Despite the fact that I’ve been to Japan several times (12 if to be precise), I recently found myself in two situations where, to my dismay, I realized that I had not yet learned, or at least kept in mind, the elementary rules concerning tipping in Japan… The first time,…

I first heard about Restaurant Andre (41 Bukit Pasoh Road, Singapore 089855; tel. +65 6534 8880) in Singapore from San Pellegrino Asia’s 50 best restaurants list. Making it to this list is a huge media kickoff for any restaurant around the world – I doubt that Noma and El Bulli would be…

If young and aspiring chefs in the West might believe that being creative and innovative is the key to one’s first Michelin star, in Japan you can get a Michelin star for being really good in what you are doing, even if what you are doing is deep-frying pork cutlets.…

In the normal world of fine dining 38000 Yen or 290 Euros will buy you a tasting menu containing at least a bit of truffles, caviar or other expensive ingredients. Not in Tokyo’s 3 Michelin starred 10 seat tempura restaurant 7 Chome Kyoboshi (Ozio Ginza Building 6F, 5-5-9 Ginza, Chuo-ku,…

Chef Seiji Yamamoto is fond of dragons. The walls of his restaurant and the 400-year old presentation plates are all adorned with these mythical creatures. Even the restaurant’s name, ryugin, means “singing dragon”, while Nihonryori translates as “Japanese cuisine”. Three Michelin star Nihonryori RyuGin (7-17-24 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo; tel.03-3423-8006) specializes in…

Nobody knows Copenhagen restaurants as well as my dear friend and blogger extraordinaire Trine Lai. She was one of the first bloggers in the world to report on Noma, where she’s been for 26 times. Her excellent and comprehensive Copenhagen restaurants recommendations list can be found here. Restaurants you could…

I doubt that Mr. Ducasse was in the kitchen and cooked this perfection, but whoever is the head chef at Louis XV by Alain Ducasse in Monte Carlo, I must say, he or she is very gifted. What I like about this particular style of cooking that it is so…

2 Michelin starred Passage 53 in Paris (53 Passage des Panoramas75002 Paris; tel. +33 1 42 33 04 35) is a living example of what happens when Japanese perfectionism and minimalism is married with the opulence of the French haute cuisine. Despite the restaurant’s tiny size, the cooking is irreproachable…

I didn’t really know what to expect from Adrià’s brothers 41 degrees experience, adjacent to Tickets tapas restaurant in Barcelona and already one of the toughest reservations in the world. (Avinguda Paral·lel, 16408015 Barcelona,Spain; tel.+34 932 92 42 53) All I had read that it was a bar where cocktails…

The very best sushi experiences in Tokyo are rarely less than ¥ 15 000 – ¥ 20 000 per person, so I was very curious to visit 2 Michelin starred Kimura sushi(3-21-8 Tamagawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo; tel.03-3707-6355) where dinner costs from ¥8,400 to ¥ 12,600, while lunch “only” ¥5,250 for an omakase.…