Despite the ancienty of the dining room -18th century ballroom with cold marble floors and walls, heavy curtains and crystal chandeliers, Jean – François Piège, the chef of Les Ambassadeurs, is the 21st-century man. Jean – François Piège’s menu that night didn’t contain any sashimis or other exotic dishes interpretations…

I was sceptical before my dinner in Amaya – almost sure that it’s just another fashionable Indian calling itself modern (I’ve been to so many of them), but all that is modern is the fancy interior and crazy martinis, or, worse, European cuisine mixed with Indian spices. In fact, it…

After a slight disappointment at Lampreia ( I do think the chef is very talented, but I was not lucky with my first dish. Cured tuna is really not for me.. While my friend’s beetroot soup and veal were delicious.) I went for “more casual” places in Seattle. One of…

Seattle Farmers Market..

I’ve read many positive things about New Tayyabs (Zagat 28/30!!) “authentic” Pakistani in Whitechapel, where you have to “queue to get a table”, the prices are “negligible” and the food is to “die for”, simply “the best South Eastern Asian in London”. We didn’t have to wait for a table,…

Mr Chow in London is not an ordinary restaurant. The cuisine is Mandarin, but the service reminds you of an old fashioned Italian restaurant somewhere in Manhattan (a long time ago). When you enter the place, you see a kitschy billboard “1968”, while the music played is somewhere between 1995…

Just finished reading The Man Who Ate the World, an amusing and suprisingly honest book about restaurants in some of the world’s metropolis. For somebody who has been in all of these cities,(except Dubai) and many of the restaurants mentioned, this book is like candy. One thing that I found…

What can be more fashionable than cakes created “in the style of the world’s finest designers”? This is what London Berkeley’s afternoon tea time “Prêt-à-portea” is about. “Balenciaga vanilla and blueberry chequered bavarois”, “Chanel stars and stripes strawberry and vanilla pannacotta” or “Lanvin purple macaroon with raspberry ganache”. I love…

I wish I went to Kyo Ya (94 East 7th str. tel. 212 982 4140) before diving into the mysterious kaiseki experience in Kikunoi, Kyoto last spring. Maybe I would have enjoyed Kikunoi more. Degustating kaiseki dinner without certain preparation and knowledge is the same as going to a 3…

Per Se is by far the best restaurant I have ever been to the USA. It is worth every high rating it has – whether it is 3 Michelin stars or 28/30 in Zagat. The view of the Columbus Circle was stunning, the people working there knowledgeable and extremely professional,…