Life gets pretty hectic at times, and while I tried to keep this blog up to date regularly, I missed posting about some amazing restaurants. So I’ve created the Flashback Series; short sharp updates about some of the best restaurants I’ve been to and never wrote about… Hope you enjoy I’m starting with a restaurant…
Tag: Fine Dining
Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants # 32: Neighbourhood
Neighbourhood wasn’t really a restaurant on my must visit radar. Even after my foodie buddy Alex mentioned that she was ‘dying’ to visit, my attitude was still a little bit ‘meh’. It wasn’t until I saw that the little restaurant has made it to #32 on the recently published Asia’s 50 Best Restaurant list that…
Frantzéns Kitchen: deserving of a Michelin Star
I can’t help but feel that we’re missing out in Honkers… One of the biggest food revolutions in recent memory just seems to be passing us by! Of course, I’m referring to the Nordic food phenomenon that’s taken most of the world by storm and made especially famous by René Redzepi of NOMA. Oh sure, we’ve…
London: The 2* Claude Bosi at Bibendum
Gee, you’ve gotta have bags of confidence to set up shop in the Bibendum… Otherwise known as Michelin House, the permanent UK headquarters for the famed Michelin organisation. You know the history, of course, a tyre company that started to tell folks about restaurants around the place…. Well, Claude Bosi is no ordinary kind of…
London: The 1* Restaurant Story
When I travel overseas for work, I generally have a long list of restaurants to visit; but I’ve been to the UK so regularly over the last three years, the list of must-visit restaurants has diminished quite significantly. So, for my most recent trip, I limited my fine dining experiences to two establishments; one that’s…
New Chef at the Two Starred Caprice
I’ve been having a lot of fun lately Of course, there has been the regular dining at amazing restaurants…. Always fun But there’s something special about helping someone discover the joys of international cuisine and Fine Dining. One of our gym buddies, let’s call him Matty, is relatively late to the exquisite joys of ultra-fine-dining;…
Earthy & Raw: Beet is pretty sweet
The plethora of talented chefs hitting our shores is quite amazing. And it seems as if the minimum requirement to open a ‘hot’ new restaurant in Hong Kong is a chef with an impeccable pedigree and an eye for detail. Instagram ready food that’s crowd-pleasing is a must, along with an atmosphere that is hip,…
The best way to finish the year; Seasons with Lorenz Hoja
Talk about bittersweet. I’d just found out that big changes were afoot at one of my favourite Hong Kong restaurants. Head chef Oliver E was departing the restaurant that he’d helmed since it’s opening and was being replaced. Ordinarily, I’d have been heartbroken; I mean, I’d spent so much time at Seasons by Oliver E…
Meeting Joël Robuchon
If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you’d know that I have a certain penchant for French fine dining; more so, I have an absolute love of French cuisine. There is no one who personifies French fine dining more than the legendary Joël Robuchon; a man who has transcended being a mere…
London: Core by Clare Smyth
For whatever reason I pretend to come up with, I’ve essentially been too lazy to secure a reservation at London’s 3 Michelin Starred Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. So when I heard that the restaurant’s chef patron, and one of the very rare three-star female chefs, was leaving to establish her own restaurant, I thought I’d be…
Germany: Leipzig is home to the 2* Falco and not much else
What the heck is in Leipzig? Well, as it turns out, Leipzig is not the most exciting of German cities; possibly due to a couple of factors… It was almost bombed out of existence during World War II, then had the misfortune to find itself part of the East German (and therefore Soviet) side of…
Berlin: World #48 & 2* Restaurant Tim Raue
When we were planning our European vacation, it was undertaken with the knowledge that my birthday was smack bang in the middle. It meant that I needed to select where we’d go for my birthday dinner. Last time we were in Berlin, I had a fantastic time. So much so, I’ve often rated it as…
1* Takumi by Daisuke Mori: New chef & name but still amazing
Can a restaurant really ever shake off the ghosts of the past? One of my favourite meals in Hong Kong was at the (then) 2* Wagyu Takumi, helmed by renowned Japanese chef Mitsuru Konishi (see post here). I simply loved the exquisitely executed Japanese French fusion style of cooking, and I’m not alone, it’s a…
Amsterdam: 1* Bridges – the unexpected – the inspired
We’d always planned to have a summer holiday that was largely based around eating and driving, driving and eating; with a quick sojourn to #ArtsTown to satisfy the girl’s #documenta14 fixation. The plan was to land in Amsterdam for a few days of timezone adjustment, then commence our driving and dining tour around Germany. What…
London: World #97 & 1* Hedone
This cat marches to the beat of his own drum! It’s all I could think after I finished chatting to solicitor turned food blogger turned uber chef Mikael Jonsson. I’d just finished my multi course, sensory overloading tasting menu at Hedone and was still reflecting on what was most likely one of the best meals…
Tokyo: World #52* & 3* Nihonryori RyuGin
I’ve always liked the idea of Japan. I mean, ever since I took up karate as a young boy and started watching those cool samurai movies on a Saturday morning. It was enough for me to take an interest in the (at the time) very exotic country that seemed all so alien to my limited…
13 Stars in 13 Days: A Journey through Amsterdam and Germany
The number 13 is unlucky for many, but proved to be a happy number for the girl and I on our recent European holiday. You see, it was the total number of Michelin Stars we collected as we toured through Amsterdam and broader Germany. Many were planned, a few were not and almost all were…
Haku: A contender for best new restaurant
When I check out a new restaurant, normally there’s a little excitement; I mean, who doesn’t like checking out new shit! But when it’s a buddy opening that restaurant, there’s a mix of trepidation and excitement in equal parts; will it be successful? will it be good? I first came across Haku Executive Chef Agustin…
Gaddi’s: That old world charm
I’ve been trying to think about my culinary journey, more specifically, if there’s been a restaurant that I’ve visited that has the history and grandeur of Gaddi’s; Hong Kong’s most treasured fine dining destination. When we were telling our friends that we’d booked in for a dinner at Gaddi’s, the response was almost unanimously ‘oooooh,…
NYC: The 2* Atera blew my mind
As I walked from possibly the greatest meal of my life, I stopped at the exit to chat to the head chef on the night. As chance would have it, a fellow Australian and all round good bloke. There was no doubt that I’d been pinged as a blogger quite early into my meal at…
FoodMeUpScotty 