A list of the best meals I ate outside the country this year

I wrote in Brunch last weekend about the best meals I had eaten in India this year.

This is a companion list but it deals with the meals I ate outside the country.

 

Nihonbashi

 

Dharshan Munidasa is Sri Lanka’s greatest chef with restaurants all over the world. And while I have eaten Dharshan’s food in many countries nothing beats eating it in his own country when Dharshan himself is in the restaurant.

 

   I say ‘his own country’ but that’s complicated because Dharshan is half Japanese and, unusually for a chef who has not worked his way through the kitchens of Japan’s top restaurants, he is respected and honoured by the Japanese.

 

   Dharshan’s best known restaurants are called Ministry of Crab but my personal favourite is Nihonbashi in Colombo which serves authentic Japanese food in plush surroundings.

 

Palmyrah

 

What we call Sri Lankan food all over the world is mostly the cuisine of the majority Sinhala community. But as recent history reminds us there is an ethnically distinct Tamil community in the north. Indians tend to assume that Lankan Tamils eat the same food as Tamils in India. In fact Lanka’s Tamils have a cuisine of their own. Each time I visit Colombo I have at least one meal at Palmyrah a Tamil restaurant in the basement of a locally-run hotel. It is always one of the best meals of the trip.

 

Manao

 

I first met the intense but taciturn Abhiraj Khatwani when he came to Delhi to help Dubai’s superstar chef Mohamad Orfali with his pop up. Abhiraj told me that Mohamad was partnering with him to open a Thai restaurant in Dubai.

 

   I was intrigued because Abhiraj is Indian not Thai but it took only five minutes of conversation to work out how knowledgeable he was about Thai food.

 

   A few months later I went to a preview of Manao as they chose to call the restaurant, and came away super impressed. Clearly I was not the only one to be impressed because it took only a few months for Michelin to give Manao a star and give Abhiraj the award for Young Chef of the Year.

 

   Abhiraj is careful to only call his food Thai-inspired but if you like Thai food you will love Manao’s take on the flavours of Thailand.

 

Orfali Bros

 

Mohamad Orfali is a Dubai legend and the restaurant he runs with his two pastry maestro brothers is now legendary. Inspired by the cuisine of Syria the restaurant follows no rules riffing on global cuisines (the hamburger is justly famous) and offering fine French patisserie.

 

   Since I went, the Orfalis have turned the old Orfali Bros into two separate restaurants and I can’t wait to go back.

 

Tresind Studio

 

This is the only Indian restaurant in the world with three Michelin stars and Himanshu Saini’s food is delicious and complex and yet, distinctively Indian.

 

   It only offers a set menu at two seatings a day and if you can get in, (it’s booked out till February so you have to depend on cancellations) then you must go for the experience of a lifetime.

 

Noma

 

The two most influential restaurants in the world are Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck in England and Rene Redzepi’s astonishing Noma in Copenhagen.

 

   I try and eat Redzepi’s food at least once a year because each meal is different. Redzepi’s set menus never repeat a single dish and despite the plethora of substandard imitators there is no such thing as a typical Noma dish. Redzepi approaches each menu as though he is starting from scratch and creates new dishes, invents new techniques and discovers new flavours.

 

Jordnaer

 

You may have seen Jordnaer’s charismatic chef Eric Vildgaard in the Apple TV show Knife Edge in which the Copenhagen restaurant finally gets the three Michelin stars it has long been expected to win.

 

   Most features about Eric focus on his youth as a gang member which is fair enough (and accurate) but what they miss is the starring role of his wife Tina who runs the front of the house and helped Eric turn his life around. Nor do they emphasise how warm and friendly the restaurant is and how lightly Eric and Tina wear their success focussing on customers rather than themselves. The food is super sophisticated but always delicious.

 

Amaya

 

Ranjit Mathrani, his wife Namita and her sister Camellia Panjabi run many successful Indian restaurants in London but though I have visited nearly all of them my favourite is Amaya a relaxed but refined place that focuses on Kababs but does it so effortlessly that it has nothing in common with most Kabab places.

 

   I went for a relaxed lunch and it struck me that in terms of ambience the Panjabi/ Mathranis had done for London Indian restaurants what the designer Enzo Apicella did for European restaurants in London in the late 1960s/ early 1970s; showed the world that a restaurant could be stylish and elegant without being formal or stuffy.

 

FZN

 

No restaurant in the world has ever sailed directly into the Michelin guide with three stars straight out so soon after opening.

 

   When I went I reckoned FZN would have to start with two stars and get three the following year. But Michelin broke with precedent and did the right thing straight away.

 

   FZN is the Dubai outpost of Bjorn Frantzen the Swedish chef who already had three stars for his Stockholm flagship and for Zen in Singapore.

 

"Gaggan is still standing. And triumphing: his Bangkok restaurant was voted Asia’s best and I reckon he will be high up on the World’s 50 Best when the list is announced."

   But FZN also had the added bonus of Torsten Vildgaard (brother of Jordnaer’s Eric who says proudly: “My brother is the best chef in the world”) who used to run his own Michelin star restaurant and was, for many years, the backbone of the Noma kitchen.

 

   With that kind of pedigree how could they possibly go wrong? FZN is one of the world’s best restaurants. And you can save on the airfare to Stockholm and just go to Dubai to experience the brilliant combination of Bjorn and Torsten.

 

   Or you can also enjoy Frantzen’s food at the more casual (and cheaper) but still wonderful Studio Frantzen next door.

