(19 / 20) L’Arpège is the dining expression of Proust’s Madeleine moment. But it is also the manifestation of a memory that most of us never even had to start with – that of the taste of real food, cooked perfectly. It is the truest, most sincere demonstration of love in any food that I’ve come across at a fine dining restaurant.
(16.75 / 20) A relatively uninspiring menu in an extraordinarily over-the-top setting. The food is perfectly good, but overall lacks personality, and is disappointing for a two star – especially one that was once hoped to be Amsterdam’s first restaurant with 3 macarons. The vegetarian offering was simply not good enough, and we were left with the distinct feeling that the exorbitant cost of dinner went more towards the glamourous lighting and the luxurious carpet than what was actually on the plate. In fairness on previous visits it has been better, but Ciel Bleu needs to move with the times to keep up with the other top restaurants in town – and that will mean transforming more than just its dining room.
(17.75 / 20) Consistently delicious, beautifully constructed, and approachable cooking with a truly standout pastry section. When you want to relax in a beautiful, friendly setting, eat very well indeed, plus be quite certain that’s exactly what will happen, every single time you go… accept no substitute.
(17.5 / 20) Very satisfying, well presented food in a truly stunning location. Certainly not the most innovative cooking we’ve ever experienced, but very enjoyable nevertheless.
Thoughtful plates at reasonable rates. Thumbs up for this flexitarian hybrid which is just the right side of hipster.
The philosophy of writing restaurant reviews and a relative scale on which to judge a meal’s success
Loidi Kalea, 4 – 20160 Lasarte-Oria (Gipuzkoa) Tel. (+34) 943 366 471 info@martinberasategui.com 3 Michelin stars since 2001 29th best Restaurant in the world – Restaurant magazine 2008/11 1st Visit: Lunch Saturday 12th November 2016 (17.5/20) Slightly under-par performance from one of the world’s great chefs €€€€€ In the unremarkable town of Lasarte-Oria, about half an hour outside of San Sebastian, deep in Basque Country between northern Spain and France, stands the flagship and eponymous restaurant of one of the giants of modern Spanish cuisine. Once dubbed ‘the most famous chef you’ve never heard of’, Beratasegui may not be as well known as others internationally, but enjoys a status similar to Ferran Adria in his native Spain, where he quietly has built up a mini empire of fine dining. He currently holds 7 Michelin stars. The accolades started early in his career when, having returned to run his family’s restaurant after training to be a Pastry chef in France, he achieved his first macaron at the fresh age of 25. And whilst the doyen of modernist Spanish food …
Keizersgracht 384 1016 GB Amsterdam Tel +31(0)20 530 2010 1 Michelin star since 2009 Gault&Millau 18 7th Visit: 2nd Dinner at the Chef’s Table : Saturday 4th March 2017 (17.5/20) €€€€€ You can eat pretty well in my adopted town of Amsterdam… which is fortunate given eating is one of the few things I really excel at. Leaving your home to live somewhere new is never easy, and when food is as important to you as it is to me, leaving a city which has as world-class a food scene as London can be verging on terrifying. But I landed firmly on two feet here all those years ago; Amsterdam definitely knows how to eat well. I’ve actually been coming to The Dylan hotel for much longer than the 6 years I’ve been frequenting its flagship restaurant, given I often stayed here when I was in town on business travel. When we got married at the Museum van Loon a few blocks down the same canal, we spent our wedding night at The Dylan. So it’s …
(14/20) Overly extensive menu promises a lot and (expensively) delivers much less.
Seated in a boutique hotel towards the lower end of the once-painfully-hip-now-painfully-expensive Amsterdam neighbourhood of the Pijp, Izakaya serves up small plates of Japanese/South American fusion to tourists and (wealthy) locals, alongside cocktails and live DJs.
A review of the astonishingly good restaurant Kadeau in Copenhagen
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