r/finedining

The second meal on my trip to Warwickshire l. The Cross at Kenilworth is owned by the same person who used to own Simpsons in Birmingham before it closed (in fact, Simpsons used to be in Kenilworth before they moved to Birmingham)

They have had a star for a number of years now, and it shows. Polished service, good food without anything blowing you away. The type of Michelin star restaurant you'd go to celebrate graduating or with family for a birthday I reckon

Tasting menu cost £125 per person, plus £15 for the cheese course

Snacks

Cheese croquettes with smoked mayonnaise and gooseberry puree

Warm and cheesy, nice subtle smoke on the mayo, sharp zing from the gooseberry

Bread

Sourdough with homemade salted butter

Fairly standard bread and butter, nice but nothing to write home about

Course 1

Tomato salad with pine nuts and goats cheese

Good quality tomatoes, added herb dressing and goats cheese. A lovely summer start to the meal

Course 2

Smoked salmon roulade, fromage blanc, fennel salad

Lightly smoked salmon, not too overpowering. Worked well with the crisp fennel, again quite subtle. Grapefruit cut through and the fromage blanc was nice to see being used

Course 3

Ham hock and chicken terrine, quail egg, mustard dressing, celeriac remoulade

Really well made terrine, great flavour from the ham hock. Dressing added bite, and remoulade texture and additional depth of flavour. Lovely dish, right up my street

Course 4

Stone bass, saffron orzo, lobster sauce

Bass cooked nicely, orzo worked well, as did the courgettes. Star is the lobster sauce, packed full of flavour. The stand out dish for me

Course 5

Duck, fondant potatoes, beetroot, cherry puree, duck and white pepper jus

Beautifully cooked duck breast, beetroot and cherry both worked well. The white pepper in the jus elevated it and left a nice lightly spiced finish

Course 6

Raspberry sorbet, raspberry sable, white chocolate cream, fresh raspberries

Almost Eton Mess like, with the cream, fruit and meringue elements. The sorbet was nice and sharp. A really tasty, summer dessert

After our trip concluded, my travel partners and I sat together to discuss our favorite experiences in Japan. As we discussed all of the different things we experienced, from exploring historical sites to hiking through islands and mountains, we all agreed that shiro was our number one highlight of the trip.

Service
shiro is exceptionally small, limited to 8 countertop seats. The setting is intimate with Chef Takenaka interacting with everyone, including us despite the language barrier. The intimacy of the setting alongside the view of Chef Takenaka and his team putting together each course made the whole experience magical. shiro also had my favorite interior of the many restaurants I went to in Japan, with a sleek, minimalist and contemporary look. It was an overwhelmingly welcoming and relaxing experience.

Food
shiro’s 10-course tasting menu starts at JPY18,000 with a tea and/or wine pairing available at JPY26,000. I went for the tea pairing. Though the reservation specified 10 courses, the menu had 11. An additional two secret courses not included on the menu were also served, bringing the count to 13 courses. The lunch took almost 2 hours 45 minutes from start to finish.

There were no misses. From start to finish, each course was refreshing, innovative and a joy to eat. I can still feel the textures and flavors on my tongue due to how distinct everything was. One of the things I genuinely appreciated about shiro was that the creativity did not compromise on taste, with everything being absolutely to die for.

To be honest, it’s hard to pick a few select highlights from the menu since I found the whole experience to be faultless. But I will try to narrow down my favorite courses.

Some of the highlights of the menu for us were:

1. Oyster Icecream: Japanese Rock Oyster/Lemon Jelly/ Wow. The very first course woke us all up. Each bite was electric, the textures of the sour lemon jelly simply divine alongside the savory Oyster Icecream. It was the perfect way to wake our senses up and freshen us after a long humid day.
2. Tempura: American Prosciutto/Conger Eel/ Textural beauty. With the prosciutto layered on top of a crispy tempura, the combination is to die for. The heat and the crispiness of the tempura accompanied by the cold cut meat made it an absolutely perfect bite.
3. Secret Mackerel Course: Horse Mackerel Sashimi/ Chef Takenaka announced to all of the guests that they had fresh mackerel come in the morning so they decided to serve a secret course of Mackerel sashimi. Over our trip we had quite a few sashimi courses, all excellent. But the one at shiro still lives in my heart. It was unparalleled in how fresh it felt. Exceptional.
4. Banana Dessert: Spiced & Camaralized Banana/Zabaglioni/Bourbon Gelato/Cacao Chips/ Winning the prize for my new favorite dessert. Banana and chocolate are tried and tested combinations but the indulgence of the boozy gelato, the kick of spice in the banana, and the crunchiness of the chips, it all came together into a beautiful crescendo that served as the perfect send-off.

