So, it’s been a while since I’ve last posted. It isn’t often that the main site gets outposted by the Darkroom, but it’s finally happened. Of course, the fact that I’ve recently returned from Mongolia (a destination more photogenic than write-o-genic) has nothing to do with that. Anyway, two weeks ago I visited a little restaurant in Denmark called “Noma” whose main claim to fame is that it is apparently the best restaurant in the world.

Anyone who knows a little bit about me knows that I enjoy my food. That can be interpreted in a number of ways ranging from me simply enjoying copious amounts of food, all the way to me enjoying expensive haute cuisine where many very small courses are brought to the diner on pretentious large plates by waiters with French accents. If you’re wondering which end of this spectrum I gravitate towards, my answer is “yes”.

My most recent proper fine dining experience was on the event of my birthday, courtesy of restaurant A.O.C. in Copenhagen. Although the restaurant is the holder of a Michelin star, I did not feel compelled to write at length about it, mostly because earlier in the year I had visited De Librije and The Fat Duck, which are not only 3-star establishments (3 is the maximum number, and rarely awarded), but heavyweights in their own right in the world of fine dining. It surprised me though, that the city of Copenhagen with its small population, in the country of Denmark which not only has a small population, but is also not exactly famous for its fine dining scene, was able to muster up such an experience.

Noma itself is a curiosity in that the Michelin guide has only awarded it two stars, yet has now stood at the top of the world restaurant ranking for the second year in a row. The rankings are of course, calculated very differently – the Michelin guide sends reviewers in secret to all restaurants being considered and restaurants being considered for Michelin stars are often visited by many reviewers who then meet in secret in the following months to discuss their experiences. The Restaurant Magazine ranking is decided by surveying industry experts, insiders, and the chefs themselves. In such circumstances, it might be easy for a restaurant to gain an unusually high position by fluke for a short while.

However, this year Noma hit the number 1 spot for the second year in a row. During the previous year, members of the restauranting world, shocked at Noma’s surprise ascendancy to the top spot, probably went to great lengths to get a reservation (yes, it takes a special kind of persistence to get one of these) and see for themselves if its place at the top of the restauranting podium is deserved or not. Naturally, since I have dined at far too many places listed in the top 100 and eaten more Michelin stars than exist in all of Denmark, I decided that I too should “check” to see whether Noma was truly deserving of the accolade.

(click on the pictures for enlargement)

We thought this was a pot of flowers, simply placed on our table for decoration... but it turned out to be our first course

Noma is headed by charismatic head chef Rene Redzepi who earned his wings working at the famous (and now closed) El Bulli in Spain – the previous occupant of the number 1 position (The Fat Duck and the French Laundry occasionally displaced it in the 9 years of the ranking’s existence). What’s hot in fine dining these days is the art of “molecular gastronomy” pioneered by Ferran Adria of El Bulli and it involves innovative and often very unconventional techniques of food preparation. The other well-known restaurant to practice molecular gastronomy is The Fat Duck, where my dining experience there began with a dish prepared in a vat of liquid nitrogen (you just can’t make this stuff up).

One of the many intriguing things about molecular gastronomy is that chefs are no longer constrained by traditional parameters, like the shape of their ingredients. Indeed our first course, cunningly disguised as a table decoration consisted of a malt flatbread. The latitude for creativity in designing the courses makes for a very theatrical eating experience. Modern fine dining now expects more than simply good tastes and smells. Every sensory input imaginable is being used to enhance the experience of the food, and to great effect.

seemingly simple dishes, seemingly simple ingredients, surprisingly complex sensory experiences

Perhaps one of the things that separates Noma from the “crowd”, even the very small crowd of a handful of restaurants who dare the molecular gastronomy, is that there is an emphasis on local ingredients. Fine dining has always existed, it seems, to serve the very wealthy, and the very wealthy have a habit of demanding the very best ingredients from around the world. Redzepi bucks this trend by basically serving up ingredients sourced from the local area – almost all of the ingredients come from within a circle that extends about fifty miles from the restaurant. As if that wasn’t enough of a challenge for a restaurant of this calibre, the ingredients also have to be in season (I really must try dining here in the Scandinavian winter).

my first thought was that quails were not big enough to lay eggs this size, then the waiter opened the shell up to reveal the actual eggs... #awkward

The result of working within these considerable constraints is an experimentation and innovation level that is unusually high. This, I believe, is the real reason that this restaurant is held in such high regard. Every saturday night, all the chefs get together after the end of the service, and have a little show-and-tell. Here they present what is essentially a food-brainstorming session where new dishes are examined and tested. For those readers with twitter, @ReneRedzepiNoma is Rene’s twitter feed and he will often post pictures of promising projects to his feed (and making this Author very hungry in the process).

new techniques meet old ingredients in new ways

After the initial barrage of small appetisers we settled into a “journey” through the main courses. Something I often ask for at restaurants to “test” them is for them to match each course to a non-alcoholic drink instead of a wine. I first got the idea at Vue de Monde, a very good restaurant in Melbourne, and have done this a few times since (even at Vue, after they stopped doing it. I think their sommelier hates me). At Per Se, after an initial pause from the shock of such an unusual request, the front of house manager proceeded to improvise some very innovative drinks to match my courses. Here at Noma, they pre-empted me by already having the option. The drinks were mostly blends of seasonal fruits and vegetables which matched the courses very well. They also made for a very amusing game of “guess the drink” which we were surprisingly bad at.