 

Square One

 

I ate very well in Saigon so I guess I should be recommending a place for great pho. But the truth is that the best meal I had was at the Park Hyatt where I stayed at the Square One restaurant. And it wasn’t even Vietnamese. It was classic French.

 

   Arnaud Schuttrumpf is the chef and he cooks like the long lost son of Joel Robuchon adding his own twists to French classics, often using local ingredients ( snails, for instance).

 

   Hotels in that region don’t always attract the best European chefs so it was a surprise to eat so well in Saigon.

 

Gaggan

 

Nothing can keep Gaggan Anand down. A messy split with his partners, the pandemic lockdown that crippled his new restaurant, domestic dramas, a spat with rating organisations; all these have come and gone. But Gaggan is still standing. And triumphing: his Bangkok restaurant was voted Asia’s best and I reckon he will be high up on the World’s 50 Best when the list is announced.

 

   I have eaten his food so often now and yet each new menu has the power to surprise, startle and delight me. But I guess I should stop being surprised: the man is a visionary and a phenomenon without precedent.

 

Disfrutar

 

When Ferran Adria changed the rules of fine dining at El Bulli the world stood up and paid attention. But when Adria closed El Bulli we thought there would never be anything like it again.

 

   We were wrong.

 

   Three of El Bulli’s top chefs stuck out on their own. Eduard Xatruch Mateu Casañas and Oriol Castro opened Compartir a fairly traditional restaurant in their hometown before going for broke in Barcelona with Disfrutar which cooks the sort of food that El Bulli would be serving if it was still around.

 

   The cuisine is technically advanced but mouth-watering with dishes that linger in the memory. It was number one on the World’s 50 Best list and is still one of Spain’s two greatest restaurants.

 

   There is a Compartir in Barcelona too which is cheaper and easier to get into than Disfrutar and which also serves Disfrutar’s greatest hit: the panchino or caviar bun.

 

   Earlier this year Culinary Culture arranged for Oriol Castro to come to Delhi and conduct a Master Class. It was packed out with 22 of India’s best chefs and many others. What astonished me was how willing Oriol was to reveal Disfrutar’s secrets and explain its techniques. His job, he said, was to share knowledge and to take cuisine forward. Food was not about secrets. It was about learning and about joy.

 

Etxebarri

 

If you have ever been to Singapore’s Burnt Ends or Sydney’s Firedoor, both highly regarded restaurants, or eaten at any of the Michelin starred restaurants that claim to specialise in fire cooking here’s one name you need to know: Victor Arguinzoniz.

 

   He invented that style of cooking at a small restaurant in Spain where he still cooks every single dish on a wood fire. The steak is legendary but I loved everything on the menu from the prawns to the peas. These are flavours I had never tasted before.

 

   Etxebarri is run like a neighbourhood restaurant by the masterful Mohamed Benabdallah and it’s almost impossible to get into. I don’t know if I will ever get a table again but I long to go back. This is Spain’s other great restaurant alongside Disfrutar.

 

Due Camini

 

We were on holiday at the Borgo Egnazia resort in Puglia in Italy when they asked if we would like to try their restaurant. It was being renovated, they said, but the chef would cook for us in the kitchen. Sure, we said.

 

   So far so good.

 

   Then they threw in the catch. The chef was going to risk the restaurant’s Michelin star by going all vegetarian.

 

   I am a Gujarati so I have no problems with vegetarian food. Except that I can’t work up much enthusiasm for bland European vegetarian food. But it was too late to back out so we took our places in the kitchen.

 

   And I am glad that we did. The food was exceptional and so full of flavour that we didn’t miss meat at all.

 

   Since then the restaurant has formally opened in its all-veg avatar and the Michelin inspectors have been impressed enough to re-award a star to the restaurant.

 

Jamavar

 

There is only one Indian restaurant in the world that has Michelin stars in three different cities. Jamavar has stars in London, Doha and Dubai.

 

   I have never been to Doha but I like the London and Dubai outposts because Chef Surendra Mohan has the ability to extract deep and satisfying flavours from every day ingredients.

 

   When he works with luxury ingredients the results can be spectacular. His caviar-kulcha dish is extraordinary and the Pathar Kabab made with Japanese Wagyu is his signature dish.

 

Maison Dali

 

Tristin Farmer worked with Jason Atherton in Dubai before being tapped by Bjorn Frantzen to run Zen his Singapore restaurant. It was under Tristin that Zen won three Michelin stars.

 

   During his time in Singapore Tristin became fascinated by Japanese techniques and ingredients. So he became a true original: a classically trained Scottish chef working for a Swedish chef who cooked Japanese influenced food in Singapore.

 

   Tristin’s return to Dubai has been as unusual. Maison Dali has a brasserie-inspired menu but every single dish is complex and cooked to Michelin starred perfection.

 

   I love the restaurant because it combines Tristin’s food with old style table-side service (flambés etc.). It is both comforting and elegant.

 

Revolver

 

This is the sister restaurant to Maison Dali with which it shares a space. The design suggests an Indian Zuma but Chef Jitin Joshi’s food is far more creative and technically accomplished than the Zuma parallels would suggest.

 

   Revolver is an Indian restaurant and yet it isn’t. The influences are international and Joshi whose background includes working with French chefs, comes across as totally in control of his dishes and precise with his flavours.

 

   It gets to be packed and rocking late into the evening. But I like going early, sitting at the counter and watching the chefs at work.