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All of the international flights from the Americas dumped into Aéroport Paris–Charles de Gaulle within minutes of each other, as they usually do, when I arrived in the early morning a few months ago.  I shuffled into the immigration hall along with the deplaning masses, a shapeless hoard that defied order, especially since very little was provided.

After a half hour of this incurable chaos, with border guards barking at us like sheep dogs at a herd, and our rather saucy herd barking back in various languages, the crowd suddenly began to move forward at a surprisingly fast rate.  How could this be?  How could the border police possibly be processing that many passports at once?  When I reached the front, I realized that they weren’t.  They weren’t processing passports at all.  The police had opened the gates and were letting everyone through unchecked.

As an American, who has not only practiced law, but has practiced some immigration law, I was horrified.  This kind of reckless laxity would never happen at our borders – and this not from a sense of patriotic superiority.  The United States has many weaknesses, but border control – especially at its international airports – is not one of them.  You will not find more humorless human beings than the employees of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

By allowing foreigners to pass through unverified, the French police were not only endangering their own national security by opening their borders to shady international characters, but they were also putting the Schengen at risk. Once inside the Schengen, a foreigner can travel through any of its twenty-some member countries unchecked, as I did on this trip.

A little over a week later, as I prepared to return to the U.S., Malaysian Airlines flight 370 disappeared over the South China Sea, raising questions (among many others) about two passengers onboard who were traveling with stolen passports.  In the weeks since, those two passengers have been ruled out as possible terrorists. But the fact that they were able to travel on stolen passports is disturbing.  According to Interpol, “In 2013, passengers were able to board planes more than 1 billion times without having their travel documents checked against Interpol’s data.”

That’s billion with a “B.”

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At Gare du Nord (and some other stations), the Paris Metro ticket vending machines do not accept cash anymore, and now only accept credit cards with smart chip technology, which requires a PIN code for added security.  Like me, most Americans don’t have smart chip credit cards (which is why an estimated 100 million Americans were put at risk when Target’s credit and debit card database was compromised).  This is one sector of security in which the U.S. is terribly behind – smart chip technology, which has been used by European banks for over a decade, is only now being introduced by American credit card companies.

And, because the SNCF (France’s national state-owned railway company) has been cutting costs (either that, or their employees were on strike), there was no attendant in the booth who could sell me a ticket in exchange for cash or coin.  So I had to hail a cab, which, unlike the SNCF, accepted cash only.

A couple of nights later, I was stopped by police at an impromptu checkpoint set up in the Metro to filter out freeloaders.  By then, I had managed to find a Metro vending machine that accepted cash and had bought a carnet (a booklet of individual fare cards).  I showed my fare and was let to pass.

I entered France with an unverified passport, but was nearly immobilized because the SNCF was shy of cash transactions.  I passed through French immigration control without consideration, yet was stopped by the police in the Metro over a 2€ fare.

France: you are wonderful, delicious, and beautiful.  But in many ways, you are totally effed up.

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My time in Paris was brief.  On this trip, the city merely served as a doormat to Belgium, my primary destination.

But I still managed to squeeze in three square meals in the two short days I was there.

I had lunch at Antoine at 10 Avenue New York on the banks of the Seine in the 16eme.

Chef Thibault Sombardier had worked in the kitchens of Alain Dutournier (whose Carre de Feuillants I had visited in 2005) and Yannick Alleno (now no longer at le Meurice) before he arrived here in early 2013.  In the year since, Sombardier retained the Michelin star that Antoine had earned under its previous chef and has found on-air fame as one of the cheftestants on the current, 2014 season of France’s version of the hit BravoTV series Top Chef.

Sombardier’s lunch tasting menu focused on the “scent of the sea” (Antoine has long been known as a seafood restaurant).  My friend Laurent, who made the reservation for me, must have augmented my profile, because the kitchen sent out many extra dishes, including a buttery knot of monkfish in a frothy surf of milk foam under a blanket of shaved black truffles.  It has been a particularly great season for truffles, and the truffles used here were still showing very well at the beginning of March.

There were ribbons of black mullet, cured so that the meat had gone slack and tender, garnished with house-cured bottarga.  And there was a beautiful plaque of red mullet draped with silky strips of raw langoustine and dotted with tiny dried shrimp.

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Is pigeon the new beef?  My lunch at Antoine was the first of five consecutive tasting menus I had on this trip to France and Belgium that included pigeon (and all but one of those meals featured the fowl as the anchor course before cheese and dessert).  Like most of the plates at Antoine, the pigeon was nicely presented.  Both the cooking and plating was precise in a way that would suggest that the chef is reaching for his next Michelin star. The slice of breast was rosy and juicy. The dark meat, papered over with crispy skin, pulled right off the thigh and leg bone.  And there was a buttery croque filled with the pigeon’s liver.

