GIST – Antwerp (B)
L’Epicerie du Cirque – Antwerp (B)
Le Pigeon Noir – Uccle (B) 1*
La Distellerie – Bourglinster (L) 1*
Cathy Goedert – Baked in Luxembourg- Luxembourg (L)
Launceston Place- London (UK) 1*
Dinner by Heston- London (UK) 2*
UMU- London (UK) 1*
This should be fun… 🙂
So, my culinary year 2014 slowly comes to an end… I invite you to take a look over my shoulder to what has made this year another excellent culinary millésimé…
Without any doubt, this was for me, the year of three great chefs that really reached the level of world class, exceptional cooking… In London, Brett Graham is cooking at his best level ever. Indeed, in the previous years, one or the other inconsistency had kept him away from that top level, but nothing like that this year. The meals we had at The Ledbury were precise, balanced and just f*ing perfect. In Belgium I really feel that Sang Hoon Degeimbre has found his bearings in his beautiful new location in Liernu. What I really love about his restaurant, l’Air du Temps is it’s unique combination of top level vegetable oriented cooking combined with the Korean influences that are perfectly mastered. Sanghoon’s foodpairing driven cooking style offered us our best dinner experience of the year… Of course, someone I certainly have to include here is Filip Claeys of De Jonkman in Bruges (B), Gault Millau made an excellent choice by awarding him the title of Chef of the Year 2015 for Belgium. Not only does he works pure magic with fish, he’s also a passionate defender and promotor of sustainable fishing through Northsea Chefs and Vissers.
It was also the year of the new chefs that…well…are actually not so new, so let’s speak about (relatively) new restaurants instead…David Toutain in Paris, bringing us his creations in his very own personal style, expressing his love for vegetables, without doubt shaped by his time at Alain Passard’s Arpège and his love for travelling, discovering cuisines all over the world and absorbing all those influences to translate them into his own dishes and of course, Mickael Jonsson at Hedone, London, a man with a passion for ingredients and precise cooking techniques second to only very few…so impressive that I visited him 4 times this year.
I have to admit that except for La Vie in Osnabruck, I did not have a clue about the earthmoving changes that took place in Germany over the last decade(s). This year brought me to some truly inspiring places. Chris Bau’s Schlossberg where I discovered a cooking style excelling in precision and search for perfection, inspired and influenced by Japan. A great chef, a dynamic wife in charge of Front of House and one hell of a sommelier….just wow…. I also had the pleasure of staying at the exceptional Traube Tonbach hotel, blessed with the institute of all culinary institutes in Germany, Harald Wohlfahrt’s Schwarzwaldstube… Always great to see how an experienced, much acclaimed chef as Harald manages to stay true to his cooking principles and philosophy without giving the impression of becoming outdated or oldfashioned. In the contrary…the plates he brings are more alive and kicking than ever!
After many years of ‘Facebook friendship’ this year also brought a long awaited visit to Edwin and Blanche Vinke’s Kromme Watergang in Hoofdplaat (NL). No nonsense approach, proud of their origins, in love with the local ingredients… great people…a solid and strong team .A superb meal and a fabulous stay in one of their suites with breathtaking views on the river Schelde delta…Edwin also made it possible for me to experience the Knuthenlund Native Cooking Award in Denmark…a fascinating cooking contest that gave me some unique insights into the way chefs work and into how their training and years of experience allows them to create incredible dishes with only very few resources. Being back in Denmark allowed me to discover another young talent who impersonates the Scandinavian cooking philosophy in the best possible way, Nicolai Norregaard at Kadeau…
Summer and autumn also brought some visits to Bruges. Discovering the new location of Hertog Jan was quite spectacular. I can’t wait to go back in 2015 to see how chef Gert will have settled in after this first very promising visit. Geert Vanhecke at De Karmeliet showed why there was no reason at all to even think about taking away his 3rd *… Bruges is still a favorite destination for me, with restaurants like Rock-Fort, Sans Cravate, Zeno and….the discovery for me of this year in Bruges, BRUUT.
Finally, I discovered that there is hope for Luxembourg! Cyril Molard at Ma Langue Sourit in Moutfort surprised me by delivering a meal that was a very worthy of a 2* restaurant in Paris or London…so we might be seeing a 2* in Luxembourg again soon…In 2015 I will certainly visit other Luxembourgish chefs but also restaurants around Luxembourg…and certainly a second visit to the very promising La Grappe d’Or in Torgny of chef Clément Petitjean.
