Independent notes on fine dining, Michelin restaurants, travel and the culture of hospitality.
Aponiente’s 2026 season brings Ángel León’s marine cuisine closer to its source. Part of the meal now unfolds in the marshes, where water, light, fish, and landscape become inseparable from one of the world’s most distinctive fine dining experiences.
At twenty years, Mirazur is not looking back. A collaborative menu by Mauro Colagreco and Ferran Adrià unfolds as a thoughtful sequence of ideas, where cuisine, service, and setting merge into a precise and evolving experience above the Mediterranean.
Paris has one of the highest concentrations of Michelin three-star restaurants in the world. With my recent visit to Kei, I have now dined at eight of the ten in the city. This comparison draws on more than fifty three-star restaurants I have visited worldwide, with Kei as the latest addition.
Waitlist luck led to one of my finest three-star dinners at Plénitude, Cheval Blanc Paris. Donckele’s sauce-led Symphonie showed absolute control, from a perfect scallop to precise, warm service.
A ranked guide to Barcelona’s 3-Michelin-star restaurants: Disfrutar, Hermanos Torres, Lasarte and ABaC. Based on multiple visits at each and 50 visits to different three-star restaurants worldwide, with highlights and booking tips for 2025.
Aponiente’s 2026 season brings Ángel León’s marine cuisine closer to its source. Part of the meal now unfolds in the marshes, where water, light, fish, and landscape become inseparable from one of the world’s most distinctive fine dining experiences.
At twenty years, Mirazur is not looking back. A collaborative menu by Mauro Colagreco and Ferran Adrià unfolds as a thoughtful sequence of ideas, where cuisine, service, and setting merge into a precise and evolving experience above the Mediterranean.
At Le Louis XV in Monaco, Alain Ducasse’s classical Mediterranean luxury feels composed and precise. A grand old-school restaurant, with exceptional John Dory, remarkable lamb, and service of rare confidence.
At La Chèvre d’Or in Èze, Tom Meyer gives the legendary two-Michelin-star Riviera restaurant a clearer, lighter voice through Mediterranean cooking, Chardonnay, and one of France’s great dining-room views.
Kei Kobayashi’s 3 Michelin star tasting menu delivers French haute cuisine with Japanese precision, from the signature “vegetable garden” to perfect blue lobster and Gunma wagyu, in a discreet dining room with calm, professional service.
Paris has one of the highest concentrations of Michelin three-star restaurants in the world. With my recent visit to Kei, I have now dined at eight of the ten in the city. This comparison draws on more than fifty three-star restaurants I have visited worldwide, with Kei as the latest addition.
At Vienna’s most difficult reservation, the two-star Mraz & Sohn pairs a €188,88 tasting menu with a come-as-you-are mood. A trolley of ingredients and “Wiener Schnitzel immer aus” set the tone: very good, witty cooking, looser plating, and hospitality that favors fun over reverence.
With Shiki Omakase, Vienna gains an intimate sushi counter dedicated to Japanese-style omakase. A thoughtful, chef-led experience that balances authenticity, ambition, and the realities of sourcing exceptional fish in a landlocked city.
December suits Seville: streets lit with Christmas lights, nativity scenes in courtyards, chestnut smoke on the air, orange trees heavy with fruit. In that glow, Cañabota’s Michelin-starred seafood counter offers a focused, fire-led meal and the city’s most convincing reservation.
Smoked Room Madrid is Dani García’s fire-first omakase: smoke as structure, not show. Despite the name, it isn’t a Japanese restaurant but modern Spanish cooking with Andalusian heart and a few quiet Japanese touches.
Waitlist luck led to one of my finest three-star dinners at Plénitude, Cheval Blanc Paris. Donckele’s sauce-led Symphonie showed absolute control, from a perfect scallop to precise, warm service.
A midday visit to L’Ambroisie: precise, classical cooking under Shintaro Awa, with a legendary langoustine feuillantine and the quiet formality of Place des Vosges.
