About the Author William Herbert
A long-standing love for travel and food
I have loved travelling and eating well for more than twenty-five years, and over time the meals became part of how I remember places. When I travel I am usually looking for a good meal, and it does not need to come from a famous kitchen. Sometimes it is very simple: a turbot grilled over charcoal outside a restaurant in a small Basque fishing village, or getting up at six in Hakodate for the sea urchin from the islands off Hokkaido that you only get in summer, or driving down to Zahara de los Atunes during the almadraba to eat tuna when it is at its best.
It goes back a long way. I was maybe fourteen when an uncle who worked abroad came home from a trip to Lyon. A business partner had taken him to Paul Bocuse, and the way he described that dinner stayed with me for years. It was the first time I understood that French haute cuisine might be worth going out of my way for.
An Austrian abroad with a global perspective
I am Austrian, but I have lived abroad for a long time and my work is international. It still sends me around the world, and by now I have been to more than sixty countries. The places tend to blur after a while, but the meals stay clear.
Over the years I have eaten at more than fifty different three Michelin star restaurants, well over a hundred three star meals in all, plus hundreds more at one and two star level. I don't list these numbers to impress anyone. They are partly just a function of getting older, but they are also the reason I feel able to write the way I do, and they give the FDJ Score something to measure against.
I would not call myself an expert. I have just paid close attention, for a long time, to what makes a meal memorable.
Why I started writing
Friends and colleagues have asked me for restaurant and hotel recommendations for as long as I can remember. At some point it made sense to write these things down, partly so I would not forget them, and partly because a meal changes when you think about it afterwards. You eat more consciously the next time, and you notice more of what a chef is trying to do.
Everything here comes from my own visits and my own notes.
Context, not competition
I don't believe in simple rankings. Cooking at this level is too varied for a table. The FDJ Score is a consistent point of reference rather than a league table, based on more than fifty visits to three star restaurants around the world, and it shows where a meal sits in ambition and execution. Honesty matters to me, and so does respect for the work behind every dish.
Eating with others, and sometimes alone
Most of the time I eat with friends or family, and those meals become shared memories. When I travel alone for work, I still look for the best table I can find and go on my own.
Eating alone changes the experience. You notice more and follow the rhythm of a dining room more closely, and the food itself becomes clearer.
Photography and discretion
Every photograph on the site is mine. I like carrying a Leica M when I travel, but at the table I usually use an iPhone, which is quieter and less intrusive. I don't try to make the dishes look dramatic. I show them as they were.
Writing under a quiet name
I write as William Herbert because I prefer to keep this journal separate from my working life. A little distance makes the writing easier. I live in Europe and travel widely across it, but I go back to Asia whenever I can, especially Japan. The calm there and the care taken with food still shape how I look at dining everywhere else.
Why I keep writing
There is a reason behind this beyond habit. I used to go somewhere remarkable, eat, enjoy the evening, and then more or less let it go. At the three star level that felt like a waste. These restaurants are worth thinking about again after the evening is over, and writing about a visit is how I hold onto it and work out why it mattered. So I write a report after every visit.
At some point, past my fortieth three star restaurant, I decided I wanted to visit all of them, every three star restaurant in the world. I don't know if I will manage it, and the list keeps changing. But I want to document the ones I reach. In a project like this the point is really the journey, not the finish.
The Fine Dining Journal is a private, non-commercial site. I pay for my meals and book my own tables, and I come as an ordinary guest.
Some of the meals I write about were elaborate and some very simple, but each one meant something at the time, and writing them down is how I understand why.
For an overview of my three-Michelin-star visits, see this page.