Thank you to all these chefs and to all the other chefs I had the pleasure to visit this year. Thank you for your hospitality, for your warm welcome, for your passion, dedication and hard work, day after day to offer us, your clients an unforgettable experience!
Nice little movie about the fantastic Native Cooking Award held at Knuthenlund, the largest organic farm in Denmark this summer….This was a spectacular experience…Again congratulations to all the participating chefs for a truly impressive performance…cooking with the ingredients found on the farm’s premises, prepared in what can be best described as a camping kitchen…creativity, dedication and most of all an incredible passion for cooking is what we saw during these two days in September….It was fantastic to be part of this experience. A big thank you to Edwin Vinke and Native Cooking Award Team NL, to the people from Knuthenlund and to Laurent Van Parys and his team.
After a first impressive meal at Bruut in Bruges, I was keen on going back to see if this restaurant could really be as good as I thought it was….A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of dining at Bruno and Bas Timpermans’ restaurant for the second time…Once again, I enjoyed a menu that was creative, well-balanced, consistent and original. Lovely pickeled carrots, grilled mackerel, beets and scallops, cauliflower and cod, venison, and a deliciously bold desert made for another most interesting and delightful experience. The harmony of textures, flavors and visuals was spot on.
This restaurant really stands out in Bruges…which does not mean that my other favorite restaurants in Bruges have all of a sudden become boring, but Bruut is by far the most original one of them all… You can feel that the chef almost has a religious, strong bond with the ingredients he uses. He’s passionate about working with seasonal ingredients, sourced locally….and he does so in a very clever way. There is no point in me writing much more about this really, as I already feel that I am repeating myself when I think back at what I wrote after the first visit…everything has been said…just enjoy the pictures…and try to visit Bruno and Bas ASAP! A truly great restaurant and a must visit in Bruges! www.bistrobruut.be
So, after Gault Millau, yesterday it was the Red Guide’s turn to announce the restaurants that they found so good in 2014 that they deserved a Michelin star….there were no restaurants that received a 2nd or 3rd so it was a bit of an inferior vintage…Nevertheless there was a huge turn out from the industry and a large part of the Belgian and Luxembourgish (Belux) Michelin starred chefs made their way to Ghent. You probably know that I have mixed feelings about guides. Obviously, even I still consider the Red Guide as a reference, even though I do not always agree with their choices when distributing the much wanted stars…the Culinary Oscars. I have specifically been struggling in the past with the relative comparability, both within a country and internationally. This has predominantly been the case for the 1* segment. I was curious to see if in 2015, things would be different…. The Belux area counts 137 Michelin starred restaurants in 2015, three 3*, seventeen 2* and one hundred seventeen 1* (of which 11 newcomers). Finally, six restaurants lost their star. It was very clear from Michael Ellis’ introductory speech, 2015 is all about going back to basics…back to ingredients and simpeler, purer preparations. This was clearly reflected in the new stars…mainly restaurants that could be qualified as ‘gastrobistros’. With classical cooking becoming seemingly unfashionable, I was very concerned that Geert Van Hecke’s De Karmeliet would have to return one of their three stars…but this wasn’t the case…He continues for a twentieth year as one of Belgium’s 3*’s. No changes in the 2* department. So what to conclude after this edition? First of all, making a guide is one hell of a difficult job…it’s never going to be perfect and there will always be criticism. Secondly, I am not convinced that the trend towards simplicity is doing the status of the Michelin star a lot of good and last but not least…the 1* segment is again showing some painful inconsistencies. Ok, statistically this is probably unavoidable if not in the least because the fact that this segment has the largest number of restaurants…but hey, there are still very good bloggers around too 😉 They keep the pressure high and provide a very fine addition to the red guide.
I lost track of the numbers of years that I have been going to Fishworks Marylebone….the concept here is very simple…at the front you have the fish shop with stalls packed with ice and beautiful fresh (shell)fish…you enter the dining room by walking through the shop, allowing you to take a good look at what the fishermen brought in with their boats that day…Caught during the night, on the menu for lunch time…Simple….and brilliant.