Despite Sombardier’s ambition on the plate, I suspect Antoine’s ability to climb the Michelin constellation will be limited by its interior, which is a good ten years behind the current trend.  And the service, though friendly and helpful, will need to be polished up a bit too.

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I hadn’t seen my friend La Tache since we had a quick lunch together at Septime last year.  This time, he proposed that we have dinner at Raquel Carina’s and Philippe Pinoteau’s cozy bistro la Baratin in the remote 20eme.  Despite the fact that Anthony Bourdain taped a segment here for his show “The Layover,” the clientele (at least the night we went) was surprisingly local.  There were a handful of tourists. But overall, the restaurant seemed dominated by Parisians, like the table of four guys next to us, who rolled their own cigarettes and left their wine and bag of filters on the table to step outside for a smoke break between courses.

The daily menu at la Baratin is chalked up on a board that moves from table to table.  But La Tache knows Carina and he asked her to cook for us.  The short Argentinean woman asked each of us to choose a main course and agreed to fill in the rest.

Her ingredients were fresh and simply prepared.  It’s the kind of no-nonsense cooking, focused mostly on celebrating natural flavor, that I hope will make a big come-back at the higher end of dining soon.

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A series of raw seafood dishes arrived in quick succession: tiny pétoncles served on their frilly-edged shells with some olive oil and salt; tartare of maigre with shaved beets; a powder-pink strip of chinchard, with a touch of smoked vinegar (Google is telling me this fish is also known as “Atlantic horse mackerel”); and a velvety, pea-green seafood bouillon with silky langoustines.

Then, ravioli filled with ground pigeon nestled in a bowl with nuggets of foie gras melting into a warm broth of turnips.  The pigeon filling was gruffer than the rest, but somehow, in that bistro, with Carina in the kitchen, it seemed strangely right.

And, a strip of oily, salty anchovy with a bloody slice of beef made a particularly delicious pair.

I love how the French do sweetbreads (Americans are such sissies about them): always a generously sized fist that’s more creamy interior than anything else.  That’s what I got for my main course at la Baratin.  And it was great, served with nothing more than some vegetables and browned butter.

We shared a bottle of wine and some desserts at the end (including an apple crumble that was way more crumble than apple in the best of ways), and left full and happy, having spent less on our meal than getting home in the rain (taxis being a hopeless cause in that neighborhood at that late hour – especially in the rain – and too lazy to figure out other options, we gouged our eyes out on Uber surge pricing).

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My friend Laurent Vanparys left his fancy job to open a wine bar in Paris, which he has since left behind to co-found One Bite Consulting, a culinary consulting company that corrals chefs from Paris to Copenhagen for cooking events.

When I told him I was heading to Paris, with a short list of Belgian restaurants on my wish list, he (a Belgian) quickly offered to be my tour guide and make all the arrangements.  Our trip would be short – just over 24 hours – but full.

We left Paris in the morning by car, and was at Sang Hoon Degeimbre’s beautiful, countryside, farmhouse-restaurant l’Air du Temps by noon. (The restaurant is located near the town of Liernu in the Southern, Wallonian province of Namur.)

The farmhouse doubles as an inn, so it is possible for gastronauts visiting from afar to stay overnight.

The restaurant is divided among two dining rooms (with tables draped in leather) and a private dining room.  The kitchen, which features a handsome wall of windows framing the fields beyond, turns a corner into more kitchen space.  And just off that corner is another private dining room, this one, the “kitchen table.”  During the day, this small, spare room, flooded with natural light, is a photographer’s dream.  This is where Laurent and I had lunch.

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Having worked in the research and development kitchen at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck, Degeimbre has brought modernist cooking to the Belgian countryside.

Degeimbre is a brilliant food colorist.  Our meal popped with a rainbow of super-saturated colors.  He ran us through a dazzling series of black towards the beginning, moving from inky squid juice to dusty ash (with which he coated scallops to appear as coals) to shiny, obsidian-like fried potato “shells” in which were tucked plump mussels – a tromp-l’oeil of the famous Belgian bistro fare, “moules frites.”

There was a snapper dish in various shades of neon orange.  And there was a rosy slice of duck breast and a slick of sauce made magenta by the power of suggestion: ringed by a purple constellation of beets and red onions.

With our food came a rainbow of juices, every bit as colorful.