My favourite dish of the night: razor clam and horseradish with dill and parsley sauce

The courses were creative and surprising, and it goes without saying that it was unlike anything I have had before. None of the dishes could be called “traditional” in any sense of the word, yet many of them invoked memories of dishes of days gone by, except with a twist. The dishes were delicious, but they were something more. In my many other fine dining experiences, the object seemed to be to take a combination of good tastes and smells and deliver them to the recipient in various different ways. Points would be awarded to good combinations and effective, appropriate delivery methods. Noma was different, it mixed things up and challenged the consumer. For example, I would never think of putting horseradish, clam, dill, and parsley in the same dish… but it worked, and it was weird, and I think it pushed the definition of “eating” for me (in a good way).

Scallops and beech nut (from beech trees) cereals, watercress, and some squid ink which looked simply wonderful on my teeth

In the tradition of molecular gastronomy, it was impossible to tell what you were eating simply by looking at it. The taste would often be a pretty good clue. I think if I had eaten the whole meal, then been told afterwards what was in it, I would have struggled to believe it. The ingredients were, on the whole, quite simple. One of my dining companions was a local and she often would remark “oh, we used to pick those when we were kids” indicating to me that Noma’s reputation for foraging locally for their food was no myth. The food itself was more than a (delicious) challenge for the taste buds, but also an invitation. An invitation to taste Denmark and look at it in a way that you might not have previously. This invitation to “interact” even extended to the food…

Eggs and other yummy stuff

Indeed the inevitable finally came – an interactive dish. At The Fat Duck, we were served a seafood dish along with a sea shell with a set of headphones broadcasting sounds of the sea. At Noma we were told to fry an egg, then mix in the various additives according to a certain order and timing (a timer was provided to assist with the timing). I can just imagine the furious diner now standing up and exclaiming “I didn’t come halfway around the globe to the best restaurant in the world just to fry myself an egg!”. The dining experience at Noma reflects a wider philosophy, and that is one where we connect with our food.

“This is the new globalization, where things that are inexpensive to transport, and noncompetitive to share, like knowledge, ideas and creativity, move around the world with ease, while things which are costly to move, both in monetary and environmental terms, such as fresh food, don’t have to move as far – that’s smart.”

Too many people these days, especially fine diners, have forgotten about what food really is. It isn’t just expensive bits of funny-tasting stuff that we cook in a certain way so we can say “yum” then brag to our friends about it later. Its living things, things that grow, things that go through a long process before they end up on your plate. Using local ingredients is just a part of that, but what Redzepi has done is he has made it “cool” again to see food in this way. Perhaps indicative of Noma’s meteoric rise to the top is that, on its debut in the rankings, it was voted chef’s choice.

It is my hope that more restaurants like Noma pop up around the world. Not serving Nordic cuisine – that would be missing the point entirely. But embracing the philosophy of bringing the very best chefs, and techniques to bear on locally-sourced ingredients. Not just because it is better for the environment to eat locally-sourced foods (although that is a pretty good reason), but because it would give each restaurant its own unique character and identity – quite the opposite to the previous movement of carbon-copy big-brand restaurants like “Nobu”, “Pierre Gagnaire”, and “L’Atelier” opening up in big cities all over the world. This is the new globalization, where things that are inexpensive to transport, and noncompetitive to share, like knowledge, ideas and creativity, move around the world with ease, while things which are costly to move, both in monetary and environmental terms, such as fresh food, don’t have to move as far – that’s smart.

After six hours, we were done...

And inevitably, some of you are probably wondering about my verdict on the restaurant. This one is difficult, because the experience as a whole was subtly different to what fine diners are used to. We are used to being served, having the tastes and sensations washed over us while we passively experience and savour them. This was different. This was challenging, and interactive (and not only when we had to fry an egg which was both challenging and interactive). I suppose one could cop out and say that the comparison is too difficult, say that it is like comparing apples and oranges. But instead, imagine watching a well-executed blockbuster action movie – where the viewer is relatively passive, but nevertheless very entertained (something like Jurassic Park for example). Now think about a similarly well-executed movie, except that buried in the dialogue and characterizations are not just realistic, moving, and entertaining performances (all the great restaurants I’ve been to definitely have that “wow” factor), but this movie challenges you, nudges you out of your comfort zone, and really makes you think… perhaps a little bit like The Dark Knight. It was daring, it was different, and perhaps Noma really is the best restaurant in the world.