Final Thoughts

shiro is excellent. As Chef Takenaka bid us good bye and walked us to the exit, I told him that shiro deserved more than 1 star and I meant it. Through all of my fine dining experience to date, shiro is my favorite one and I will be revisiting Kyoto specifically to visit this restaurant again. Chef Takenaka deserves a lot of success for what he’s achieved with shiro and I hope that next time it’s a bit harder for me to get a reservation because of their popularity.

I just finished Unreasonable Hospitality. As someone who's retirement goal is to open a concept in Brasov Transylvania it was inspiring. Just a great (audiobook) read. Looking for other similar book recommendations.

Simply superb

TL;DR (extremely lengthy review / recap below this for anyone interested): Azurmendi is simply impressive on nearly all levels. There were a few misses and hiccups throughout, but I found these pretty easy to overlook when I considered the experience as a whole, the sheer amount of different bites and dishes, and how much fun I had.

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Entrance / “Welcome Picnic”

The space speaks for itself from the moment you walk in - the meal starts in this indoor greeting area with high vaulted glass ceilings and is lined with greenery. It’s particularly beautiful during the day as the light shines down on the trees and these wooden tables where groups intimately circle around the picnic basket opening course. It almost did feel like an escape to being in a park having a picnic with loved ones, but the fancy glasses of sparkling wine and intricate tweezer work on the bites that followed definitely served as reminders that you were in fact at a three star fine dining restaurant.

The picnic basket consisted of (i) a mushroom roll filled with beef tartare and a rich, melted butter and topped with caviar, (ii) a pintxo with shrimp, egg, and anchovies, (iii) a hollowed lime filled with a foie gras mousse, lemongrass, and topped with carrot flowers, and (iv) a marianito drink that is like a take on a negroni but made with tequila in this case.

The foie gras mousse was the clear star here - creamy, bright with the citrus, and a sweetness that just brings a smile to your face. It’s a playful and brilliant take on familiar ingredients that reminded me of one of my favorite courses ever - a foie gras creme brulee at L’Abeille in NYC. I was actually most excited for the shrimp and egg bite hoping for a unique take on a familiar pintxo, but it wasn’t all that different from many similar bites I had in San Sebastian. The beef tartare bite had a nice light smokiness but would’ve preferred if the mushroom flavor came through more strongly. The marianito was just a fresh, nice closer to the basket. The picnic may have leaned a bit more style over substance in my opinion, but I was already having a blast.

“The Kitchen Table”

Following this course, they lead you into the kitchen, where the whole kitchen staff greets you in unison as you enter. Definitely a bit over-the-top but also made me chuckle and made sense when you watch how all the chefs operate in the kitchen. The whole kitchen comes across as a well-oiled machine, with tons of chefs all meticulous in their stations and movements. The chefs were actually so loud in their unified responses to orders that it did make it a bit hard to hear the presentation of the course we ate in the kitchen - the “tomato” course.

This started with a tomato cracker sandwich with a freezing tomato ice-cream like filling, which was fun temperature-wise but a bit bland flavor-wise. Next was a tomato tartlet that was unbelievably crisp and packed such an awesome assortment of tomato flavors and textures. The tart had a great snap to it, and I’m still wondering how they got such deep tomato flavor in such a small bite. This was followed by a bloody mary-like juice and a tomato water gelee that were more interesting in texture and temperature than flavor.

“The Garden”

For the next part of the journey, we were led to a new room that I found to be the most memorable space yet. The room was really naturally bright from the tall windows, and everything about the room just exuded warmth - the hand-crafted yellow paper flowers that filled the space to make it look like a garden, the wood chips neatly arranged in the center of the room, and of course, the next few bites that were all warm yellow and brown colors and scattered around the room on various oddly shaped wooden structures that resembled tree stumps.