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But, as visually stunning as much of the meal was, I thought a few dishes were more novel than they were delicious, like that scallop dusted in ash and wrapped in a cabbage leaf.  It was a mess to eat (with our hands, as instructed), and quite frankly, I didn’t fully understand the conceit.  I also thought the confetti of flower petals that decorated the top of a bowl of Vacherin Mont d’Or were not only superfluous, but an unwelcome interloper in an otherwise happy mix of creamy and crunchy.

My favorite dishes were the ones in which Degeimbre focused on flavor.

From kiwi, he distilled the fruit’s breezy fragrance into a clear, viscous syrup to pair with the musky citrus of bergamot and the melon crispness of oysters.*  Those flavors, together, were magical, indescribable, unforgettable.

There was a thigh of pigeon, glazed, and a juicy wedge of the breast, sauced with Asian flavors (heavy on the ginger) and served with a crouton fried in duck fat.  It was a simple but flavorful meeting of ingredients and textures.  That was a great dish. **

And out of a hoary, freckled bowl that appeared like a moon crater leapt the bright, strong flavors of pickled and fermented summer vegetables anointed with parsley oil. The vegetables had a bit of snap, and so did the acidity.  The dish came at the right time too – a refreshing break between heartier, saucier, meatier courses.

After lunch, we took a brisk walk around the fields outside, untilled and windswept in the chill of early spring.

[Disclaimer: Degeimbre is a client of One Bite Consulting.  We were not presented with a bill.]

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From l’Air du Temps, we drove back over the border, skimming the northern edge of France and re-entered Belgium in the western Flemish province of West Flanders.

In the early evening, we pulled up to another farmhouse, this one outside the sleepy town of Dranouter.  Once home to the Desramaults family, it is now Kobe Desramaults’s destination restaurant in de wulf.  Here too, are rooms, where travelers can spend the night (at under 200€ a night, they are very reasonably priced).  Laurent and I settled into our rooms, both of which had been recently renovated.  Like the rest of the farmhouse, they were charmingly rustic, but unexpectedly luxurious.  Mine had a gorgeous, wooden bathtub and a quieting view of the Belgian countryside through a set of French doors that opened onto a small, private patio.

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The dining room at in de wulf is broad and flat, lined on one side with a stretch of large windows that runs the length of the patio outside.  The inside is a mix of brick – much of it painted – and wood.  I’d call it rustic if it weren’t also tidy and incredibly charming, aglow with candlelight at night.

Our dinner ran for about 20 courses, starting with some snacks, moving onto a series of seafood, followed by a few courses featuring vegetables, and then a couple of meat dishes.   Then, a spectacular cheese course –  a wedge of knobby, blistered dough capped with a melty, pungent aged cheese called “Flamische Vieux Lille.”  It was so good that Laurent asked for seconds (having eaten at in de wulf over fifty times, he was familiar with the chef and staff).  The kitchen happily obliged, and I happily accepted the windfall.

The meal finished with a few, light desserts, all vegetable or fruit-based.

Desramaults’s dishes showcased one or two ingredients at a time.  He coaxed the best out of each one, using natural techniques - like smoking, aging, pickling, fermenting, and salt-baking - to enhance texture and flavor.  Confident enough to find sophistication in simplicity, he kept garnishes and gimmickry to a minimum.  I liked that.  I also liked that, similar to the restaurant’s interior, Desramaults’s plating-style was clean and plain: nuggets of gelatinous cod cheeks served with a spot of creamy sauce; a hillock of North Sea crabmeat in a chilled broth of gurnard (a sea fish that inspired an article entitled “Ugly fish, tasty dish…“); and rosy slices of lamb with a little jus and a stalk of ramp.

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In addition to that cheese course, three dishes stood out: A bowl of warm mussels (from Dunkerque) with some curly kale, frothy whipped sour cream, and white beer struck an incredible balance of salt and sour, anchored in a deep, satisfying umami.

There was also a silky strip of skate wing, glistening with a light miso made from grains.  It’s rare to find skate cooked so exquisitely, with such great flavor to pair.

And a roasted pigeon, aged whole for six weeks (disemboweled after two, then aged for another four stuffed with hay), appeared briefly at our table on a bed of hay before it was taken back to the kitchen.  It reappeared, reduced to eight slices of breast meat that were ruddy, waxy, and funky.

The bread here was also super-good, an exemplar of the generic descriptor that Americans have assigned to this sort of thick-crusted type of loaf, tightly knitted with a rough-hewn crumb: farmhouse.  I handily downed half a loaf by myself (with a healthy spread of butter and pork fat beside).

