THE DINING CLUB • June 2021
Five bucket-list restaurants by five leading chefs
It is a truth universally acknowledged that to find the best food you need only ask the best chefs. So to celebrate the re-opening of restaurants around the world – and the release of new Phaidon title Today’s Special: 20 Leading Chefs Choose 100 Emerging Chefs – The Club’s favourite culinary heavyweights share the restaurants (and chefs) to watch out for next…
Bright, London
Chosen by: Yotam Ottolenghi @ottolenghi
Two chefs cooking in tandem can be a tricky proposition but, when it works, disparate visions can coalesce into something truly original. Working in harmony, Giuseppe ‘Peppe’ Belvedere and William Gleave have burned Bright – the aptly named restaurant they co-helm – into the minds of London diners, synthesising their talents to create a dining experience that is at once timeless and of the moment. Gleave’s skill with sauces, from classical French offerings to complex Cantonese XO, is a highlight, as are Belvedere’s flawless pastas. Such strengths, taken together, make Bright one of London’s most versatile dining rooms – the kind of place one can visit every day of the week without repeating a meal.
Bucket list dish: Pheasant sopa de lima or the tagliatelle and chicken offal ragù.
Archipelago, Seattle
Chosen by: Marcus Samuelsson @MarcusCooks
In 2018, Washington State native Aaron Verzosa (pictured), along with his wife and partner, Amber Manuguid, opened Archipelago in Seattle’s Hillman City neighbourhood. With just eight seats, the restaurant is an intimate expression of the couple’s shared identity: they are both Filipino Americans raised in the Pacific Northwest, and they both see food as a way of navigating and expressing who they are. There are modernist techniques in play at Archipelago, but Verzosa’s ten-course tasting menus are rooted most deeply in Filipino flavours.
Bucket list dish: Anak ni bet with Alaskan spot prawn, wild mushrooms, Pacific Northwest bagoong and assorted squash.
Restaurant Mühltalhof, Austria
Chosen by: Ana Roš @anaros40
Philip Rachinger grew up at Mühltalhof, the acclaimed hotel and restaurant in Unternberg that has been in his family for generations. He became the head chef there in 2018. Considering his hereditary connection to the land and region, it makes perfect sense that Rachinger’s cuisine is a love letter to his environs. He grows herbs for the restaurant in the hotel garden, and has also cultivated relationships with the best farmers and producers nearby. Guests have the option to let Rachinger choose for them or to select their own menu, but the best way to enjoy the experience is to put oneself in the chef’s capable hands and submit to his vision.
Bucket list dish: Fillet of fish on a hot wood shingle or beetroot with saddle of hare and smoked cream.
Belon, Hong Kong
Chosen by: May Chow @littlebaomay
With the work ethic and integrity of a chef’s chef, and the laser precision to back it up, Daniel Calvert cooks spectacular, refined modern French food. A shining example of Thomas Keller’s class, he first left his native UK to become sous chef at Per Se in New York, and the lessons he learned there play out in his dovetailing of French and Asian cuisines at Belon in Hong Kong. As the sourdough loaves and Breton butter on the tables signal, Calvert strives to remind diners of the iconic foods and dynamic scene around the 11th arrondissement of Paris.
Bucket list dish: Salade Niçoise made with shima-aji (striped jack) whitefish or John Dory with clams and green olives, or the perfect mille-feuille.
La Gormanda Barcelona
Chosen by: Jose Andres @chefjoseandres
Carlota Claver (pictured) is the chef-proprietor of La Gormanda, a restaurant in Barcelona’s Eixample neighbourhood. At La Gormanda, Claver serves up contemporary Catalan cuisine – an internationally inspired medley with traditional roots. Playfulness is prevalent at La Gormanda, where Claver’s innovations include stuffing traditional olla de carne into gyozas, pumpkin in pine-nut carbonara and lobster chickpeas. In other words, she marches to the beat of her own culinary drum. Her food is at once referential to and reverential of her Catalan roots and yet utterly free of the constraints associated with them.
Bucket list dish: Partridge cooked two ways with chestnut ajo blanco or the octopus bomba.
Today’s Special: 20 Leading Chefs Choose 100 Emerging Chefs is out now (£39.95, Phaidon)
Photograph of Belon, Hong Kong courtesy of Black Sheep Restaurants; Marcus Samuelsson photographed by Matt Dutile; Carlota Claver photographed by Beatriz Janer; Ana Roš photographed by Suzan Gabrijan; Aaron Verzosa photographed by Rene Asis; Bright, London photographed by Joe Woodhouse
This article has been tagged Food + Drink, Destination
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