We started with a delicious apple cider-like beverage, followed by an “ice cream cone” that I believe was sweet potato and pumpkin. The next two bites kept with this whimsical energy, as one looked like a sugared filled donut, but it was actually a savory white asparagus cream in the middle, and then there was a bite that looked like a bon bon in the center of an intricate yellow flower, and it just exploded with passion fruit flavor. The whole room just felt like a childhood happy dream.

“Viewpoint” - Seafood Openers

We were then led to our table in the dining room for the more fulsome courses. This started with the “seafood platter” that was really several more small bites.

First was a preparation of small pieces of squid with caramelized onions, which surprisingly did not overpower the delicate squid and was a great combination.

Then, we had this crisp with anchovies and a sardine emulsion. I was worried about this having a metallic taste as I struggle with anchovies and sardines sometimes, but this felt nicely balanced, not overly oily, and was simply delicious.

The clam was next in this progression, and it was just buttery perfection. Tasted like it had notes of honey and lemon, and can say with certainty it was the best clam I’ve ever had. I wish they gave me 10 more.

Then, there was nori filled with salmon roe. The crisp on the seaweed was nice, but this was just far too salty for me and I couldn’t enjoy it.

This course ended with a drink that was a take on txakoli (a sparkling Basque white wine) with a blue spirulina foam that turns the drink blue.

The next course had two components - (i) a bluefin tuna tartare in a mushroom tart with Spanish green peppers and (ii) a fishermen’s stew. The stew had a nice fishy flavor from the bonito, and the potatoes in it reminded me of a New England clam chowder. The tuna tartare tasted really fresh, but I didn’t find it particularly special.

“Viewpoint” - Heavier Courses

The following course was one of my favorites: a “sea granita” with these colossal oysters and fifteen kinds of seaweed. There was so much depth of flavor in the granita alone, and when you got a spoonful with all the juices at the bottom of the dish, it was just perfect. The dish made my mouth pucker from how intensely cold it was but not in a dissatisfying way. It was more in a make you laugh out of happy shock kinda way, and then the array of briny sea flavors brought it all back home. One of the best oyster dishes I’ve ever had - whereas Per Se’s oysters and pearls is an oyster dish of creamy decadence at its best, this one almost felt like the opposite as an oyster dish of cold, refreshing sea flavors at their best.

For the next two courses, I got two different dishes than my two friends I was dining with due to my allergies. My friends were served a shrimp dish with an emulsion of the shrimp heads and a spider crab dish with sea crisps and olives. Unfortunately, neither of them enjoyed these two courses. Fortunately, I was blown away by mine (as were they when I gave them a few bites of each). My dishes were each vegetable dishes, starting with several variations of beets - beet tartare with beet powder topped with beet sorbet. This dish showed again how good the chefs here are at playing with different temperatures and textures. The tartare was so finely chopped yet felt so meaty, and the cold sorbet just countered it so well.

Then came the mushroom noodles in a garlic mushroom emulsion with mushroom butter. I took one bite, laughed, and let out an audible “f*ck” before I could stop myself. How did they roll the mushroom noodles up so beautifully? How did they make umami on umami on umami taste refined? Was it fair game to slurp mushroom noodles in this establishment the way that I was? Doesn’t matter, I scarfed it all down.

I didn’t love the following course, which consisted of confit leek slices with onion-braised cod and pil pil sauce. Leeks are one of my favorite vegetables, but everything about this dish felt a bit boring.

The next few courses got them right back on track and made for one of my favorite three course progressions in a menu I’ve ever had.

First - a charcoal grilled red pepper and its juice fermented in a Spanish sausage paste and topped with caviar. I used to make fun of my dad for eating these meat stuffed cabbages with peppers growing up because I thought they looked gross until I tried them and realized how warm and comforting the dish tasted. This dish took me right back home and captured the hominess of those stuffed cabbages but then leveled them up tenfold.

