Where Chefs Eat is a new book published by Phaidon in January 2012 (Buy it in the US). In it, over 400 of the world’s best kitchen creators divulge their favourites: where to pitch up for a late-night supper, the diners they wish they’d opened, where they would be prepared to travel. And wherever they end up, it is certain to divulge their own personal taste: even if it is for a little couscous joint or a motorway cafe or a tree-house with a Michelin-star. This is part one of the extract. Come back next week for Part two…..
Some of the world’s top chefs share their tips, including: Ferran Adrià, Heston Blumenthal, Daniel Boulud, Sean Brock, Yves Camdeborde, David Chang, Ollie Dabbous, Stephen Harris, Shaun Hill, Virgilio Martinez, Réné Redzepi, Marcus Samuelsson and Gencay Ucok.
FERRAN ADRIÀ (Changed the course of haute cusine with elBulli; plans to continue this work with the elBulli Foundation)
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Dos Palillos
Recommended for: Regular neighbourhood
Address: Carrer d’Elisabets 9, El Raval, Barcelona, 08001, Spain; Phone: +34 933040513; Website: http://www.dospalillos.com; Open: 2 days for lunch and 3 days for dinner. Closed Monday and Sunday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Casual;Food type: Asian small plates
You’ve been executive chef at the most renowned restaurant on the planet for the best part of a decade – what do you do next? The answer for Albert Raurich, who ran the kitchen at elBulli from 1999 until 2007, is to open an Asian-inspired tapas bar.
Located beside the Casa Camper hotel (with a second branch at their Berlin hotel), Dos Palillos serves small plates in its no-nonsense front bar, where you perch perilously on plastic crates. Behind the bead curtain at the back lies a more formal, low-lit dining room with counter seating that offers a multi-coursed menu of Asian-Ibérian dishes.
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Rias de Galicia
Recommended for: High end
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Address: Carrer Lleida 7, Poble Sec, Barcelona, 08004, Spain; Phone: +34 933300303; Website: http://www.riasdegalicia.com; Open: 7 days for lunch and dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: Galician-Seafood
The late 1980s/early 1990s time warp of a dining room aside, it’s hard to fault anything else bar the steepness of the bill at this Galician seafood specialist. Although, these days that’s the price of fish this rare. Aside from the vintage Joselito ham with which you can start your meal and the large range of cheeses with which you can finish, the only land food on offer is simply prepared suckling pig, kid and veal. Indulge in the lengthiest list of wacky and wonderful shellfish delicacies you’re ever likely to see this side of a high-end Tokyo sushi bar.
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HESTON BLUMENTHAL (Opened The Fat Duck in Bray in 1995; now owns The Hinds Head, The Crown and Dinner)
Beigel Bake
Recommended for: Late night
Address: 159 Brick Lane, Shoreditch, London, E1 6SB, United Kingdom; Open: 7 days for 24 hours; Reservations: No; Credit cards: Not accepted; Price: Budget; Style: Casual; Food type: Bakery
Salt beef in Brick Lane – it could compete with any of the best in New York. – Heston Blumenthal
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Maliks Tandoori
Recommended for: Late night
Address: High Street, Cookham, Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, SL6 9SF, United Kingdom; Phone: +44 1628520085; Website: http://www.maliks.co.uk; Open: 7 days for lunch and dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Casual;Food type: Indian + Pakistani
I think it’s the best Indian restaurant in the country – they win award after award every year. I don’t even order, I just let them send out stuff and try a bit of everything; it’s always brilliant. – Heston Blumenthal
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Restaurant Sat Bains
Recommended for: Worth the travel
Address: Lenton Lane, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England, NG7 2SA, United Kingdom; Phone: +44 1159866566; Website: http://www.restaurantsatbains.com; Open: 5 days for dinner. Closed Monday and Sunday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price:Expensive; Style: Formal; Food type: Modern British
One of the UK’s most gastronomically adventurous destination restaurants is unconventionally set on the industrial outskirts of Nottingham. A modern take on the old-fashioned concept of the husband-and-wife-run restaurant with rooms, Sat and Amanda Bains’s edgily located urban oasis is housed in a collection of renovated Victorian farm buildings that predate the panorama of pylons. Book a night in one of the eight rooms plus dinner at either the chef’s or the kitchen table – the former overlooking the main kitchen, the latter with your own personal chef – to get closer to the cutting-edge but playful cooking.
