The best "Ethnic Cuisine"-Restaurants
French cuisine at its best reigns in the newly designed restaurant. Clemens Rambichler and his team have perfected the taste of their dishes and offer delights to die for.
The undisputed top address in Basel. Three-star chef Peter Knogl conjures up creations on the plates that are second to none. Extremely knowledgeable sommeliers, who form a coherent structure with the attentive service. French haute cuisine par excellence!.
Since 1974, the Enoteca Pinchiorri has been a flagship restaurant in Florence. The solid, contemporary cuisine of chef Riccardo Monco delights with intense flavours that are constantly being refined. The exceptional wine list is a dream!
Andreas Caminada is both a top chef and a promoter. Undoubtedly one of the best in his field, he trusts and relies on his talented team and gives guests at Schauenstein Castle a gastronomic experience that is likely to be etched in the memory.
Rejoice, a restaurant with a wholly fitting name: Noor, meaning “light” in Arabic, takes a deep dive into the historic food culture of <i>Al-Andalus</i>, Moorish medieval Spain. Noor illuminates with a contemporary culinary and visual lens how it still permeates Andalusian cuisine. Noor’s chef-patron Paco Morales credits his time with Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli as giving him the confidence to be adventurously creative. A further five years as head chef of San Sebastian’s avant-garde Mugaritz further informs his trailblazing approach. It is a restaurant like no other in Andalusia and is now putting Cordoba on the contemporary world culinary map. Entering Noor, a new building in the modest Canero district of Cordoba where Morales grew up and his family run a chicken takeaway shop, feels like being cosseted in a sanctuary to gourmet exploration. Guests are transported “outside in” to a serene <i>riad</i> style patio with modernist <i>zellij</i> inspired floor tiles and Mudejar motifs picked up on the walls, the open kitchen, even the tableware and cutlery rests. Many of the motifs repeated in the presentation of the food are also inspired by Medina Azahara, the ruins of an Arab Muslim medieval palace on the outskirts of the city. By way of greeting, diners are offered a ritual hand wash with water poured from a copper vessel in a stone basin. It sets the tone for a menu of thoughtful beauty. Noor’s tasting menus over its first three years – when Morales gained 2 Michelin stars with startling alacrity – focused on exploring Moorish influences on Spanish cooking. The latest menu introduces ingredients brought from the New World by the <i>conquistadores</i>: from tomatoes and avocado to myriad chilies, corn and cacao. It is a total visual feast: like eating time and history served with almost balletic, choreographed precision. To detail every dish would spoil the sense of wonderment. Among appetisers, Peruvian layered potato with Iberian pork and shrimp stands out for its delicacy and playful mixing of culinary cultures. A series of small plates mix ingredients in exquisite dishes that play on texture as much as flavour and visual cues. There is a superlative, thrillingly different take on beef tartare served on fried corn polenta with pine nuts and saffron flowers; white prawns are marinated in carob and Cascabel chilli for a delicate sour-sweet-fruity flavour bomb. Roasted squab is presented dramatically with a 70% cacao ingot, its theatre enhanced by the punch of black Recado chili, the exoticism of persimmon fruit, the fresh lactic tang of <i>labneh</i> and, because it is a luxury restaurant after all, a scattering of caviar. Desserts are a little less captivating, though Ceuta lemon with mint sponge cake, coriander snow and black pepper had a striking purity and beautifully refreshed the palate after the richness of the squab. Served with a local Montilla-Moriles Moscatel, it was elevated it to something special. Throughout, the drink pairings are very special, even provocative, with much emphasis on Cordoban fortified wines, top Alsace, Austrian, Spanish and Lebanese producers. Is Paco Morales’ cooking magical realism on a plate? It is certainly exceptional gastronomic escapism. Paco Morales also opened El Bar two years ago for a more informal introduction to his innovative cooking. There he features dishes including <i>nigiri Andalusi</i> made with couscous rather than Japanese rice, combined with impeccable iterations of Andalusian classic tapas. Reviewed by Sudi Pigott
Star cuisine is an understatement: L'Hôtel de Ville is a cosmos with its own philosophy and its own laws when it comes to the quality of the ingredients and the composition of the same into perfect sensory masterpieces. Dining here is a great experience!
Tanja Grandits has acquired her own gastronomic signature with her aromatic, colourful cuisine. It goes without saying that she shares her great success with her team, who also offer a high level of excellence in wine pairing, patisserie, and service.
Antony Genovese's fusion cuisine mixes Mediterranean with Asian influences. The creative and innovative dishes are matched with an attentive service by Maitre Matteo Zappile and his extensive wine list.