Congratulations to all the Chefs that were awarded a star/ an additional star with a special mention for Soenil Bahadoer, 2* in Nuenen….
Last Thursday, we had the immense pleasure of returning to Hedone for our fourth visit of the year.
The consistency of the meals we had at Mikael Jonsson and Aurelie Jean Marie Flore’s this year has been amazing so after three meals at lunchtime we were back for our fourth visit, dinner this time.
With the aperitif we were served three appetizers: a beautifully balanced cherry meringue with a foie gras cream and thin slices of mushroom, a crisp cone filled with tuna and spices, packing all the typical ‘salade niçoise’ flavours and a sour dough crisp filled with Jerusalem artichoke cream topped off with some caviar. Mikael immediately had our undivided attention with these three heavenly creations (18/20).
Oyster, green apple and echalotte were the main ingredients for our first starter of the evening. The oyster was served poached, in the shell, resting on a foamy cream of apple and onion…nice dish, but could have done with a bit more saltiness and ‘seaflavour’ (16/20).
Second dish was one of the legendary Mikael Jonsson flans…. this time eggplant flavoured, topped with variations of cucumber (coulis, pickled, sorbet)…what a dish!!! This was very very good cooking and we were only just getting started! The depth of flavour in this dish was just wow…and then the subtle eggplant aroma, which worked very well with the fresh cucumber (18,5/20).
Now it was time for what will probably be part of my best starters 2014 overview: a delicate cylinder of sliced avocado, filled with apple and Dorset crab, topped of with an incredibly light, fragrant pistachio cream and finished off with a foamy curry emulsion…it doesn’t get better than this, really, a perfect dish (20/20).
Up next was a warm preparation of scallop, chestnut, Jerusalem artichoke….and a generous sprinkling of white Alba truffle…oh yeah…life can be good…what an evening, here in Chiswick….(17/20).
To follow this came a beautiful piece of wild turbot…again, with some well chosen additions…a creamy smoked potato puree, shavings of baby fennel and a black olive and olive oil sauce. To me, another perfect dish (20/20).
Even though I had the next one a few times this year, I simply cannot get enough of it…the delicious liquid parmigiano ravioli with horseradish foam. No words can describe the sensation you get when you bite into the perfectly cooked ravioli and your palate is flooded with the lush, delicately salty liquid parmigiano…Oh man…(20/20).
Five to six week Porc Noir de Bigord suckling pig came with superb Cévennes onions, quince puree and a thin slice of pear…what an ode to this kitchen style…less is more, a few first class ingredients make the day…The cracking of the crisp skin, the perfectly cooked pinkish pork, the onions….amazing (19/20).
Pickled carrots and baked and raw cèpes came with some beautiful deer for the gents, duck for one lady and monkfish for the other…a special thank you for the flexibility of chef Mikael here who wanted to accommodate all of us in the best possible way (19/20).
After a very nice cheese selection (18/20) we finished this glorious meal with two desserts. The first was a superb Raspberry/Hibiscus/Vinegar and Lemon Meringue creation which could be enjoyed this late in the year because of the mild Indian Summer we had (18/20) followed by the traditional Choc/Vanilla Ice Cream/Raspberry (16/20). We ended the evening with a chat with chef Mikael and some tasty mignardises.
We opted for the wine pairing, which is one of the best you can get, but do note that it comes with a price, 105 GBP, which could seem steep compared to the price of the Carte Blanche menu, 95 GBP. However, given the quality of the wines poured, you will not hear me complaining!
We had another great meal here and what a pleasure to see a restaurant performing so consistenly! Without the slightest doubt, I give Hedone a 19/20 rating.
No wonder that Andy Hayler (www.andyhayler.com) has come to this restaurant 52 times since it opened it’s doors just over two years ago now…this is as good as it gets…. without any distraction what so ever from what it’s really all about some of the best food and wine you’re ever going to enjoy.
So, after Belgium yesterday, today it was Gault Millau Luxembourg…What have we learned? 1. That this year again, we are blessed with a great number of fantastic restaurants….mainly in Belgium 2. That consistency between the two countries is very hard to achieve 3. That consistency in general is hard to achieve 4. That making any guide is one hell of a though job…so no burning down operation here…just an immense need to know more about the whole process, Philippe Limbourg….over a good glass of wine and some nice food, just saying…
Where to Eat and Sleep 