Second - another replacement course for me due to allergies where I got hake in a broth of legumes including chickpeas and an orange foam. This was so buttery, the fish just melted, and the orange notes were so wonderful to the point I wish there was even more citrus to counter the butteriness of the fish, but this is me nitpicking. This course was a replacement for a lobster course that seemed similarly prepared. This time, my friends said it was close when they tried mine, but they preferred their lobster course (I’m going to choose not to believe them based on how good mine was).

Third - the course of the night, which was the Iberian pork castañeta (the staff waited to see our reactions of how much we liked it before revealing these were the salivary glands of a pig) stewed, fried in a tempura-like batter, glazed on duxelles, and topped with black truffle. This was accompanied by blackcurrant, black pudding, and some other purees and emulsions. Undebatably one of the best courses I’ve ever had. The way the plate was set up reminded me of having banchan in Korean meals where you’re surrounded with a bunch of components and can keep creating new combinations. This had elements of comfort food and elements of luxury, and together, it just blew my mind.

The last savory bite was a chocolate covered partridge bon bon. It was as confusing as it sounds at first and then much more delicious than it was confusing as the flavor developed. This gaminess sits with you for a bit and it’s really fun to debate if it’s more disgusting or genius.

Desserts

The desserts here were a bit of a mixed bag, and I was frankly pretty stuffed at this point. I almost wish it ended at the chocolate covered partridge bite because of how polarizing and provocative that would be, but I know you can’t leave a tasting menu without letting them show off some sweets. Dessert started with this chocolate cone with a honey ice cream surrounded by flowers. This was solid but this dessert that they served after was like a take on a creme brulee and blew that dessert and all the other desserts out of the water. The pistachio and citrus dessert that followed wasn’t bad by any means, but I often don’t love very nutty desserts, and the citrus was muted here. The last dessert was this strawberry and rose dessert where they created some fruit roll up like component from rose water. This was by far the worst course of the night, and I couldn’t get past a few bites as it tasted borderline soapy and then that flavor would just sit on your tongue due to the fruit roll up like texture. Thankfully the bon bons came shortly thereafter.

Closing Thoughts

Despite the rougher finish in desserts, this meal consisted of 30+ bites / courses, very few of which missed the mark. It’s not often you have a meal where some bites make you laugh of joy, some bites make you feel like a kid again, and some bites just make your eyes roll back into your head out of sheer pleasure and brilliance. By no means was this the best meal of my life, but it’s hard not to have fun here. I have absolutely no regrets making the journey here and would recommend it heartily.

Enjoyed an excellent lunch at Poetry Wine! The meal started with a complimentary cut peach. It was fine. I ordered three savory dishes: crispy hairtail fish, braised fish head with youtiao, and half a Peking duck. First and foremost: the braised fish head was absolutely delicious. Perfectly textured, moist fish meat braised in a lightly spicy and super savory sauce alongside fluffy and crispy but not greasy savory doughnuts made for a whole meal in and of itself. I wanted to eat the whole thing myself. As a main, this could easily feed three to four people and for a very reasonable price (about 320 rmb). The hairtail was good but forgettable: very crispy with a sticky sweet sauce that was fine but wouldn’t buy again. The duck, however, was a star. Impeccable flavor with juicy meat and crispy skin, this was a top three Peking duck I’ve ever had. It was also well priced at 200 rmb for half a duck and 300 rmb for a full duck. Prices aside, the flavor of the braised fish head and the duck were outstanding. This restaurant definitely deserves its Michelin star and is a worthy stop when in Beijing.

One Michelin Star, 150€ (+105€ for the wine Pairing).

Very delicious; very friendly staff. The rooms are a bit tight and loud and I would have appreciated a bit more diversity in the tableware. Nevertheless a wonderful evening.

La Cime is a 2 Michelin starred restaurant in Osaka. At the time of writing, it is ranked as the 44th best restaurant in the world, a list which I have been to 43 of.

Unfortunately, you would struggle to convince me that La Cime is the 44th best restaurant in Osaka.

Let’s lead with the decor. The venue is painted completely black, and the dining room is made up of black tablecloths etc. There is no additional decor so you feel like you’re in a 14-year-old goth's idea of a fine dining restaurant.

