Where Chefs Eat is a new book published by Phaidon in January 2012 (Buy it in the US). In part two of our extract from the restaurant picks of over 400 of the world’s best kitchen creators, more star chefs 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 two of the extract. See below for Part two…..
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OLLIE DABBOUS (Trained at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons; became head chef of Texture in London before opening Dabbous in 2012)
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Hereford Road
Recommended for: Regular neighbourhood
Address: 3 Hereford Road, Westbourne Grove, London, W2 4AB, United Kingdom; Phone: +44 2077271144; Website: http://www.herefordroad.org; Open: 7 days for lunch and dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Casual; Food type: British
The West London chapter of the school of St. John, Hereford Road first brought its gutsy, no-nonsense cooking built around British seasonal ingredients to nearby Notting Hill in 2007. Driven by hardworking chef-proprietor Tom Pemberton, formerly head chef of St. John Bread & Wine, it’s housed in a Victorian butcher’s shop, open kitchen in the window where the counter would have been, wrought ironwork on the ceiling above the red leather upholstered love seats. The daily changing menu delivers perfect simplicity, from whole fish and helpings of offal (variety of meats) to bowls of ice cream. Their set lunch remains one of London’s great bargains.
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Tayyabs
Recommended for: Local favourite
Address: 83-89 Fieldgate Street, Whitechapel, London, E1 1JU, United Kingdom; Phone: +44 2072479543; Website: http://www.tayyabs.co.uk; Open: 7 days for lunch and dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Budget; Style: Casual; Food type: Pakistani
No one comes to Tayyabs for the ambience. Forty years after opening, E1’s worst-kept secret is more cut and thrust than ever, from the location round the back of Whitechapel High Street to the hour-plus queues (waiting lines) – and that’s with a reservation – and the ferocious noise levels. However, the Punjabi food – specifically the sizzling lamb chops and groaning mixed grill plate, as well as fresh-from-the-tandoor nan – makes it all worthwhile, especially with change from £20 ($32). Don’t get caught out by the BYO policy – bring an extra beer or two so you can enjoy a pre-dinner drink while you wait for a table.
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STEPHEN HARRIS (Transformed a run-down pub on the Kentish coast into The Sportsman, one of England’s most exciting destination restaurants)
Fäviken Magasinet
Recommended for: Worth the travel
Address: Fäviken 216, Järpen, Jämtland, 83005, Sweden; Phone: +46 64740177; Website: http://www.favikenmagasinet.se; Open: 4 days for dinner. Closed Monday, Tuesday and Sunday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: Modern Swedish
To say that Fäviken is worth the journey is high praise indeed when you consider that your destination is Järpen in the unspoilt northwest of Sweden, 750km (466 miles) north of Stockholm, well on your way towards the Arctic Circle. It’s run by farmer/forager/hunter/chef Magnus Nilsson, who transforms wild ingredients into an haute experience for only a handful of guests. Almost everything served at the strikingly intimate, twelve-seat, wood-panelled restaurant is collected, caught, hunted or grown on the vast estate that surrounds it. Show-stopping dishes include a charcoal-grilled moose thigh bone, sawn in half on a block in the dining room, and its marrow served.
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In De Wulf
Recommended for: Worth the travel
Address: Wulvestraat 1, Heuvelland, Dranouter, West Flanders, 8950, Belgium; Phone: +32 57445567; Website: http://www.indewulf.be; Open: 3 days for lunch and 5 days for dinner. Closed Monday and Tuesday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Casual; Food type: Belgian
Kobe Desramaults’ hideaway isn’t the most accessible of places, tucked away 160km (100 miles) north of the French-Belgian border, but you’ll be glad you tracked down this former farm turned restaurant with rooms. Its wild location is a suitable backdrop for what’s on offer: a procession of small dishes often made with unpronounceable ingredients (kerremelkstampers or Keiemtaler, anyone?) plucked from the farm’s environs. Hardened gastronomes will know the score – whelks balancing on pebbles, salads of foraged herbs and fennel pollen aplenty, all impeccably presented on a baffling array of dinnerware. Could this be Belgium’s answer to Noma? In a word, (whisper it) yes.