Blurring the line between Food and Art

Barely twenty days after my sublime experience at the famed Fat Duck restaurant I returned to the rarefied climes of Michelin 3-star dining with my skating coach and team manager to one of only two 3-star-rated restaurants in all of the Netherlands – De Librije. De Librije is located in a building that used to house a monastery in Zwolle, which is fortunately quite close to Heerenveen (where I currently live). One of us had never dined in a restaurant which had received any Michelin stars, let alone three, while another had dined here once before. I was in the interesting position of having dined at six 3-star restaurants in the past, making De Librije my seventh. With the memory of the Fat Duck still firmly in my mind, as well as the knowledge of its formidable reputation as one of the very best even among Michelin 3-stars, I was almost afraid that this experience would somehow “let me down”. It didn’t, not at all in fact.

It certainly wasn’t experimental on the level that the Fat Duck was. Each dish was not a chemistry experiment, and there was no liquid nitrogen. (there was dry ice though). In many ways, this restaurant was much more “old-school” and in that sense was more similar an experience to Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant. Diners are greeted with a barrage of “appetizing” courses on being seated, and after a few of these, they are finally greeted with the menu. The menu basically gives the choice between four, six, and eight “main” courses depending on one’s hunger level. Naturally, since I was part of the group, and since the others were taking a very “we’re here, we might as well try everything” attitude, we went for the maximum, and I was well-pleased.

Dry ice and Eel

Zwolle, despite its current inland location, actually used to be a coastal city (everything to the north and west of the city is reclaimed from the sea). I’m not sure if it was the chef’s intention of reminding us of this fact, but there was a lot of seafood on the menu. In the picture above, was an interesting dish consisting of eel, and… eel. One was a cold preparation while the other was hot. In addition, the hot version was served in a bowl with vents for steamy, dry-ice assisted, liquorice-infused smoke to add to the sensual experience of consuming this food. Throughout the meal, our minds’ expectations of the aesthetic of what food *should* look like was continually tested. It was remarked once “it doesn’t look particularly appetizing, but so far everything has tasted incredible, so I’m going to try it”.

Looks can be deceiving

At the end of the day, it isn’t about looks, but is about how the food tastes. This food tasted good. “Good” doesn’t really do it justice actually. The execution of all the dishes was perfect, and the tools of the trade were mostly the same – creams, consommés, foams, extracts, mousses, and so on. An interesting addition which I had not seen previously, was the use of flowers. As can be seen in the title image, flower petals were used extensively in some of the dishes. Perhaps it was a way of signing the dishes as “Dutch” and distinguishing them somehow. I must say that the flowers actually tasted quite nice, and I’ll think twice before I call another dutchie a “tulip muncher”. Still, despite the old-school methodology, the dishes themselves were still innovative and unique. The dish from the title image was one of my favourites being built around the very simple concept of small Dutch shrimps and shrimp sauce, and adding other stuff… like flower petals. Underneath the dish, there was another dish which was made up mostly of garden vegetables (mostly grown in their own garden) which was a refreshing way to end a dish which was made up of very strong savoury tastes and textures. (stacking the dishes on top of one another was also a clever way to control the order in which you consumed the food)

The Lobster Dish

All in all, it was another exceptional food experience. It was so exceptional, in fact, that it made all three of us late for our next scheduled appointments. It was so exceptional, in fact, that none of us really cared. Curiously, it is almost impossible to get a booking here for dinner, yet the lunch service is surprisingly empty on most weekdays (those crazy Dutch). The meal is identical. This is very much like Tetsuya’s was in Sydney, except that I still needed almost a full month’s advance notice to even book lunch there. What I’m basically trying to say is that this may be the most accessible 3-star Michelin experience in the world. I know of no other Michelin 3-star where you can walk-in and expect to be seated. The service is also quite exceptional, which, while expected of 3-star establishments, is slightly unusual for the Dutch, who are almost famous for slowness of their restaurant service. As for the standard of the food, I would rate it very highly. How highly? I would rate it just above Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant (but that is probably because I have a thing for seafood, if you’re not as crazy about seafood as I am, then it might fall just behind Gordo’s in the ranking), but below Per Se and the Fat Duck… placing it very near the top of a very short list – Highly recommended, and I’m definitely storing the number in my phonebook.

A feast for all the senses...

Heston Blumenthal is a chef well known amongst those who are into fine dining. His restaurant “The Fat Duck” has won numerous awards including three Michelin Stars, and Restaurant of the Year. When I say “Restaurant of the Year”, I don’t just mean restaurant of the year in Bray, Berkshire, or even all of the UK. This is a ranking that rates the most highly-regarded restaurants in the world. In this list, it has consistently placed highly, often coming second, and this year slipping to third with the remarkable rise of København restaurant “Noma“. Also often placing highly on this list are Per Se, Tetsuya’s, and Jean Georges, all restaurants that have been mentioned somewhere on this site.

