24.) La Colombe (Cape Town - 2024)
Cape Town has a series of incredible spots, including two to come. La Colombe has been around for many years, an old mainstay in teh Cape Town fine dining circuit, but it was not until this my 7th trip that I went. Situated far away up on a winery hill, the setting could not be more gorgeous, only met by the food. If it were a few more courses, probably ends up higher on the list, but it was pure ecstasy. One of the best poultry dishes I've had, in a quail three ways. As always a brilliant lamb finish. A brilliant bread course with compound butters shaped to make to look like fruits. They mixed whimsy, elegance and refinedness perfectly.
23.) Restaurante 99 (Santiago - 2018. 2024, 2025)
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. **2024, 2025 Update: In its return from Covid-related closure, Restaurante 99 pivoted to serving incredible versions of home food. Gone is the molecular gastronomy, but remains is such amazing exactness and love of regional ingredients. It's still amazing, just very, very different. Get ready to taste horse - which is amazing!**
22.) Lurra (Kyoto - 2023)
There are many amazing options for fine dining in Kyoto, the home of the Kaiseki cuisine. Most are deep into the higher end of Kaiseki pricing. Instead I opted for a place run by a Norwegian with a staff of various ethnicities, and cooking up incredible fare with Japanese precision, ingredient inspiration and the rest. The only real knock is that the primary main was a absolutely ludicrously good mushroom, but mushroom the same. Still, their dishes like ricotta balls made to look like pumpkins in a delectable soup, or an incredible watermelon and caviar dish, and so much else, was crafted with the precision one would expect for Japanese cuisine. I was honored to see that Phil Rosenthal went there in his latest trip - for me once going to a place before him. It isn't the msot prominent but in a place of food royalty, it's two Michelin stars are a showcase of how worthy it is overall.
21.) NOA Chef's Hall (Tallinn - 2024)
I underrated Tallinn, even knowing it was a great place. On my first day there, I took a ride around the coastline down to NOA, and from that second didn't underrate it more for a second. First they seat you in a library type room, where they bring you three simple, golden bites - all incredible. Then take you to the main area, with a large hearth and open kitchen, just pumping out great food. Nominally, steeping it in Estonian cuisine, but adding such flourish. Dollops of caviar, both normal and "estonian" (from a white strawberry). Inventive techniques like how they flash cook langoustines using hot metal. An impeccable main of lamb that was one of the single best dishes I've had in a European restaurant. All of it with teh flair and exactness you would expect from a Spain or Italy, with zero pretension as well. Just a special place.
20.) Masque (Mumbai - 2024)
It's not that I had not eaten at an Indian tasting menu before - of course Gaggan is one. But never one in India, and Masque met all expectations at presenting wildly inventive ways to consume Indian food with still such flavor and spice. Dishes alternate from exacting brilliance like a cured barramundi with prickly pear and beet broth, to the more street style, like a lamb floss kebab, lamb belly and sheermal (white korma curry). The main centering around prawn gassi was another nice touch to my home area of Indian on the konkan coast, as was an incredible pork belly vindaloo dish as well. On the whole, Masque was unapologetically Indian, while having a refinement that was astoundign at times.
19.) Lasai (Rio de Janeiro - 2025)
Much like D.O.M. which we covered earlier, Lasai expertly uses a number of Brazilian ingredients, but what it doeas even better, to be honest, is take those and make a truly timeless and locationless tasting menu. The dishes you eat here can be eaten at the great restaurants of any European or Asian city, just based fully on the ingredients, and primarily produce of Brazil. From flax seed, to incredibly delicate eggplant, to a copa pork from deep in the jungle, to amazing river scallops. Lasai excels at taking normal ingredients and gurning the presentation and structure up to 11, without fail. It truly was a great experience.
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.) 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.
16.) Anan (Ho Chi Minh City - 2023)
I've eaten here three times. First sampling some of their a-la-carte menu (I don't think there was a tasting then). Then getting a tasting menu that was a sampling. Well, in 2023 they graduated to the class of a michelin star along with a proper, incredible, chef's tasting menu that was a gastronomical delight through my favorite world cuisine. Anan is spearheading the way of showing how fancy, brilliant, inventive, Veitnamese cuisine can be at the tweezer and tasting level. Dishes like their one bite pho, their play on various Vietnamese classics made in their own way, their incredible lamb finish, their brilliant desserts. Vietnam is such a rich cuisine, and Anan is the first to truly to take it to gastronomic brilliance.
15.) Sud 777 (Mexico City - 2018)
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.
14.) 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.
13.) 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,
12.) A Casa do Porco (Sao Paulo - 2025)
Honestly, A Casa do Porco was so good I'm not even giving it credit here with the ranking that the place is committed to serving a tasting menu aroudn $40. They do that - and its proper tasting menu with a panoply of dishes and more. It is incredible. Pork and Pig reigns supreme everywhere, for chicharron in the weirdest ways, to sausage, to mortadella, to terrine, to so much damn more. It isn't just meat though - the incredible vegetables, the great dessert. The feeing that you are eating a place that has such a pointed view of what it wants to be, and then executes that perfectly. Yes, it isn't quite as refined as many of the places above it, but here's where their incredible price point makes up for some ills. Just an amazing spot within Sao Paulo. Worthy of every plaudit it has received.
11.) 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.