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SHAUN HILL (Put Gidleigh Park in Devon and the Merchant House in Ludlow on the map; nows runs the Walnut Tree in Abergavenny, south Wales)
Hibiscus
Recommended for: High end
Address: 29 Maddox Street, Mayfair, London, W1S 2PA, United Kingdom; Phone: +44 2076292999; Website: http://www.hibiscusrestaurant.co.uk; Open: 6 days for lunch and dinner. Closed Sunday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: Modern French
It was a brave decision after seven successful years in rural Shropshire to move Hibiscus to metropolitan Mayfair. But since successfully transplanting Hibiscus from Ludlow to London back in 2007, Lyon-born Claude Bosi’s reputation as a purveyor of forward-thinking haute cuisine has soared and he’s had no reason to look back. The kitchen is discreetly hidden behind a set of swish sliding doors, which open on to an intimate oak-panelled dining room, where the focus is on polished service and Bosi’s ever-evolving modern French menus that trawl the British Isles for raw materials and the globe for inspiration.
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Maison Bertaux
Recommended for: Breakfast
Address: 28 Greek Street, Soho, London, W1D 5DQ, United Kingdom; Website: http://www.maisonbertaux.com; Open: 7 days for breakfast until late; Reservations: No; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Budget; Style: Casual; Food type: Bakery-Café
This old Soho spot boasts of being London’s oldest patisserie, originally opened by Communards who, having fled Paris following the failure of the Fourth French Revolution, took refuge in cake. While it’s true that the service can be hit and miss, it never fails to be entertainingly theatrical. The French fancies and cream cakes, still baked daily on the premises, are a reliable source of calories and le café au lait “c’est bon”. Whether it’s from a window table at street level or out on the pavement (sidewalk), there are few better vantage points from which to watch Soho go by.
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Opera Tavern
Recommended for: Bargain
Address: 23 Catherine Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2B 5JS, United Kingdom; Phone: +44 2078363680; Website: http://www.operatavern.co.uk; Open: 7 days for lunch and 6 days for dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: Small plates
The youngest in a trio that includes Salt Yard and Dehesa, the Opera Tavern specialises in small Spanish and Italian plates accompanied by a wine list with a pleasingly extensive by-the-glass selection. If it paradoxically feels a bit more grown up than its older siblings, that’s probably because what was previously a spacious old Theatreland boozer has taken extremely well to its repurposing as a smart tapas operation. The street level bar and grill is laid out with lots of comfortable counter seating, while the first houses a notionally more formal dining room for those who prefer their tables and chairs.
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St. John Bar and Restaurant
Recommended for: Local favourite
Address: 26 St John Street, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 4AY, United Kingdom; Phone: +44 2033018069; Website: http://www.stjohnrestaurant.com; Open: 6 days for lunch and dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: British
Arguably the most seminal London restaurant of the last twenty years, the original branch of St. John has barely changed since it opened back in 1994. The birthplace of Fergus Henderson’s famed “nose-to-tail” philosophy, the twice-daily changing menu is still tersely written, strictly seasonal and still likes to make use of bits of beast that Anglo-Saxon chefs used to throw away, until he made them fashionable. The other star is the Georgian building, an old smokehouse, its high ceilings, whitewashed walls and surfeit of natural light somehow managing to make it feel like nowhere else in London, and somewhere that couldn’t exist anywhere else.
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The Butcher’s Arms
Recommended for: Worth the travel
Address: Lime Street, Eldersfield, Worcestershire, England, GL19 4NX, United Kingdom; Phone: +44 1452840381; Website: http://www.thebutchersarms.net; Open: 6 days for lunch and 5 days for dinner. Closed Monday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Casual; Food type: Bar-Bistro
A superior food-peddling pub run by the young husband and wife team James and Elizabeth Winter, who oversee the kitchen and front of house respectively. It’s a pleasingly compact operation, the pub having only two rooms and the menu offering only five choices in each section. Word has got around and reservations are now compulsory for lunch and advisable for dinner. Despite that, they don’t, as is the inexplicable tendency for many pubs that go gastro, neglect keeping a decent beer list and, as a free house, are able to pull a fine selection of straight-from-the-cask real ales.