I made the journey with the same two friends who I visited Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant with about nine months ago, and while they spent the intervening time getting engaged, I was getting hungry. In the context of timing, the visit was well-placed. I had recently returned from New York (a foodie’s wonder-city) to Heerenveen where I had very nearly cried when presented with the “provided dinner” (a.k.a. boarding house slop) that our building insists on serving to us. Unsurprisingly, I am taking every opportunity possible to escape and the Fat Duck came to the rescue in a timely manner.

mist from dry ice

To describe Heston Blumenthal’s creation as a “restaurant” and the dinner service as “food” is to sell it quite short. The restaurant is a theater, and the meal is an experience, an adventure even. Someone recently asked me what constitutes “good food”. I responded that truly good food must be an experience which encompasses as many of the senses as possible in a cohesive and immersive (and presumably pleasurable) way. Each scene in Blumenthal’s play on food was distinct, and beautiful in its own way, with many different and varied characters making an appearance, and almost (but not quite) to the point of distracting it from the primary objective – the food.

The Fat Duck is one of two restaurants in the world (the other being El Bulli in Spain) that practices what is known as “molecular gastronomy”. All this means is that the process of “cooking” a meal is taken to another level. The ingredients are treated more as parts of an intricate chemistry set. Our appetizing palette cleanser was a case in point. Green tea, lime, and a bit of vodka. Normal so far? Now make it into a foam. Weirded out yet? Now take that foam, and dunk it into a tub of liquid nitrogen to create a frozen foam ball. When brought into contact with a human mouth, after a split second of my-tongue-is-stuck-to-the-freezer sensation, this frozen ball explodes in an icy inferno of refreshing limey green tea goodness. Only the outer shell is really frozen, everything inside is mostly gassy allowing it to travel up to your nose and enhance the flavor sensations experienced by your tongue, with subtle smells experienced by your nose. As an amusing side effect, I also puffed smoke through my nose during my initial bite, indicating a tendency for me to bring my sense of smell to bear when sampling new food.

Roast foie gras - staple food for the gourmand

You know a dish is interesting if it has truffles in it and they’re NOT the main thing that stands out about the dish. The truffle toast was merely there to keep the “Jelly of Quail, Crayfish Cream” company. A piece of chicken liver parfait cunningly disguised as ice cream (I’m not kidding) rested upon a carefully layered concoction consisting of crayfish cream on the surface, jelly of quail in the middle, and pea puree at the bottom. The combination was an interesting one, and quite overpowering. The preparation of the jelly caused it to dissolve in your mouth and “sneak” up towards your nostrils in a manner similar to wasabi, except instead of a mustardy kick, this one came with a cool, refreshing assault on my sense of smell.

Alice in Wonderland was written by Lewis Carroll, a pot-smoking mathematician from Cambridge. Even he would never have dreamed of Blumenthal’s take on “turtle soup”. We were presented with what looked like pocket watches (actually, they looked more like chocolate coins with a chain attached) which we were instructed to dip into some hot water and stir. Rather like dipping a watch in a cup of tea – OOOOOOOooooohhhhhhh!!!! The watch promptly dissolved and turned our hot water into turtle soup with gold leaf, which we then poured into our bowls filled with jiggly stuff. Taste-wise, this was less spectacular than the other courses, but it gets full marks for artistic impression.

Food as Art

The sense of theatre never waned. Our next dish, presumably a fish dish (we were able to guess from the cutlery provided to us) first came to us in the form of a large shell from one side of which protruded ipod headphones. The “Sound of the Sea” dish adds sound to the palette of senses touched with what is ostensibly simply a plate of food. Well first of all, it wasn’t really on a plate, it was served on a pane of glass suspended above a box of sand. The chefs had gone to great pains to make the whole experience reminiscent of a day at the beach – something that struck us, as Australians, at the heart of our psyches. There was “sand”, and bits of seaweed, and fish. Of course, this was unlike any beach I had ever been to (even in Australia), because I could eat the sand, and it tasted good. Of course it did, it was made of dried, powdered baby eel…

Even the foam tasted good

Though I was sad to finish that course, and its complex yet strongly themed combination of tastes, smells (and sounds), our next course was also (mostly) seafood. I wouldn’t have picked it just by looking at the dish, but it was salmon, one of my favorite fish. Keeping it company on the plate were bits of grapefruit mixed with olive oil (no, really, it worked!) with asparagus, vanilla mayonnaise, and fish eggs. Strange a combination as this was, it was beautiful. The liquorice that the salmon was poached in was, thankfully, not overpowering. In fact, I wouldn’t even call it an aftertaste… more like, an afterthought.

would you believe... salmon poached in liquorice?

Something that struck me, was that the dishes were all stunningly well executed. Of course, you expect that at a restaurant of this caliber, but it is often too easy to get distracted by the exotic ingredients and preparation methods (liquid nitrogen? really?) and forget about the simple things. The salmon is a case in point, it was perfectly cooked and just a little rare on the inside allowing it to be juicy and the bring out the very best of the salmon flavor.