In the tiny village of Axpe in northern Spain, against the stunning backdrop of the Basque mountains, an hour’s drive from San Sebastián, Etxebarri has slowly cemented its reputation as one of the best restaurants in the world. Self-taught chef-owner Victor Arguinzoniz cooks everything over la brasa, a huge grill with a system of winches and pulleys to lower and raise ingredients towards the heat – he even makes his own charcoal in a kiln, using different wood to suit specific ingredients. His and his team’s attention to detail is mesmerising. They smoke their home-made butter, salt their own anchovies, and keep live Palamós prawns in sea water to ensure that when kissing the grill, they are as fresh as they can possibly be. Simply grilled and served, they are a star dish with incredible depth of flavour. Grilled baby squid is delivered with equal precision, showing no char from the grill, having been gently smoked – the manipulation of smoke is a key part of many of the nuances in each dish. Oysters are grilled in their shells, as are fat, smoky mussels, and rarer items like sea cucumber. Txuleton steaks from Rubia Gallega Galician cows are cooked over grape vines, the ultimate expression for this prized meat. Even desserts carry the influence of the grill, even an apple tart is served with smoked milk ice cream. Open for just six lunches a week, serving in a simple, unpretentious stone-adorned dining room, Etxebarri continues to be a site of pilgrimage for food lovers – it is worth the trek.
Set in the remote West Coast fishing village of Paternoster, Wolfgat is a celebration of <i>veldkos</i> [Strandveld food] at the edge of the Atlantic: featuring seaweed, <i>fynbos</i> and beach herbs with South African coastline heritage woven right through. Wolfgat gets its name from the archeologically significant cave it is built around. Ceramic remains, sheep bones and ostrich eggshells have been uncovered, which date back some 2000 years. Legend has it that the underground passages of the Wolfgat cave extend some kilometres inland with more than one southern exit; these were thought to be used by the ancient <i>Strandveld</i> people. Taking the cue from his wandering forbears, chef-patron Kobus van der Merwe is a gatherer. Most of the menu comes from within 10 kilometres of the restaurant. He and his team trawl the coastline daily, baskets in-hand. The dishes on the seven-course menu are adapted according to the weather and the season, led by the West Coast’s dramatic seasonal shift and endemic ingredients, much of which come from the <i>Strandveld fynbos</i> plant kingdom. Van der Merwe has been likened to Nordic king of foraging, René Redzepi – for good reason: in the tiny gastronomic haven of Wolfgat, you’ll taste things you’ve never tasted before. It’s a restaurant that prefers to fly under the radar, though that hasn’t stopped its unique offering grabbing the world’s notice. It was named Restaurant of the Year at the The World Restaurant Awards in Paris in February 2019. This was quickly followed by being named The Best Restaurant in Africa 2021 when landing the 50th spot in the coveted The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. That’s a lot of attention for a 20-seater restaurant. The same whitewashed architecture as the rest of the village, it is set in a 130-year-old fisherman’s beach cottage. The interior is calm; monastic, in a sea-worn kind of way. The kitchen is tiny, bushels of <i>fynbos</i> hang from the rafters and Van der Merwe and his team work side-by-side at a single steel table, stacked with dishes. From here we’re led through to the outside terrace, perched on the edge of giant boulders. The wide, rippling sea greets us, hugged by a curve of white-sand beach. The post-card effect is underscored by fishermen bobbing on boats in the distance, seagulls wheeling around them. Van der Merwe is as down-to-earth as you can get. Quietly going from table to table, he tops up water, explains the menu and recommends his latest wine finds. All jobs he could easily hand over to staff. But that’s not the spirit here; much like the close attention they pay to seasonal cycles. They work in unison, intuitively. Sustainability is at the heart of the menu, for this very reason the restaurant is kept small. Once seated and drinking in the ocean splendour, warm sourdough bread is brought to the scrubbed wooden table. This is served with a luscious <i>heerenboontjie</i> purée, a local white heirloom bean with roots dating back to the 1800s. A skillet of <i>klipkombers</i> is placed on the table too; a seaweed that proliferates in the surrounding rock pools. Succulent and savoury, like spinach of the sea, the dried seaweed was reconstituted in a dash of cream. The pillowy bread is perfect for mopping up every last remnant of it. Seaweeds feature prominently on the menu. Like some kind of secret underwater herb garden, the seaweeds are collected and used variously for their different flavours and textures, with wonderful names such as, slippery orbits, tongue weed, ribbon sea lettuce and more. There are touches are luxury, like the wafer-thin Gabriel glasses topped up with the Gedeelte <i>Under the Veil</i> Sauvignon Blanc, which was made under a layer of <i>flor</i>. Its saline character so well suited to this bounty of sea. The majority of the wines on the list are from the West Coast, or from nearby Swartland, leaning towards small-batch and natural winemaking. The <i>Strandveld</i> Snacks come next, a trio of dishes eaten in the order they are put down, so the flavours build. First is minced limpet, served in its shell. Limpets have always been eaten along this coast and are known colloquially as <i>perdevoet</i> due to their horseshoe shape. Van der Merwe cooks these as his ancestors have, with