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The Hardwick
Recommended for: Regular neighbourhood
Address: Old Raglan Road, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales, NP7 9AA, United Kingdom; Phone: +44 1873854220; Website: http://www.thehardwick.co.uk; Open: 7 days for breakfast, lunch and dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: Bar-Bistro
A London restaurant scene legend, chef Stephen Terry returned to his native Wales to take ownership of a pub called the Horse & Jockey on the outskirts of Abergavenny, the Monmouthshire market town famous for the Walnut Tree and the annual food festival it hosts each September. Reopened as the Hardwick four weeks after he first took it over in 2005, it has since grown into an award-winning restaurant with rooms. Terry’s unfussy menu makes the most of the best local ingredients, combining them with the good taste and technical ability with which he originally made his name.
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VIRGILIO MARTINEZ (Opened his celebrated Lima restaurant, Central, in 2010)
Canta Rana
Recommended for: Wish I’d opened
Address: Génova 101, Barranco, Lima, 04, Peru; Phone: +51 12477274; Open: 7 days for lunch and 5 days for dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Budget; Style: Casual; Food type: Seafood
A cebicheria in Barranco that serves just great ceviches. Friendly atmosphere and the location in that part of Lima is just amazing. – Virgilio Martinez
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La Gran Fruta
Recommended for: Breakfast
Address: Las Begonias 463, San Isidro, Lima, 27, Peru; Website: http://www.lagranfruta.com.pe; Open: 7 days for lunch and 6 days for dinner; Reservations: No; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Budget; Style: Casual; Food type: Café
From humble beginnings as an itinerant street cart that hawked its juices around Lima, La Gran Fruta is now a success story, with branches that deliver across the Peruvian capital, including one at the airport. This branch in the city’s San Isidro district is arguably the best from which to enjoy its menu of freshly squeezed and blended juices, many made from exotic fruits that you won’t find anywhere but South America. Try cherimoya, a variety of custard apple native to the Andes, which tastes like a combination of banana, pineapple and strawberry. Or have an avocado juice with your coffee and well-stuffed Peruvian sandwich.
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L’Astrance
Recommended for: Worth the travel
Address: 4 Rue Beethoven, Paris, 75016, France; Phone: +33 14050844; Open: 4 days for lunch and dinner. Closed Monday, Saturday and Sunday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Formal; Food type: Modern French
This small (but tall!), out of the way, airy, three-Michelin-starred restaurant is soaked in relaxed confidence, as is Pascal Barbot’s concise cooking. Root vegetables, flowers and herbs are very much the stars, sitting together raw, fermented and poached, or spiked with notes of smoke, citrus and pickle. Barbot rightly prides himself on the very careful pairing of wine with the tasting menu (for instance, Challans duck and raspberries, with a Gevrey Chambertin ‘Vieilles Vignes’ 2005) and, unlike many lazier grandes tables, here it would be a shame not to let yourself be guided from start to finish. You’re in good hands.
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Sankuay
Recommended for: Local favourite
Address: Enrique León García 114, Santa Catalina, La Victoria, Lima, 13, Peru; Phone: +51 14706217; Open: 6 days for lunch and dinner. Closed Sunday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Budget; Style: Casual; Food type: Seafood
Don’t turn up at Sankuay without a reservation. Not because it’s particularly grand – on the contrary, it’s a humble huarique (Peruvian slang for a speakeasy that specialises in a dish or two) – but you just won’t get past the doorman without one. The doorman is also the waiter and the busboy – in fact the only other member of staff working alongside the owner-chef, the Peruvian-Chinese Javier Wong. Nicknamed Chez Wong, inside it’s bare walls, a handful of tables, a primitive stove and a take-it-or-leave-it two courses of stunningly simple seafood – one a ceviche, the other wok-fried.
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©AFP
RENÉ REDZEPI (Opened Noma in Copenhagen in 2004 with its Nordic-sourced agenda – and changed haute cuisine in Scandinavia and beyond for ever)
Le Chateaubriand
Recommended for: Worth the travel
Address: 129 Avenue Parmentier, Paris, 75011, France; Phone: +33 0143574595; Open: 5 days for dinner. Closed Monday and Sunday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Casual; Food type: French Bistro
Sat on a sycamore-shaded avenue in Belleville, Le Chateaubriand occupies a handsome old bistro, its 1930s façade and interior largely unchanged. With its lack of airs and graces, championing of pungent natural wines and a take-it-or-leave-it five-course fixed price menu at dinner – there are those who don’t get why it’s created such a stir since opening in 2006. But that’s their loss, because the cooking, which keeps things as raw and unadulterated as possible while mixing French staples with less familiar foreign flavours, makes it clear why chef-owner Inaki Aizpitarte has become the poster boy for the “bistronomique” movement.