Black Forest Gateau

Throughout the meal, whenever each new dish was presented, there always seemed a bit of a danger that it would be too gimmicky, and that there wasn’t enough emphasis placed on how it actually would taste. Every time, I would cautiously bite into whatever it was, and be relieved. Some of the dishes are a little bit intense, or overwhelming with regards to the taste. In fact, it was the simpler dishes (like the snail porridge) that were regarded as the best. The desserts especially were awe-inspiring in that they were simple, or that their complexity was not overt but much more subtle. The black forest gateau for example was topped with a cherry… except that it wasn’t a cherry, but was simply made to look like one and tasted like one, except stronger (I must sound insane right about now). The telltale sign was that the stem was not a real cherry stem in that it did not attach to the cherry in the way that a stem should.

Whiskey Gums

Anyone who has ever accompanied me on a long train trip will know that I’m a big fan of wine gums. The Fat Duck takes this concept a step further with Whiskey Gums. Then they take it a step even further by making whiskey gums that are distinctive to different scotch-producing regions. Tasting these different flavor sensations and the way that some of them were smoky, while others tickled your tongue was a nice way to wind down.

Bray, Berkshire is a short drive from Maidenhead train station which is a non-trivial (about ten pound) train trip from Paddington train station in London. Apparently “small villages are big” in England… according to Joan, who I think meant to say that putting things like this in small villages instead of more obvious and convenient places (like central London) is fashionable these days. Nearly an hour of traveling each way almost demands a good reason for the trip (nevermind the 200 euro 8-hour train transit from Heerenveen, the Netherlands to London St Pancras station). Was it worth it? Yes.

Wax-sealed envelope containing our menus

The verdict? Heston is a name I have only ever encountered as a last name, as in Charlton Heston. Mr Blumenthal uses it as a first name. His name however is not the first and last name you need to know in the restauranting business. Although the circumstances of my trip to Per Se by Thomas Keller were not typical, thereby making the comparison slightly unfair, the New York Restaurant retains its place at the top of my own restaurant ranking, despite every other professional published restaurant ranking list disagreeing with me. The approaches are very different, and in a paradoxical way reflect different American and British approaches to food. Per Se is situated on the 4th floor of the Time Warner building overlooking Columbus Circle and Central Park, while Fat Duck is in Bray, Berkshire… a town that I would struggle to find on a map (and we struggled to find the restaurant for a few minutes, despite being dropped off within 10 meters of it!).

But in the end, it is about the food, and both… in fact all of my Michelin 3-star experiences are extraordinarily exemplary examples of fine dining, and the very best food that I have ever eaten (and I’ve eaten a LOT of food). I would rank it above Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant, although that was not a unanimous assessment of my dining group. I rate innovation and strong tastes delivered to the palette in varied ways very highly. I can definitely see what all the fuss is about regarding the molecular gastronomy, and the copious use of unusual techniques and ingredient combinations definitely adds to the experience more than it detracts. But when you’ve stripped all of that away, gotten rid of all the distraction, and focus on the food, you’ve still got one of the very best restaurants in the world. Not my top pick, but very close to it.

Just desserts

He is the angry chef on TV. He, like many top chefs, has a reputation for his temper and perhaps that kind of perfectionism is part of the reason why his reputation for his temper is equaled by his reputation for food. Recently, while in London, I had the pleasure of joining some old friends to sample his signature restaurant on Royal Hospital Road. It is difficult to describe the anticipation that preceded this particular food adventure, especially since I had about a month to let it really sink in – it is difficult to book any Michelin 3-star less than a month in advance.

Aside from the obvious allure of being able to spend a few hours eating some excellent food with some comparably excellent company, I was also eager to sample a 3-star from the east side of the Atlantic Ocean. Curiously, my first “proper” 3-star experience was in Per Se, New York on the 27th of March 2007 (I know because the date was printed on the menu that they gave me after the meal). Since that time, I’ve eaten at all (two) of the other 3-star restaurants in New York – Jean Georges, and Le Bernardin. When the red guide came to New York there was great controversy because they gave four restaurants 3-star ratings in the first year (ordinarily, it is policy not to give any restaurant 3 stars in their first year of being rated), and many food writers believed that this lax in standards meant that a 3-star rating in Europe carried more weight than one in North America. Until a few days ago, I had never eaten at a 3-star restaurant outside of New York and, since I rated Per Se as my best dining experience ever, you can imagine my anticipation at eating at my first 3-star in Europe.

Food is an exceptional luxury. It is not like nice cufflinks or expensive cars, because when you’re done, you have nothing to show for it. You get it, you eat it, and it’s gone. It is difficult to explain to those who don’t understand, and the more you analyze it, the less it makes sense. Many will retort with arguments along the lines of “but it’s food”. Those who take the attitude that we eat for the sole purpose of sustenance may never understand, but for others – like myself – suggesting such a thing is like suggesting that the value in the act of making love does not extend beyond the purpose of procreation.