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Riva
Recommended for: Regular neighbourhood
Address: 169 Church Road, Barnes, London, SW13 9HR, United Kingdom; Open: 6 days for lunch and 7 days for dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: Italian
Delivers excellent food and the great natural, relaxed feeling you want from a local place. – Heston Blumenthal
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The River Café
Recommended for: High end
Address: Thames Wharf, Rainville Road, Hammersmith, London, W6 9HA, United Kingdom; Phone: +44 2073864200; Website: http://www.rivercafe.co.uk; Open: 7 days for lunch and 6 days for dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: Italian
Italian food made by Ruth Rogers and her team with the very best produce money can buy, assembled in neo-rustic style, served in a stylish modern glass-fronted canteen (originally an old oil storage facility before architect Richard Rogers got hold of it), down where the old Thames does flow. That’s been the River Café’s formula for success since it opened in 1988. Co-founder Rose Gray, who sadly passed away in 2010, would be pleased to see nothing has changed in her absence. Perfect setting meets perfect produce, meets educated service and a wine list, aside from the odd Champagne, that is all-Italian and runs from humble bottles to Super Tuscans …
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The Wolseley
Recommended for: Breakfast
Address: 160 Piccadilly, Mayfair, London, W1J 9EB, United Kingdom; Phone: +44 2074996996; Website: http://www.thewolseley.com; Open: 7 days for breakfast, lunch and dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Formal; Food type: European
Such is its overwhelming popularity as a breakfast venue, many of its loyal regulars never go to The Wolseley for either lunch or dinner, although it’s typically full for both. The lengthy morning menu is packed with comfort: crumpets, Cumberland sausage sandwiches, crispy bacon rolls, Eggs Benedict, fried haggis with duck eggs, Omelette Arnold Bennett and a fine selection of Viennese pastries – to name but a fraction of what’s on offer. But it’s also about the setting and the sumptuous space. Once the Piccadilly showroom for the old marque it’s named after, it’s now a sweeping grand café in the European style.
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Tsukiji Market
Recommended for: Worth the travel
Address: 5-2-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0055, Japan; Website: http://www.tsukiji-market.or.jp; Open: 7 days for breakfast and lunch; Reservations: No; Credit cards: Not accepted; Price: Budget; Style: Casual; Food type: Seafood
Get there for around 4.00am for the sashimi. – Heston Blumenthal
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Zuma
Recommended for: Local favourite
Address: 5 Raphael Street, Knightsbridge, London, SW7 1DL, United Kingdom; Phone: +44 2075841010; Website: http://www.zumarestaurant.com; Open: 7 days for lunch and dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Formal; Food type: Japanese
It’s got an eclectic London crowd and the food is Japanese but you wouldn’t find it in Japan: only a city like London. It’s in its 10th year now and is as popular today as it was when it first opened. That’s an incredible achievement and Rainer Becker is an incredible visionary. – Heston Blumenthal
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DANIEL BOULUD (founded his Manhattan-based empire with Daniel in 1993)
15 East
Recommended for: High end
Address: 15 East 15th Street, Union Square, Manhattan, NY, 10003, United States; Phone: +1 2126470015; Website: http://www.15eastrestaurant.com; Open: 5 days for lunch and 6 days for dinner. Closed Sunday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: Japanese
“Traditional Japanese cuisine with a modern perspective” is the concept behind this restaurant. The sushi bar is overseen by executive chef Masato Shimizu who, having apprenticed under sushi master Rikio Kugo in Tokyo, has collaborated with the owners of 15 East to create what New York Times critic Frank Bruni called “exemplary work”. Sit at the sushi bar for atmosphere and education – Shimizu is a character – rather than the more grown-up and spacious adjacent dining room. If it’s on the menu, try the exquisite Chu-too (a medium-fatty tuna) or the duo of Japanese red and golden eye snapper.
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Blue Ribbon Brasserie
Recommended for: Late night
Address: 97 Sullivan Street, SoHo, Manhattan, NY, 10012, United States; Phone: +1 2122740404; Website: http://www.blueribbonrestaurants.com; Open: 7 days for dinner; Reservations: No; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Casual; Food type: American
It’s easy to forget that the original Soho outpost of what’s now an empire – a bakery brand, a Brooklyn bowling alley and a series of sushi bars, including one in Vegas – was once such a game changer. Now branded as the Blue Ribbon Brasserie, when it first opened back in 1992 it became a haven for restaurant industry types by insisting on keeping the same unsocial hours as they did. While the policy of only being able to book for tables of five and more frustrates a few, the seafood heavy menu of classy comfort food is still the business.