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©Per-Anders Jörgensen
Manfreds & Vin
Recommended for: Bargain
Address: Jægersborggade 40, Nørrebro, Copenhagen, 2200, Denmark; Phone: +45 36966593; Website: http://www.manfreds.dk; Open: 2 days for breakfast and 6 days for dinner. Closed Monday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Casual;Food type: Nordic-European small plates
Run by the team behind Restaurant Relæ, which sits across the street, Manfreds & Vin began life as more of a takeaway (takeout) before morphing into a wine bar and casual dining room. They have a 200-strong list of natural wines, with the dozen or so selections by the glass available displayed on the blackboard behind the bar. Dishes are mostly tapas-sized and designed for sharing, whether you order from the short and snappy à la carte or go with one of their set menus. Come the weekend and brunch, their Eggs Benedict with apple slaw has its own fan club.
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©Per-Anders Jörgensen
Relæ
Recommended for: Worth the travel
Address: Jægersborggade 41, Nørrebro, Copenhagen, 2200, Denmark; Phone: +45 36966609; Website: http://www.restaurant-relae.dk; Open: 4 days for dinner. Closed Monday, Tuesday and Sunday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: Modern Nordic
Opened in 2010 by a pair of graduates from Noma, Copenhagen’s seminal culinary kingpin: its former head chef, the Sicilian-born, Danish-raised, Christian Puglisi, and Dane Kim Rossen, who worked there as a chef and waiter. Relæ sits in Copenhagen’s gentrifying but still colourful Nørrebro district, in the northwest of the city. The vibe is informal, the simply styled dining room with open kitchen, an exercise in clever Danish design, form perfectly meeting function in tables built with neat drawers that hold the table settings and menu. The cooking, expressed via a choice of two four-course options – one meat-free – remains seriously ambitious.
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Schønnemann
Recommended for: Local favourite
Address: Hauser Plads 16, Indre By, Copenhagen, 1127, Denmark; Phone: +45 33120785; Website: http://www.restaurantschonnemann.dk; Open: 6 days for lunch. Closed Sunday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Casual; Food type: Danish
Proudly serving traditional smørrebrød (open sandwiches) since 1877, its dark wooden interior with gingham-draped tables is an essential stop for any right-thinking food tourist on a visit to the Danish capital. The organic meat, poultry and dairy used on the menu might be twenty-first century but the sand on the floor is a reminder of the 19th century, when it was warmed by charcoal burners and filled with farmers on their way back from delivering to the market. The sandwiches are huge; the aquavit (a favourite Danish alcoholic drink) list long. If in search of “New Nordic”, go elsewhere – this is a taste of old Copenhagen.
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©Maria Petersen
The Coffee Collective
Recommended for: Breakfast
Address: Jægersborggade 10, Nørrebro, Copenhagen, 2200, Denmark; Website: http://www.coffeecollective.dk; Open: 7 days for brunch and 5 days for dinner; Reservations: No; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Budget; Style: Casual; Food type: Café
The Dane’s take their coffee very seriously and the Coffee Collective in Nørrebro is widely regarded as probably Copenhagen’s very best caffeine dispensary, no small compliment in a city where the competition and the coffee is so strong. A micro-roastery run by an expert team of award-winning Danes – roasters, buyers and baristas – beans are sourced directly from farmers around the world, with sustainability and fair trade, as well as quality, at the top of the agenda. If you are a coffee geek you’ll be in heaven here: you’ll have to try very hard to find a better cream on your cuppa.
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MARCUS SAMUELSSON (Made his name at New York’s Aquavit before opening Red Rooster in Harlem in 2011)
Minetta Tavern
Recommended for: Worth the travel
Address: 113 MacDougal Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, NY, 10012, United States; Phone: +1 2124753850; Website: http://www.minettatavernny.com; Open: 5 days for lunch and 7 days for dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Expensive; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: French
A Greenwich Village fixture since 1937, Keith McNally has breathed new life into the old joint, giving it the same sort of upscale French brasserie polish that served him so well at Balthazar. There was no bouncer on the door back in the day when the Beats hung out here, nor, I imagine, were banquettes trimmed in such crisp crimson leather. But enough of the original tavern’s features remain for it to retain its character. Add a menu that delivers gutsy Gallic comfort, such as truffled pork sausage and roasted bone marrow, and it’s not hard to see why the retooled Minetta has been such a hit.
