.) Sud 777 (Mexico City, 2018)
Ok, these top eight are all fabulous, all tasting menu based, and admittedly all expensive. Sud 777 when I went was expensive but not notably so. It was seen as Mexico's 3rd or 4th best restaurant, and while it still probably is, it is a bit more reputed now moving up rankings for best restaurants in Latin America. Sud 777 is in a far corner of Mexico City in a residential area with the restraurant being set-up in a multi-story house. The menu was veggie forward (though not vegetarian), all sourced from their farm out back. The dishes were all excellent, from a starting pair of amouse bouches, to a brilliant braised watermelon dish (something I very much failed when trying to replicate), a marlin crudo, a beautifully soft beef cheek, and one of the most interesting desserts I've had, which was literally a roasted onion next to an onion sorbet - and it was amazing. I would love to go back to see how they've changed, if any, from their more homey core that they had at the time.
11.) Belcanto (Lisbon, 2021)
I just went to Belcanto last fall and chronicled it fully on this blog course by course. Some of this will be a repeat. Overall, the one word to describe it is opulence, from the position near the Opera house, the gold inside, the pristine white tablecloths, and the food from delicious small bites showcasing a refined version of Portuguese cuisine, to the famous 'Garden of the Goose that laid the Golden Egg' dish, fit with a long-cooked egg covered in gold leaf. There were about 15 moments alltogether, and while some were slightly below great, most were amazing, including the gold leaf, their breads and butters, to a little gold ball of cod, to an oyster with tuna tartare and a cod pearl. The food was authentically Portugeuse, from river prawns to so many great sardines and cod, to the main dish having a beef liver nata tart. Belcanto was immaculate in its gaudiness, even though it was pumping up what is often seen as a less refined cuisine.
10.) Mayta (Lima, 2022)
I went to Mayta not really knowing how good it was, and was astounding by the quality of its tasting menu. Not the longest, but maybe the one that truly had no bad dish. A little bit later, it was ranked as the 32nd best restaurant in teh world. Hard to argue. The setting is great, with stone tables and greenery everywhere. The food was incredible, with some of the most interesting dishes I've had - from a aged, roasted eggplant with an incredible foam, maybe the best cooked fish I've ever had, and a really beautiful duck and black rice main. Even the desserts were nice. Sure, you coudl wish it was longer, but there was also no miss, no oversight, nothing but great dish after great dish.
9.) Pujol (Mexico City, 2018)
Pujol is Mexico City's best or 2nd best restaurant, going back and forth with Quintonil (haven't been). It was the first on this list to be featured on Chef's Table with chef/owner Enrique Olvera. On the downside, there were only six listed courses which expanded to eight with a few extras thrown in. On the plus side, each was immaculate, from the famous baby-corn coated in a sauce made from ants, to a perfectly cooked octopus, to another perfectly cooked dish with lamb chops and a green mole. Even the desserts with their mango dessert and best churro you will ever have were both excellent. But of course, one cannot talk about Pujol without talking about the Mole Madre dish, their centerpiece, which is just a plate with two concentric circles of dark and light mole, with nopal tortillas. It seems crazy to serve just that as effectively the main course - but it is truly unbelievable. It is accepted people will go as far to lick the last drop of mole off the plate. It truly was a showstopper of a dish that elevates a bunch of other really great dishes.
8.) Mingles (Seoul, 2022)
Mingles is Seoul's top ranked restaurant, and after going I can see why. It was a classic tasting menu shop, with sharp clarity on its menu, its decor, its everything. It also had a really nice 'Korean Liquor' pairing along with the wine pairing, something I took that got me to taste various different Korean localized liquors. The meal itself was great, with some of the best, most interesting dishes I've had, such as a great king-crab two ways dish, a brilliant take on surf & turf (pork & squid stuffed oyster, along with a braised beef cube), to an incredible lamb three ways dish as the primary main. The vegetable dishes were also spectacular, such as a corn soup dish that opened my eyes to just how sweet corn can be. Mingles was a special restaurant showcasing the best of modern Korean cuisine.
7.) I Pupi (Sicily, 2019)
This was the second tasting course meal we had in our trip to Italy in 2019, and while the first one - Imago in Rome - was a big disappointment, the seafood-forward I Pupi in Bagheria, Sicily (about 30 min away from Palermo) was incredible. Their first course of a random assortment of small bites was inspired, each being seafood forward. The second plate which was a platter with six nigiri on it with six different salts to add on top was divine, and while not 'Italian' in any way was just an insane dish. The rest of the meal got more Italian, but still small, focused, refine, seafood plates, from a zuchinni noodle wrapped fish, to an incredible soup, to lamb chops (the only meat). Each dish was so well put together, alternating from amazing small bites to dishes that approached the size of a normal restaurant starter, to everything in between. This was just a fabulous meal and such a nice comeback after being disappointed with Imago earlier in that trip.