A good meal is like a journey – an adventure if you like. Like all good adventures, as many of the senses are engaged as possible, the more the merrier. Taste and smell are the obvious primary benefactors here but sight and touch also have roles on this stage. The practice of modern “tasting menus” – meals where small-portioned courses are brought out in a specific sequence as determined by the chef is said to have begun in the imperial Russian court. Prior to this, large portions of food were brought out on large plates and set in the center of the table for all to share. This new approach allowed chefs to tailor the gastronomical experience in a very precise way. It also allowed for greater involvement of the front of house aspect – the waiters, in the meals as they had to explain the dishes and ensure that everyone at a table was served at the same time.

Though the setting was understated in the typical English way, the first thing I noticed was the level of service. It was very good. The attention to detail was apparent from the setting of the tables, right down to the small details, like our waiter’s Dolce and Gabbana cufflinks. Presentation alone can’t and won’t earn you three Michelin stars however, and in the most important aspect of the restaurant – the food, head chef Clare Smyth (who actually takes care of the day-to-day running of the kitchen) excelled.

I visited with two other friends, which gave us the opportunity to sample a wider variety of dishes than we would normally have been able to. For starters, we shared thirds of a dish of foie gras, a terrine of trotters and pork belly, and a curious mixture of veal and seared tuna. It often surprised the palette that items that were seemingly secondary to the dish stood out, like the salad that came with the tuna, and some of the sauces that accompanied the foie gras.

Some dishes we all shared, like the lobster ravioli. When I think of ravioli, I normally think of large postage stamps of pasta filled with some indeterminate meat product inside (and in cheaper establishments, some kind of plastic product that may contain traces of meat). This was different, the dish of lobster ravioli consisted of a single ravioli (raviolus? raviolii?) which was slightly smaller than a clenched fist in size, and possibly a little less thick. The taste, however, was overwhelmingly that of the lobster rather than the ravioli (if you’ve ever lived on tinned ravioli, you will understand the importance of this distinction). But it’s not just like eating a lobster, oh no. Imagine taking two or three lobsters and somehow compressing not only the taste, but the entire sensation of consuming… inhaling, even… lobster meat, and you will have a close approximation of the experience of this fine lobster ravioli.

Cheese

The mains, like the entrées, were similarly interesting and varied. Lamb, pigeon, and rabbit were sampled, and while neither was particularly exotic (at least not by my standards) the dishes were extremely well-executed. The ingredients were obviously of the very highest quality, but the care in their preparation allowed the experience of consumption to do justice to the quality. And I may well have eaten some of the smoothest, most delicately textured meat I’ve ever had in the rabbit kidneys that accompanied my terrine.

A fine and impressively wide variety of cheeses presented themselves to be chosen from the trolley, and even the “lightest” cheeses came with strong and complex taste (and often aftertaste) sensations. The most common surprise in this case being that the smell of the cheese often contrasted strongly with the taste that resulted from the reaction of the cheese with one’s taste buds. The selection of desserts, which included a most delightful and unusually light rendition of Turkish delight (foreground in the title image) was an appropriate and fitting end to an exceptional dining experience, which I capped off the way I always do – with a nice cup of Earl Grey Tea.

Not a cup of Earl Grey

The big question that remains of course, is how does it rate next to some of the other fine dining establishments that I’ve sampled over the years. Only time will tell. I don’t mean to say that just to be cryptic (although it does make me sound very mysterious for a food reviewer). It is often the case that immediately after a good dining experience one exclaims that it is the “best ever”. It is often only quite some time after the act, that the real value of the meal in the context of all the other meals I’ve eaten begins to sink in. For example, in Hong Kong once, I ate at “Amigo”, “Spoon, by Alain Ducasse”, and “Gaddi’s” on consecutive nights and honestly believed at the time that each night was slightly better than the last. However, looking back, the experience at Spoon has shown itself to stand fast near the top of my rankings while the other two have fallen away somewhat.

The first impression is thus: it is good, very good, but not as good as Per Se. One of my dining companions commented that it was not as good as Vue de Monde in Melbourne. I am more hesitant about that assessment because, having been to Vue many times, the time I went with this companion was an exceptionally good experience – definitely more highly rated than this one – but was not typical of Vue, which I would rank slightly lower than Gordo’s. The restaurant which I would rank this closest to is Tetsuya’s in Sydney, which was an exceptionally good experience although difficult to compare because the cuisine is significantly different.

As far as the question of the deservedness of Michelin stars is concerned, Per Se definitely deserves three stars, (as does Tetsuya’s). As I would rank Per Se significantly above both Jean Georges and Le Bernardin, I would say this – if the other two New York restaurants truly deserve three stars, then so does Vue de Monde, but if not (and my suspicion is “not”), then it is impossible to say (yes, this is a logic puzzle).

As far as the much more important questions are concerned, the answers are as follows: Yes, the food is amazing; yes, the food is totally worth it; yes, I would definitely recommend Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.

Peter’s Cake #1 !

