Good food is not about Michelin stars

I am used to doing annual round ups of the best meals I have eaten.

But this time I am going to squeeze the time frame slightly. These are the best meals I have eaten, not in one year but in a single fortnight.

 

Massimo Bottura in Bangalore

 

Bottura is often called the world’s best chef. His Osteria Francesca restaurant in Modena has been number one on the list of the Worlds 50 Best restaurants more than once and it has held three Michelin stars for years.

 

   Osteria Francescana is small (around 35 seats) and almost impossible to book so many more people have heard of Massimo than will ever eat his food.

 

   Fortunately for us Massimo loves India so for the last four years Culinary Culture (full disclosure: I am Chairman) has brought him to Mumbai, Delhi and now Bangalore.

 

   If you go to a three star restaurant abroad you will be lucky if the chef is even present in the building. But here Massimo was in the kitchen making every single plate himself and then going from table to table.

 

   We usually persuade him to cook his most famous dishes so the food is always fabulous.

 

   He sold out two dinners at the Leela in Bangalore but the meal he enjoyed the most himself was the benne dosa at Vidyarthi Bhavan!

 

Gaggan Anand Bangkok

 

As you may know Gaggan’s flagship is a 14-cover counter open for only eight services a week. Each meal is a performance as either Gaggan or his head chefs take you through the menu.

 

   The food is always exceptional but what’s different now is that Gaggan divides the menu into four phases: Indian, Japanese, Thai and a mix of everything. In a just world he would get three Michelin stars.

 

Maison Dali Dubai

 

This deceptively casual but super chic restaurant is a tribute to the Scottish chef Tristin Farmer’s skills. Farmer walked away from three stars at Singapore’s Zen to do something more relaxed and less three-starry. He has only been partially successful. The vibe is relaxed and the restaurant is more accessible and friendly but Tristin still makes excellent three star food. It’s very good value for this level of cooking but it’s doing really well so go before they put the prices up.

 

Jordnaer Copenhagen

 

The city’s newest three star restaurant this has attracted global attention because Chef Eric Vildebrand has had a chequered career as a gang member on the wrong side of the law. His wife Tina has changed his life and the restaurant they run together is among the world’s best. Eric is now more cuddly than menacing and told me that he wants to cook in India.

 

   His delicious food is international cuisine with Japanese influences and will work in Delhi.

 

Noma Copenhagen

 

Regardless of whether I eat at Noma or not l love spending at least a couple of hours chatting to Rene Redzepi. He is brilliant, not just as a chef but as a man who observes our world and sees the connections.

 

"I have lost count of the influential chefs who have learned fire cooking from Victor Arguinzoniz the legendary chef who reinvented the techniques of cooking with fire at Extebarri."

   He has been at the top of his profession for two decades now but his enthusiasm for food and hunger for knowledge are undiminished. I am sure he values the three stars he has held for decades but you get the sense that even if they disappeared it would make no difference to him.

 

   He used to have a fearsome reputation but over the last few years when I have known him relatively well I have been stuck by his warmth, his generosity of spirit and his concern for others.

 

   The food? Need anything be said? This is Noma after all, always at the cutting edge of cuisine.

 

Disfrutar Barcelona

 

I first came to this small, unpretentious restaurant set up by the three former head chefs of El Bulli with their own money eight years ago and wrote that their food beat the hell out of every other Spanish chef including the more famous Roca brothers.

 

   I had no idea then that they would win three stars and be chosen as the number one restaurant in the world.

 

   I went back last week to find that the food was even better than I remembered. Of course they are masters of technique but they are also incapable of making anything that does not taste delicious.

 

   Heston Blumenthal, who has known them a long time, told me that Oriol Castro, one of Disfrutar trio, is someone he has long admired and who created many of the techniques that made El Bulli so influential.

 

   I am hoping to persuade Oriol to come to India to reveal his secrets.

 

Extebarri Bilbao

 

I have lost count of the influential chefs who have learned fire cooking from Victor Arguinzoniz the legendary chef who reinvented the techniques of cooking with fire at Extebarri.

 

   The problem is that the chef hates publicity and Michelin stars (they gave him one anyway) and was embarrassed when Etxebarri came in at number two in the World’s 50 Best list. His wife and family handle the service and they make it impossible to book. On any given day 80 per cent of the guests are regulars.

 

   I got in because of Mohammed Benabdallah the brilliant sommelier who functions as Victor’s ambassador on earth.

 

   The food was fabulous and reinforced my conviction that you cannot write knowledgeably about fire cooking or roasting if you have not watched Victor in the kitchen. He wrote the manual for this style of cooking and I felt very privileged to be there.

 

And finally

 

These are among the best chefs and restaurants in the world. And I felt very fortunate to eat at them but never make the mistake of thinking that good food is only about Michelin stars. Most good chefs would rather eat at simpler places to find inspiration.

 

   Gaggan took me years ago to Jai Fai’s street stall in Bangkok long before she became world famous: he had the palate to tell that her food was special. Rene went to Mexico, fell in love with the corn and also became a taco aficionado. The Disfrutar chefs did not want to repeat El Bulli when it closed so they opened a simple local restaurant in a small town first. Even though Disfrutar is the world’s top restaurant their heart is in a simpler place they run which serves uncomplicated but excellent Spanish food. Massimo loves the pani puri at Mumbai’s Soam as much as he liked the benne dosa.

 

   So good food is not about Michelin stars and World’s 50 Best. It is about restaurants where flavour is the star.

 

   Because you shouldn’t go to restaurants to show off. You should go to have fun!