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Patisserie des Ambassades
Recommended for: Breakfast
Address: 2200 Frederick Douglass Boulevard, Harlem, Manhattan, NY, 10026, United States; Website: http://www.patisseriedesambassades.com; Open: 7 days from breakfast until late; Reservations: No; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Budget; Style: Casual; Food type: Bakery-Café
A west African patisserie serving the best croissants and the playlist is always fun: Bob Marley, Mariah Carey and Phil Collins. It never changes. Sussudio blasting in the morning is a great wake-up call. – Marcus Samuelsson
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Roberta’s
Recommended for: Wish I’d opened
Address: 261 Moore Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, 11206, United States; Website: http://www.robertaspizza.com; Open: 7 days for lunch and dinner, until late; Reservations: No; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Budget; Style: Casual; Food type: Italian
If when folk describe a place as “very Brooklyn” you don’t quite know what they mean, head to Roberta’s in Bushwick for a primer. The breeze-block frontage, concrete floors, tattooed waiting staff and obscure craft beers served in jam jars spell hipster heaven, as does this former garage’s predilection for foraged ingredients and crops from its own urban farm. Launched by former musicians in 2008, Roberta’s initially offered little more than its amusingly monikered, wood-fired pizzas such as Pablo Escarole and WTF, but brilliant, self-taught chef Carlo Mirarchi doesn’t just sling dough – his limited-edition tasting menus are now much in demand.
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GENÇAY ÜÇOK (Owns and cooks at Istanbul’s Meze by Lemon Tree)
Aynen Dürüm
Recommended for: Bargain
Address: Muhafazacilar 33, Grand Bazaar, Faith, Istanbul, 34126, Turkey; Open: 7 days for lunch; Reservations: No; Credit cards: Not accepted; Price: Budget; Style: Casual; Food type: Turkish
Sit on a tiny stool by the side of the market and enjoy adana durum (a spicy long meatball grilled on charcoal and wrapped in a smoking pitta bread), garnishes of pickles, grilled pepper, parsley, and radish served on a nylon sheet. – Gençay Üçok
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Beyti
Recommended for: Wish I’d opened
Address: Orman Sokak 8, Florya, Bakirkoy, Istanbul, 34153, Turkey; Phone: +90 2126632990; Website: http://www.beyti.com; Open: 6 days for lunch and dinner. Closed Monday; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Affordable; Style: Smart Casual; Food type: Turkish
This place is a food palace. Magnificent kebabs. These people really know how to work with meat. Sort of VIP fine dining feel. One of the cult restaurants of Istanbul which has been operating since 1940s. – Gençay Üçok
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Kale
Recommended for: Breakfast
Address: Yahya Kemal Caddesi 16, Rumeli hisar, Istanbul, 34470, Turkey; Website: http://www.kalecafe.com; Open: 7 days for brunch and 4 days for dinner; Reservations: No; Credit cards: Accepted; Price: Budget; Style: Casual; Food type: Turkish
Especially good on a sunny weekend morning for a long lazy, ceremonial Turkish breakfast while enjoying the views of the Bosphorus. Scrambled eggs with pastrami, fresh clotted cream with honey and lots of feta cheese to be accompanied with fresh tomatoes are musts. Avoid weekend noon times due to extreme crowds and traffic. – Gençay Üçok
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Me?hur Tavaci Recep Usta
Recommended for: Regular neighbourhood
Address: Lavinya Sokak 2, Levent, Be?ikta?, Istanbul, 34330, Turkey; Phone: +90 2122800425; Website: http://www.tavacirecepusta.com; Open: 4 days for lunch and 7 days for dinner; Reservations: Yes; Credit cards: Not accepted; Price: Budget; Style:Casual; Food type: Turkish
Beautiful garden and superb service. You can often come across many Turkish celebrities here but among tourists it is not known at all. They do only lamb dishes. Sac tava, kuzu dolma and dried aubergines (eggplants) stuffed with seasonal pilaf and minced (ground) lamb are true wonders. – Gençay Üçok