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©Michael Scott Berman
Peter Luger Steakhouse
Recommended for: Local favourite
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Address: 178 Broadway, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, 11211, United States; Phone: +1 7183877400; Website: http://www.peterluger.com; Open: 7 days for lunch and dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Not accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Smart Casual; Food type:Steakhouse
There’s a brutal simplicity to the menu at Peter Luger’s when it comes to ordering your main course. Of course you’ll find a few other things on the menu but it’s the USDA Prime porterhouse, available for one, two, three or four, that most diners go for. After all, lamb chops can be found anywhere. Luger’s is not perfect – the dining room, despite its kitsch charm, could do with an update – but the steaks, and for that matter, the extra thick slices (rashers) of bacon – are to die for.
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SEAN BROCK (Reinvented Southern cooking with McCrady’s and Husk, both in Charleston, US)
Holeman & Finch Public House
Recommended for: Worth the travel
Address: 2277 Peachtree Road, Atlanta, GA, 30309, United States; Phone: +1 4049481175; Website: http://www.holeman-finch.com; Open: 1 day for lunch and 6 days for dinner; Reservations: No; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Casual; Food type:Southern American
Really casual and the food is daring but still very Southern. They serve all the parts that make most people squirm, like testicles and brains, but they prepare it in a Southern context. Oh, and did I mention that they make the best cocktails ever? – Sean Brock
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YVES CAMDEBORDE (Paris veteran at the helm of Relais Saint-Germain and bistro Le Comptoir since 2005)
La Grenouillère
Recommended for: Local favourite
Address: Rue de la Grenouillère, La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, Nord Pas-de-Calais, 62170, France; Website: http://lagrenouillere.fr; Open: 4 days for lunch and 6 days for dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Formal; Food type: Modern French
The Auberge de la Grenouillère opened as early as 1920 in the pretty village of Montreuil-Sur-Mer, a few miles from Le Touquet. It once specialised in dishes involving frogs but, at least since 2003 – when chef Alexandre Gauthier (then aged just twenty-three) took over the kitchen from his father – the cuisine has ranged far wider. Gauthier’s cooking is bold and vigorous: Norway lobster comes with vanilla and galangal, Licques pigeon with crisp asparagus, a whole baby squid with fig purée and chives. One of the best restaurants in this part of France.
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Le Baratin
Recommended for: Regular neighbourhood
Address: 3 Rue Jouye-Rouve, Paris, 75020, France; Phone: +33 143493970; Open: 4 days for lunch and 5 days for dinner. Closed Sunday and Monday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Casual; Food type: French Bistro
Raquel Carena and Philippe “Pinuche” Pinoteau have admirably ridden the wave of global fame and New York Times profiles to keep Le Baratin the way it has always been – a crammed, no-nonsense, local bistro with a splash of charm, plus slavish, personal devotion to the highest quality wine and ingredients. Chefs love revitalising their tired palates with Raquel’s motherly, delicate handling of fish and vegetables from Breton superstar Annie Bertin. She holds their awe and respect as much as the Passards and Ducasses for the dozens of remarkably inventive dishes that spring from her heart and tiny kitchen every day.
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L’Ami Jean
Recommended for: Wish I’d opened
Address: 27 Rue Malar, Paris, 75007, France; Phone: +33 147058689; Website: http://www.lamijean.fr; Open: 7 days for lunch and dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Casual; Food type: French Bistro
Stéphane Jégo’s pedigree (Christian Constant at the Crillon and Cambdeborde at La Régalade) and talent make it tough to get a place at L’Ami Jean’s famous farm table. Renowned for his roasts and braises, some of his meat dishes – like the Kobe Côté de boeuf or half-raw quail with head and beak intact – border on downright filthy. The decor is a bistro-punk layering of weird brown junk, in a room lit like a dentist’s surgery (office). But clients’ eyes are on their plates and, although prices are soaring, you get the feeling they’d gladly pay twice as much for another shot at Jégo’s mythical rice pudding.
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©Stéphane de Bourgies
Thoumieux
Recommended for: Local favourite
Address: 79 Rue Saint-Dominique, Paris, 75007, France; Phone: +33 0147054975; Website: http://www.thoumieux.fr; Open: 5 days for dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: French Bistro
When wunderkind Thierry Costes (Café Etienne Marcel, Café Marly, Georges) teamed up with brazen ex-Crillon chef Jean-François Piège to transform this classic brasserie in the seventh arrondissement the locals grumbled and the critics sneered but everybody else flocked. When they subsequently opened the excellent chef’s table above the restaurant – instantly gaining two Michelin stars – revamped the rooms and Piège became a judge on French TV’s Top Chef, things got serious. Now that the place is deliciously dark, noisy and louche, no one really cares whether they can see their (comfort) food. Calamars à la carbonara, edgiest creme caramel with dainty langues de chat and stellar tastes are picked at by le beau monde.
