24.) Anan (Ho Chi Minh City - 2022)
Anan offers a la carte as well, which I feel like most patrons go for (including me in 2019), but in 2022 I went for the tasting menu. In reality, it is seven dishes on their menu, but it is all their top ones, like beef salad tacos, betel leef beef lettuce wraps (excellent as always), to some incredible deserts. Anan is not trying to wow you with tweezers, but the food is great. Only real downside is the portions are a bit big, so it is a lot even in just seven courses. The little touches of Vietnamese greatness is good enough through.
I believe Deane House has closed, but at the time it was one of Calgary's top restaurants, and most interestingly when I went had a whole menu featuring various preparations of Alberta's greatest gastronomical contribution: beef. From tartare, to pate, to raviolo's, to just plain great cooked beef. They had a particular view, a particular speciality, and did a great job showcasing it. The setting also, built inside and in the grounds of a house right in the middle of the urban maw that is Calgary, was quite special as well. I'll say this about our friend's up north - there is a lot of great food in Canada.
22.) Canoe (Toronto - 2022)
As I was saying.... Canoe took over for me as my tasting menu of choice after Canis (higher up the list) closed down. It is on the top floor of a downtown office buildign with a great view, but would be ranked similarly high if it were on teh ground floor of a low-rise (like Canis). The food was prstine, if a bit light, from a great take on oysters to a perfectly cooked strip steak finish. The best dish might have been the thickest, heartiest, most well cooked chowder I may have ever had. Canoe was a great restaurant, more than befitting taking over from Canis as my Toronto go-to.
21.) Mishuguene (Buenos Aires - 2023)
Israeli food is a bit narrow, but if you go to Mishuguene youc an realize how broad it can get. Yes there were some mezzes and hummuses and the like but there was also some incredible dishes. Their burnt and roasted eggplan was exceptional. Their kibbeh was even better, the best take on that dish I've ever had by far. The showstopper is a perfect cube of pastrami with dark garlic sauce - the dish that the place is known for (they have a good a-la-carte dish as well). My only real complaint is that it all eats a bit heavy, but is also then a tremendous value for what is being charged. Israeli food in the heart of Buenos Aires may seem strange, but they make it work so easily.
20.) Mak N Ming (Vancouver - 2018)
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.
19.) 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.
18.) 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.
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.) Belly of the Beast (Cape Town - 2020, 2022, 2023)
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.
15.) Canis (Toronto - 2019, 2020)
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.) 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.
13.) Pier (Cape Town - 2022, 2023)
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.