6.) Mume (Taipei, 2019)
I talked in the Belly of the Beast section of how most of the ones ranked above it are more on the molecular gastronomy side - and the top three all are, but Mume is frankly not, but it is truly mesmerizing. Like Pujol it is only six dishes but each was amazing in its focus and depth. Their two starters of jicama & prawn then a plum, kombu and tuna crudo were both just beautiful. The wagyu beef tartare was incredible, with teh softest bread for you to lap it up with. The two 'mains' of braised milkfish and oxtongue were impeccable. Even the dessert of tropical 'snow' was awesome. To some degree, while I could never see myself being able to make the dishes that the top three do because I wouldn't know where to begin, these are not dishes that are out of the realm of possibility. I could make something that looks similar; what is out of the realm of possibility is any idea that they would taste nearly as good, be as clean, as refined, as perfect as 'normal' food can be,
5.) Maido (Lima, 2016 & 2022)
Maido will always have a soft spot for me as it was the first tasting menu spot I went to, at a time where I didn't really know just how well reputed it was. We went for lunch, unable to get a dinner reservation but the menu is the same either way. It is a japanese-peruvian kaiseke meal that is just perfectly designed, executed, presented and crafted. 13 courses, all seafood based, all incredible, from various nigiris, to incredible takes on ceviche, to a choripan of fish & octopus sausage, to a very complicated but inredible soup decanted in front of you. Even the deserts of sea urchin and what they call the 'reef' which is a giant edible reef rock, are wild. I'm sure there are places in Japan that are just as good and more 'authentic', but this is my favorite take on Japanese cuisine ever. Just now I remember being mesmerized at each dish, on how it looked when it was brought out, on the complexity of the way it is described and of course on how it tasted. This, and to be fair the two above it, are peerless for me in the sense that I have zero idea how to recreate any of these dishes. They are simple while being complex, each ingredient, each little piece just so perfect. I hope to go Lima's other world reknowned restaurant Central at some point (maybe even this year, to which I will have to likely re-write this list to add it in), but if we could only go to one premier spot last time, Maido was a perfect pick.
4.) Gaggan Anand (Bangkok, 2022)
Because of many reasons, I'm going to rank my 2nd trip to a Gaggan Anand restaurant separately from the first one. One reason is it technically is a different restaurant, in a different space. Another is the experience was different - this is a restaurant where he serves just at a chef's table to a group of 14 people. And the biggest difference was Gaggan Anand himself was present, was there to talk to the patrons, the entire thing being equally an experience along with the food. The food was still great, with some of the most inventive dishes I've ever had with insane preparations that he explained so well. It still had all the measure of excitement, like random things that tasted like tom yum soup, or charcoal chicken balls or a dried paper lightly filled that tasted just like hummus. It was classic Gaggan, classic modern cooking, and the only restaurant on this list whre the Chef was there to personally chat with and serve to the customers. The old restaurant is higher up the lsit because at the end I think the food was even better, but my second trip to a Gaggan was about as good as I could have imagined.
3.) Azurmendi (Bilbao, 2021)
Like Belcanto at #7, I did just go to Azurmendi and it came as close as any meal I've had to unseating what might be a lifetime pick at #1. The basque restaurant certainly met it for downright creativity and presentation. From the picnic basket of small bites, to the greenhouse where they were literally picking up roses from a garden bed before you realized it was sorbet, to of course each incredible bite at the table. All in all they technically had 27 dishes, almost all of which were excellent in their design, freshness, preparation and ultimately taste. My favorites of the small bites were the cod fish brioche and the truffle meringue, just incredible little bites. The daiquiri rose was incredible, from presentation to taste. The asparagurus three ways and play on fish taco were divine. The tempura oyster was maybe the best bite I've ever had, and the ending dishes of cod tart and iberico pork were just sublime. They have a rich tapestry to which to create from local produce and Iberian meats and fishes, but Eneko Atxa's brilliant mind puts it to incredible use.
2.) Central (Lima, 2022)
Very likely next year Central will be named the best restaurant in the wrold by San Pellegrino in their World's Best 50 list. It is well deserved (the restaurant ranked above it for me has reached similar heights on the same list). The dishes are both uniformly incredibly tasty, and ridiculously inventive. As shown on his turn on Chef's Table, what chef Virgilio Martinez and his team create are art pieces, they're stunning, they're beautiful, they look as good as any dishes I've had, and they were all very good. From dishes made out of random amazonian vegetables, to amazonian fish, to incredibly weird lattice things, to some of the most inventive desserts I've had, including a panoply of peruvian chocolate as the final dish. The best part of the restaurant is how focused the theme is, with showcasing hte beauty of Peru across elevations and its various weird ingredients. It may not have been as many courses as it was in its height pre-covid (I believe 18, now down to 14) but I can only imagine what the four extra would have been.
1.) Gaggan (Bangkok, 2019)
I don't know if any restaurant will ever top Gaggan, which had so much hype entering in, having seen it on Chef's Table, see it rise up the world rankings, and it being Indian focused. I was expecting a lot, and it somehow overdelivrered. The 25 course menu was just perfect from the start of audacious versions of famous Indian street food (still unsure how my little bit of what looked like a cracker with foam and curry leaf tasted like idli sambar), to the mains of prawn balchao, decronstructed curries, a perfect lamb leg, and multiple Japanese dishes during Gaggan's Japanese phase. The setting, sitting at the chef's table watching his sous chef's go to work, with Gaggan's noted love of Heavy Metal ringing through the speakers, was a delight. IT was so well paced, 25 dishes of 3:30, never once making you feel like you're being rushed through each delectable dish. It is astounding to think this is what is possible with Indian food, that this is how good a menu can be even if you limit yourself to just five meat courses in the 25, and how great an atmosphere, a perspective, a cuisine and a legendary chef can concoct together.