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DAVID CHANG (Opened Momofuku Noodle Bar in 2004 and now has five very different Manhattan outposts)
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Benu
Recommended for: High end
Address: 22 Hawthorne Street, Soma, San Francisco, CA, 94105, United States; Phone: +1 4156854860; Website: http://www.benusf.com; Open: 5 days for dinner. Closed Monday and Sunday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Casual; Food type: Asian-American
A bold monument to modernism, Benu is high-achiever Corey Lee’s first restaurant since leaving The French Laundry fold. Complex and thought-provoking, Lee’s dishes make light work of classic techniques, injecting Asian flavours into immaculate dishes. (Lee even designs the plates and bowls himself.) Gels and foams feature widely on the ambitious tasting menu, which changes daily but always begins with a thousand-year-old quail egg. Benu treads a fine line between high-concept cooking and customer satisfaction, yet Lee’s contemporaries are resoundingly gushing in their praise. Needless to say, innovation and exceptional craftsmanship comes at a price – you’ve been warned.
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Golden Century Seafood
Recommended for: Late night
Address: 393-399 Sussex Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000, Australia; Phone: +61 292123901; Website: http://www.goldencentury.com.au; Open: 7 days for lunch until late; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Casual; Food type: Cantonese Seafood
The Cantonese seafood specialist that locals like to call the Golden C, which Sydney’s chefs make a habit of calling into late at night after work, is a clear cut above any other Chinese restaurants on Sussex Street – and arguably anywhere else in the city that does small-hours trade. The menu ranges from very affordable noodle dishes to a fantastic selection of live seafood. Insider tips from some of Sydney’s finest include: trying the greenlip abalone steamboat with noodles and tofu (the abalone sliced live) and asking for the Charles Leong menu, named after Momofuku Sei?bo’s sommelier-at-large.
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Great NY Noodletown
Recommended for: Late night
Address: 28 Bowery, Chinatown, Manhattan, NY, 10013, United States; Website: http://www.greatnynoodletown.com; Open: 7 days for breakfast, lunch and dinner; Reservations: No; Credit cards: Not accepted; Price: Budget; Style: Casual; Food type: Chinese
This Chinatown classic delivers on the far from empty promise of its name. It’s true that service can be brisk – understandable since it’s open until 4.00am, making it a popular post-bar crawl, small hours spot for the well oiled and the weary. But the lengthy menu – which covers all the bases from congee to barbecue meats, via various poultry and seafood dishes, to a lengthy list of noodle soups – is good enough to warrant inspection in the cold and sober light of day. Particularly worthy of investigation is their soft-shell crab, in season from around May until about October.
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Kajitsu
Recommended for: Wish I’d opened
Address: 414 East ninth Street, East Village, Manhattan, NY, 10003, United States; Phone: +1 2122284873; Website: http://www.kajitsunyc.com; Open: 6 days for dinner. Closed Monday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: Japanese Vegan
This evening-only, vegan-friendly, kaiseki-serving, East Village Japanese specialises in shojin ryori. Brought, in the 13th century, by Zen monks across China to Japan, where it was perfected – or rather brought closer to perfection – shojin ryori is all about celebrating seasonal vegetables. In twenty-first-century Manhattan this translates to a very Zen, twenty-eight-seat space that’s all wood, beige walls and stone floors, with colour and beauty provided by the tableware and the food itself. The multi-coursed menu changes every month, the only constant being a serving of soba noodles. A very enlightening experience regardless of whether you are vegan or not.
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Sushi Sawada
Recommended for: Worth the travel
Address: 5-9-19 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0061, Japan; Phone: +81 335714711; Open: 6 days for lunch and dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: Sushi
Sushi master Koji Sawada’s seven-seater Tokyo sushi-ya is hidden down a quiet Ginza alley where its discreetly marked entrance is obvious only to those in the know. That hasn’t stopped Sushi Sawada becoming Tokyo’s most talked about sushi restaurant, thanks in part to the Michelin Guide anointing it with two stars and the ensuring, breathless, media coverage. The discreet, panelled room is only for the deepest of pockets but it’s arguably the definitive, reverential raw fish experience. Expect various types of sea urchin, otoro tuna ever so lightly grilled over charcoal, and miniature sushi masterpieces served directly on to the hinoki wood counter.