lemon, white wine and nutmeg. Then an oyster from nearby Saldanha topped with a ball of gooseberry sorbet and a leaf of crunchy, crystallised <i>soutslaai</i> (ice plant). You see the plants on the beach like glittering stalagmites on the edges of the dunes. Lastly, a white mussel parfait, prettily presented in its shell, its wings open like a butterfly. This dish has the same voluptuous texture of chicken liver parfait, but with the intensity of white mussel umami. Pickled <i>veldkool</i> gives the dish an acid kick and fragrant spice. Another traditional ingredient, <i>veldkool</i> is the asparagus of the beach – a wild flower the Wolfgat team forages for at the end of winter, picking the spears, and then preserving them. The catch of the day is carpenter, a fish from Abalobi, which in itself is a project created to empower small-scale fishing communities. The carpenter is thinly sliced and quick-cured in lemon juice and sea salt, then artfully wrapped in <i>spanspek</i> (melon) and served in a <i>kapokbos</i>-infused olive oil. The combination of the tender fish and sweet melon scooped up with the earthy-rosemary flavour of the wild <i>fynbos</i> is a dream. We’re lifted right up by the fragrance of the Saldanha mussels, conjuring up the spice trade that used to cross these waters. It’s topped with a springy <i>Leipoldt</i>, a kind of savoury custard. The technique was inspired by C Louis Leipoldt, an Afrikaans poet and botanist who wrote a cookbook in 1933, also heroing <i>veldkos</i>. We dig our spoons through the soft cap made of mussel stock, coconut milk, nutmeg and cinnamon, to the plump mussels below, the spice rising like a scented mist. Ethereal meets terrestrial with a course of <i>springbok</i> loin, mushroom and an assortment of crispy seaweeds – the sea lettuce remarkably singing of truffle. When questioning Van der Merwe, he assured us that, yes that is its natural flavour, nothing has been added. Another seaweed on the dish, <i>kiesieblaar</i> has the aroma and flavour of yeasty bread. A taste of the kitchen’s garden comes as a surprise course – the most delicate plate of squash blossom with butternut and red pepper purées, <i>bokkom</i>-buttered pumpkin seeds and crisp pumpkin leaves. The <i>bokkoms</i> (dried harder fish) are integral to Wolfgat’s story. All along the coast you’ll find the small fish hanging in bunches from rafters, drying in the relentless sun and salt winds. Having grown up in Paternoster, <i>bokkoms</i> have been a staple part of Van der Merwe’s diet; one of his favourite ways to eat them is on buttered toast. From this we go to another fish commonly found in these waters, angelfish. Classically served smoked with a sweet jam. Van der Merwe lightly smoked his over <i>mielie</i> (sweetcorn) husks, and then paired the tender, white flakes with crispy angelfish skin and dune spinach, another indigenous plant loved for its toothsome quality. Crispy <i>mielie</i> meal adds texture and the dish is dressed in a satiny sweetcorn velouté. Van der Merwe eschews overly sweet desserts, preferring a light-footed farewell. The dessert is a refreshing combination of pineapple ice cream and dune celery (the wild version of the one we are used to) topped off with the sour, creamy tang of <i>amasi</i>, a South African food staple made from fermented milk. We leave the restaurant, spirits ebullient. Our path home is across the beach, we make tracks in the sand all the while looking at the rock pools, dunes and cresting waves with new eyes. And that is the parting gift of Wolfgat; you’ll never look at the world quite the same again. Reviewed by Malu Lambert
There's no getting around Tim Raue when it comes to cuisine. In his restaurant, the Michelin-starred chef creates Asian-inspired cuisine - the "Hummingbird Menu" pays homage to Berlin, while the "Koi Menu" is influenced by the Far East.
At Locanda Barbarossa, you can experience a unique combination of Mediterranean lightness and elegance of classic French cuisine. Much-travelled chef Mattias Rook adds a dash of flavourful adventure to the top-tier gourmet experience.
The Pavillon, designed by star architect Pierre-Yves Rochon, is worth a visit not only because of its location in the park of the Baur au Lac. Top chef Laurent Eperon's cuisine combines classic French and modern elements to create an elegant and contemporary whole.
Joachim Wissler has been in charge of the gourmet restaurant at the Althoff Grandhotel Schloss Bensberg since 2000. The classic French, yet modern creations are accompanied by perfectly matched wines.
Table culture at its finest, not to say at its very best. Martin Herrmann cooks his way confidently through French haute cuisine, his creations are timeless gourmet classics. First-class wine list.
At the unique Schloss Elmau, Christoph Rainer cooks in his own unique style: creative, exciting flavors with the best of French and Japanese cuisine.
Concise gourmet cuisine that lies somewhere between pomp and purism in an elegant Art Nouveau villa. Dirk Hoberg cooks free of restriction and dogmatism, with luxury ingredients as well as products from the Lake Constance region.
The flowery terrace has flair, and the staff is extremely attentive. Rudolf Štefan, who pays close attention to the provenance of the produce, provides very special gastronomic delights. The tasting menu has its price, but is worth every euro.
A fixed star in the Viennese gastronomic firmament: Italian cuisine of the highest standard (from gamberi to truffles), sensational wines and an elegant ambience are the ingredients that continue to make Fabios so popular.
A family atmosphere prevails in Rosita and Piero's small vaulted cellar, where top-quality Calabrian delicacies are served: homemade pasta, excellently prepared fish and fine wines.