Ginza Hirayama‘s 33 year old chef-owner Hirayama-san used to work at the famous “introduction only” steakhouse Kawamura. The beef he used that day was tenderloin from Miyazaki, but you could also have sirloin if you are really into super marbled beef. The major difference between Kawamura and Hirayama is that…

No matter how good your hotel or credit card concierge is, or how fluent you speak Japanese, you can’t get into Kawamura ,even by reserving it very much in advance. I realized this two years ago, when I naively asked my hotel concierge in Tokyo to get me a place…

Nature is not always pleasing. We tend to ignore, or at least hide from our view the unpleasant parts of it, like, death for example. Not at In de Wulf (Wulvestraat 1, 8951, Belgium; tel. +32 57 44 55 67), where you are greeted with a large cow skull in…

3 Michelin starred Hertog Jan, located 20 minutes drive from the medieval Belgian town Bruges, is one of the most memorable restaurants I’ve been to over the last years. 8 months ago, it has relocated from Bruges to the 19th-century farm, which had taken 4 years to renovate. Everything here…

Having a meal at Noma has nothing to do with conventional fine dining some of us are accustomed to. Number 1 on the 50 best restaurants of the world list is not only about introducing us to the products from the most remote Scandinavian regions but also pushing those ingredients…

Mitsuhiro Araki is a three Michelin star sushi master from Tokyo, who has recently relocated to London. When you talk about the world’s best sushi chefs (Jiro Ono, Hachiro Mizutani, Takashi Saito to name a few), Araki would be one of them. He is especially famous for his knowledge of…

The most famous (or infamous) dish at The Araki so far, the newly opened and the most expensive sushi restaurant in Europe. Fatty tuna from Ireland, that had been chopped in advance, was mixed with soy sauce, mayonnaise ( whisked in front of you) and generously shaved over with white…

When someone asked yesterday Mitsuhiro Araki, the 3 Michelin star chef from Tokyo, who has just opened London’s most expensive sushi-ya (FT.com review), if he was having any difficulties to source his ingredients in Europe, he laughed and answered that not all. I know I’ve been posting a lot about…

The world of gastronomy in Paris has been bustling with speculations lately about where will the former Ledoyen’s head chef Christian Le Squer go next. Three weeks ago it became apparent that it will be Le Cinq restaurant at George V hotel. Christian Le Squer is one of those uber…

I am wrapping up my Tokyo series this time with Ishikawa, 3 Michelin starred kaiseki restaurant, located behind Bishamonten temple. When kaiseki style cooking is concerned, less is usually more. Chef Hideki Ishikawa follows the traditional kaiseki rules by celebrating simplicity and seasonality. Michelin describes him as innovative, but the…