This is a cuboid of mattress foam.

This is us mixing the icing for Peter’s mattress foam cake

This is me testing the icing for Peter’s mattress foam cake

this is us applying the icing to Peter’s mattress foam cake

Peter is 22 years old, which is equivalent to 2 mod 10…

Peter attempts to cut the cake

As you can plainly see… mattress foam doesn’t take well to being treated like a cake.

A look at our cake-chefs hard at work making Peter’s second cake

The chefs pose in front of their magnificent creation

We take a brief break to toast marshmallows on the stove top while we’re waiting for the cake to bake (hey! that rhymes)

Its a tropical island see? Nevermind that the sand is actually hundreds and thousands… or the fact that the “river” is actually red.

Here we are, cutting the cake.

A close up of a slice of Peter’s second cake

Han’s cake – layer 1. (notice our base is a pizza base)

Han’s cake – level 2

Han’s cake – level 3. This is a shot taken from the helicopter flyby

We also constructed a “fake cake” (hey! that rhymes) for Han. Not wanting to fall into the trap we did with Peter, namely the cake having sharp corners, we covered it with dough and rounded the edges.

…and decorated it with much whipped cream so that what did remain of the corners was obscured from view

Han being sung to… oh the emotion!

Han attempts… with some difficulty, to cut the cake… but wait…

He succeeds! (he took a LONG time…)

Not long after, the masses were once again distracted by another joke, this time in the form of the Nintendo DS. And who says game consoles are anti-social?

During this time, I have, for no apparent reason, embarked upon a mission of sorts to try and sample the very best food that the world has to offer. That’s right, the WORLD. It all started in the hotel restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton in Santiago de Chilé, where I treated myself to a sumptuous lunch, then I followed it up the next night with an equally extravagant meal at a quaint “New Zealand” restaurant hidden behind the Ritz. From there, our journey takes us back to Hong Kong, a place where good food is simply the order of the day, at any price. There, hotel restaurants in the Mandarin Oriental, the Conrad, “Spoon, by Alain Ducasse” (who divides his time between HK and the Plaza Athenee in Paris) in the Intercontinental and “Gaddi’s” in the Peninsula were sampled. There were also the quaint, but no less exquisite restaurants “Mezzanine” in Princes Building, and “Boullabaisse” in Lan Kwai Fong. After this, the quest continued to Melbourne. “Radii” at the Park Hyatt, the site of my 21st was re-sampled after they acquired a new chef, as was “Windows” in the Marriot for similar reasons (although with different results). Grossi Florentino, apparently a Melbourne institution, was tried… and liked, as was Vue de Monde, a stunning French restaurant in Carlton. Having discovered a penchant for French cuisine, the next logical stop in our journey was, of course, France. Marseille, home of the boullabaisse was the first stop and it certainly lived up to its reputation for mouth-watering seafood. Outstanding restaurants “Miramar” and “Pavillion” served up the signature boullabaisse dish along with some exceptional appetisers and desserts. After this, it was on to Paris, where the prices threatened to out-do the food (but didn’t quite). The final stop was “brasserie Roux”, the hotel restaurant of the London Sofitel on St. James (I spared my dad the pain of a restaurant bill from the Ritz in London). Not wanting to clutter this piece with reviews on individual restaurants, I will present this review in the style of a menu.

To start a meal, few things can substitute for a good soup. My favourite – lobster bisque. There are many different ways of presenting this dish. Often it comes with cream on top, sometimes it comes with bits of lobster, crab, or even prawn mixed it. Often it is quite thick, although I prefer the thinner variety. Long have I debated with myself which lobster bisque is the best I’ve had. Coming to a definitive decision is too difficult – it is a dead heat. Even this is unfair though, as many restaurants presented superb soups, the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne, the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, not to mention my other favourite type of soup – shark’s fin, of which I could name countless exceptional examples from exceptional restaurants. The tie for first place is between the Ritz-Carlton in Santago de Chilé and the Brasserie Roux in the London Sofitel. In the Ritz, the soup was presented in three small bowls, each with a wafer-thin slice of bread placed over the rims, each with a different sauce to mix with the soup-soaked bread. Gimmicks aside, the soup was superb. The soups from the Ritz and the Sofitel were both quite watery but this betrayed a complex taste which manifests itself in the moments after swallowing – like a lobster (one would hope so!) but not as rich, perhaps it would be best described as a “hint” of lobster, but a very strong hint indeed. The soup in which my Boullabaisse in Mirimax in Marseille was served comes a very close runner up, for all the same reasons.