Service is fine, but extraordinarily scripted. Every time I have a question about the food, my waiter (and there is only one waiter) just goes back to the start of how he introduced the dish, and he simply does not know the answer to anything other than that, which is frustrating at best.

And so the food. Let’s get one thing clear - the food at La Cime looks stunning. It’s artistic, it’s plated well, there’s good use of colour and whimsy. Unfortunately it ranges from bland to downright unpleasant. Most dishes taste of very little. The piece of meat on the lamb main isn’t seasoned whatsoever. A scallop crepe has a beautiful texture but a sauce accompanies it that simply tastes of melted butter. On the worse side, bread is served, funnily enough, without butter, which is a bizarre choice. One of the appetisers resembles a piece of grass and tastes exactly like it too. 

There is one glimmer of hope - there is a small bowl of nuts and red wine jelly in the dessert that is phenomenal - the taste of it could sit in any three star restaurant.

But perhaps my most damning indictment, then, of La Cime is that it’s been ten days since I went and I cannot remember anything else about any of the pictures of this food. This was a boozeless lunch. My wits were truly about me. Baffled by this one’s popularity, gang.

I guess I should’ve known going into Under that you’re paying as much for the experience as you are for the food, but I still didn’t expect to find the meal itself this underwhelming.

The philosophy behind the restaurant is admirable. They place a huge emphasis on getting as close to zero waste as possible and sourcing ingredients from the surrounding area – something that came up throughout the meal. I genuinely appreciate that level of dedication and thought behind where the food comes from.

Where it fell short for me was what happened to those ingredients once they reached the plate. For a restaurant so focused on its produce, it felt like the cooking was doing the ingredients a disservice. A lot of the dishes came with heavy sauces that seemed to cover rather than highlight what was underneath.

The menu also didn’t feel particularly cohesive. The run of halibut, cod, and monkfish towards the latter half started to feel repetitive, particularly with how rich some of the preparations were. By that point, the cumulative heaviness was starting to wear me down. The lamb earlier in the meal also felt quite… random to me within the progression of the menu.

By the end, despite there being nothing I outright disliked, I realised there wasn’t really a dish I found particularly memorable either. I understood the restaurant’s philosophy very clearly, but had a harder time understanding its culinary POV.

I also opted for the non-alcoholic pairing, which I usually get whenever it’s offered because I love seeing how far they can push beverages when so much is being made from scratch. Unfortunately, this one was overwhelmingly sweet for me. What I kept wanting was acidity to cut through the richness of the food. Some drinks were described as having acidic or carbonated elements, but neither really came through strongly enough for my palate.

It probably didn’t help that I had the non-alcoholic pairing at Maaemo a few days later. There were some similar ingredients being used across the two, so it was hard not to compare how differently they were handled. Maaemo’s pairing had much more of the balance and acidity I had been missing here.

All that said, Under is undeniably an experience. Getting out to a tiny town on the southern coast of Norway and then having dinner 5m below the sea is something I’m very glad I got to do, and the setting is every bit as memorable as you’d imagine!

I also stayed at the affiliated(?) hotel down the road and for the price and positioning I kinda expected more. The room was very bare and had no air-conditioning, and the small inward-facing window didn’t offer much ventilation. Norway was still relatively cool even in summer, but the room itself felt very still.

Tldr; I just wish the food had left as strong an impression as everything surrounding it.

Curious if anyone else who’s been had a similar experience, or if the food landed differently for you!

Menu
Turnip, mussel, peas
Langoustine claw, pastry
Lamb, blackcurrant, mustard
Mackerel, strawberry, rose hip, rye
Scallop, pear, XO
Halibut, pointed cabbage, gooseberries, elderflower
Sourdough, Jersey butter
Cod, shallot, tarragon
Monkfish, summer vegetables, celery
Blueberry, dulce, beet
Rhubarb, mascarpone, elderflower
Pineapple weed, koji, blackberry

Non-alcoholic pairing
Sparkling rhubarb, pineapple weed
Cucumber, red gooseberry, rose hip
Plum, oak
Sparkling gooseberry, elderflower
Apple, smoked juniper
Honey, meadowsweet
Rhubarb, elderflower, whey