My Wish List

With so many great restaurants out there waiting to be tried, I have selected a few which are at the top of my list .   Hopefully I will get to try some of them!

My first choice would be Alain Passard’s L’Arpege in Paris.  This is a Michelin 3 star vegetable  (but not an all vegetarian) restaurant, with most of the produce grown in gardens directly under the chef’s supervision, using horses to do the ploughing so as not to overdisturb the soil… He also serves many edible flowers in his dishes  – one of the signature desserts is a Rose petal tart – and each table is decorated with a different composition of vegetables and flowers.

L’Arpege, 84 rue de Varenne, Paris 75007, France

Telephone : 33 1 47 05 09 06

Next comes  the 2 Michelin stars L’Alqueria,  which is located in the hotel Hacienda Benazuza, a luxury hotel a few miles south of Seville,  and is the second of Ferran Adria’s restaurants.  We spent more than 5 years trying in vain to get a reservation at El Bulli in Roses,  but then it closed in July 2011, and after renovations will become a Culinary Academy.  So nothing remains but to try and make it back to Seville  –  last time we were there we didn’t even know about L’Alqueria!  The cuisine is apparently in the same style as at El Bulli so not everyone’s cup of tea if you’re not into molecular cuisine….. But I would still like to try it!

L’Alqueria, Hacienda Benazuza, Virgen de la Nieves, 41800 Sanlucar la Mayor, Andalucia, Spain.

Tel :34 955 703 344

Heston Blumenthal is the chef at The Fat Duck in Bray, England and a strong competitor of Ferran Adria’s.  The Michelin 3 star restaurant is famous for its 4 hour long tasting menu (at a cost of £180 per person) so not to be undertaken lightly! The accent is on the senses:  visual impressions, taste and smell, as well as the use of innovative  culinary techniques,  and one of the chef’s aims is “to bring a sense of theatre to the dining experience”.

The Fat Duck, High Street, Bray, SL6 2AQ, England

Telephone:  00 44 1628 580333

On to Copenhagen, Denmark, and Noma which has been acclaimed the World’s Best Restaurant for the past two years. Here the food is totally Nordic,  locally gathered (literally) and sourced in the Scandinavian countries,  to include berries, herbs, cereal grains, and inevitably halibut.   Rocks, shells and twigs are used as serving pieces.   The chef, Rene Redzepi, is particularly interested in exploring the use of buttermilk and whey in his cooking,  smokes and cures all his own meat and ham and also makes his own beer, vinegars and fruit juices which he uses in his sauces.    Vegetables, and particularly root vegetables,  are omnipresent on the menu and there is a strong accent on preserving the heritage of Nordic cooking in all its forms,  with the emphasis on old techniques and natural ingredients.

Apparently getting a reservation is very difficult, so the trip has to be planned in advance.

Noma, Strandgade 93, 1401 Copenhagen, Denmark

Telephone:  45 32 96 32 97