Entrees are essential to a good meal, they whet the appetite, set the tone and prepare the tastebuds for the onslaught which is to come. Presenting a good entree is a lost art, well, almost lost. Clearly there exist restaurants around the world in which this art is still alive and well. So which entree is the best? After sampling multitudes of terrines and what seemed like an endless variety of escargos and fois gras this was a difficult decision to make, perhaps even more so than deciding which soup was my favourite. To me, the entree dishes are the most important part of the meal and the quality of an entree will, in my eyes, make or break a restaurant. The award for best fois gras goes to the Pavillion in Marseille. Served with a light sprinkling of sea salt (in no short supply in Marseille), Jus and accompanied by bread (oh! the bread in France) made specifically for the dish, nothing quite compares to it. Surprisingly, it was not my favourite entree. That accolade goes to a curious mushroom-waffle dish that Restaurant Miramar (in Marseille) served me. Made with what is apparently a very expensive type of mushroom this dish was rich and complex at the initial taste, but left a hollow and tantalising aftertaste which, along with its beautiful aroma, was enough to make anyone’s mouth water. A chef’s specialty at a restaurant with many awards (although all in French, and thus unreadable to myself)… what a treat. An honourable mention must also go to Mecca in Southbank and Grossi Florentino in Melbourne CBD who both serve a beautiful scallop dish.

How does one pick the best main course? There are such a variety of dishes and styles and many are difficult to compare due to their very nature. Unable to pick a dish which is unquestionably the best, I have resorted to naming best dishes in pseudo-categories. The best meat dish was, fortunately, reasonably easy to pick. It goes to the steak which I had at “Spoon” in the Intercontinental Hotel in Hong Kong. A charred but tantalisingly juicy exterior which was dark-but-not-burnt wrapped around a juicy pink-but-not-bloody interior – it was difficult to imagine how a steak could be any better. Also deserving of a mention is a lamb shank which I ate in Brassirie Roux in London, the meat broke off the bone with minimal effort and had a consistency akin to lamb which is undercooked – except that it was not. A crayfish and crepe dish which was served to me in a French restaurant in Southbank (south of Melbourne) runs a close second to the dish which I would have called “best”. Exceptionally well prepared and fresh crayfish buried in a rich lobster gravy, which was almost too rich were it not for the folded crepe wrapping treatment that it got – rich but understated at the same time. It was going to take quite an extraordinary dish to top that, but Mirimar in Marseille was, once again, up to the task. A specialty of the city of Marseille – Boullabaisse. 6 different types of seafood served in a lobster bisque (can you see why I like this dish?). What can I say? The fish was excellent, as were the many other miscellaneous sea creatures which featured in this dish, this dish also did something which few others can lay claim to, and that is it actually made me very full. You see, you are allowed to have as much soup as you want, enough said. The best pasta dish goes to the large tortellini which was served up to me in Grossi Florentino in Melbourne during the “Old Scotch Wine and Food club” anniversary dinner. A bit of lamb and other assorted bits left the pallette very satisfied indeed.

The fight for the best dessert came down to a tiramisu from a restaurant in Rome, Italy and a divine chocolate dish by “Pavillion” in Marseille, France. I have tasted many tiramisus in my time, but this tiramisu was different. Why? It is difficult to describe, it was unbelievably rich but somehow not sickly so. However, the dessert which emerged the victor was the dish from France. When it was brought out, it looked like three scoops of ice-cream, vanilla, hazelnut and chocolate. However, it was not ice-cream. It was cold, but not ice-cold. It was creamy but not light like cream, it was chocolate but not crunchy in any way. To call this dish “food” would be an injustice – it was “art”. Most of the dishes mentioned here certainly looked like art, but very few had the delicate refinement and finesse to be classified as art for the tastebuds as well as a feast for the eyes. This was one of them, as were most of the entrees.

This is, of course, not a definitive list by any stretch of the imagination. This is a mere sampling of those dishes which really stood out for me, this year. A number of genres have been missed altogether, many of which are among my favourite foods. No Chinese food has been mentioned, that does not mean that I haven’t had any good chinese food this year, but, having grown up in Hong Kong, it is difficult for any restaurant to produce a Chinese dish which is, to me, outstanding. Japanese food has also been ignored even though it is a staple in my fine-dining-diet. (Perhaps, if I had been raised in France rather than Hong Kong, this entire article would be raving about food from the Orient). The award for the best Indian food goes to Balti on Lygon St. Carlton (a suburb north of Melbourne). Many outstanding restaurants whose dishes didn’t quite make the cut should also be mentioned. The Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong was an excellent all-rounder, able to produce excellent dishes of all types, as was the Windsor Hotel restaurant in Melbourne, although of a slightly lower standard. “Vue de Monde” in Carlton is also a stand-out, not only because it dishes out excellent French food in Melbourne of all places (and in the heart of an Italian food district), but though each dish was small and deserved no special mention, but the sum of them all amounted to a trumendously satisfying meal. It also receieves a special award for the most interesting “pallette cleanser” – water with tomato extract mixed with small bits of some kind of green jelly and, to top it off, served with a small piece of dry ice in the bottom for maximum “wow” value. Best restaurant, not surprisingly, goes to Miramar in Marseille, France (and so it should, the meal cost €100!) for two of the best works of art which I have ever digested which, together, summed to what was possibly the best meal I have ever eaten. Viva la France!