The wine pairings were just as fermented and funky as Desramaults’s food (the Domaine de Cavarodes, Poulsard de Chemoenot, 2012, paired with some salt-baked potatoes, smelled of something unmentionable) – some oxidized, all of it natural – the long-reaching shadows of Linda Milagros Violago’s work here some years ago.  They paired very well with the food.  So did the non-alcoholic pairings, which were just as untamed as the wines. They ranged from an earthy-sweet carrot-turnip juice to a jammy (and wonderfully milky tasting) lacto-fermented elderberry juice.

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The smell of coffee and sound of eggs sizzling on a beautiful, wood-fired stove (lined in Dutch-blue tiles) greeted us the next morning in the farmhouse’s mess hall, a separate space dedicated to serving breakfast for overnight guests (breakfast is included in the room rate).  Plates of cheese and cold cuts were brought to the table to share, and everyone was encouraged to visit a handsome spread of house-made bread, pastries, jams, condiments, and juices set up on the kitchen counter.  Eggs were cooked to order.

The sky was low and grey that morning. The fire was crackling. I could have lingered in that farmhouse all day, with a thick sweater and a good book.  As a total-package kind of experience, in de wulf is an international destination worth the trouble and expense, both for Desramaults’s cooking and the charming world that he has created around it.

Before leaving, we were shown an upstairs loft space.  Formerly Kobe Desramaults’s A-frame attic abode, at the time, it was being converted to a private dining space.  It should now be open for reservations.

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Located directly in the path of advancing German troops, the ancient town of Ieper (pronounced “ee-per” in Flemish, the town is also commonly known by its French name Ypres, pronounced “ee-PRAY”) in West Flanders was the site of intense fighting in World War I.  By the end of that war, the entire city had been leveled.

I would never have guessed this awful fate of Ieper by the look of the town today.  That’s because, in the two decades following The Great War, most of the town was restored, brick-by-brick, stone-by-stone, to its pre-World War I look.

Barely a half-hour drive from Dranouter, Ieper is now home to one of Desramaults’s former cooks, Vilhjalmur Sigurdarson, whom Laurent had met on his many trips to in de wulf.  An Icelander, Sigurdarson met his Flemish wife while working at in de wulf.  He settled in her hometown of Ieper and, together, they opened souvenir, a small but smartly furnished restaurant in the heart of town.  Souvenir had only been open a few days when we arrived that mid-day in early March.

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Souvenir is one of those restaurants that every food writer longs to find: new, unsung, far-flung, and – most-importantly – good. Actually, I would say that my lunch there was great – unexpectedly so for a restaurant that was so new, and so scantly staffed.  Sigurdarson had only one other in the kitchen - a young, Flemish cook named Aster Welleman.  And Sigurdarson’s wife Joke, eight-months pregnant at the time, tended the front of the house with only one other server.

At the time, the menu was prix-fixe, and shockingly inexpensive at 55€ for 5 courses (Sigurdarson sent us an additional course, for a total of six).

In many ways, souvenir was the perfect summation of my quick eating tour of Belgium.  Sigurdarson’s cooking demonstrated all the precision and offered all the technicolor dazzle of Degeimbre’s modernist cooking at l’Air du Temps but showed the confident, rustic simplicity and flavor-forwardness of Desramaults’s farmhouse fare.

His food was immensely comforting, like a flaky filet of pollock buried under a steaming pile of cabbage, with some cabbage juice poured over it all.  There was also a tender tranche of pork belly – the meat unexpectedly juicy, the fat surprisingly loose under its crisp surface – served with beets and bitter mustard leaf to thin out the richness.

“Pigeon,” I said.  “Pear,” Sigurdarson replied, “The pigeon is just the garnish.”  He was joking, of course.  But that pear was amazing; slightly charred, slightly softened, and soaked with flavor.  Together with the pigeon, it was a showstopper.

I am a happy champion for Sigurdarson and his crew.  For anyone targeting Belgium for its more well-known, Michelin-starred tables, souvenir deserves to be seriously considered as well.

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Laurent and I folded ourselves back into his car and hurled ourselves south towards the awaiting rush-hour traffic of Paris.  We made good time, and slipped through the rings of banlieue in time for me to catch the tail end of my friend Stephanie Biteau’s party at her beautiful studio kitchen, Cookcooning.

I snacked a little there, and then slipped into the rainy night, off to dinner at David Toutain’s eponymous restaurant on the rue Surcouf in the 7eme, which opened last December.

I had missed Toutain when he was at l’Agapé Substance, where he last cooked, and where he first attracted international attention. But I did have a bite of his cooking at Gastronomika in San Sebastian in October of 2012, and a few of his dishes at the Twelve Days of Christmas a few months later (some of which were repeated at this new restaurant in Paris).  I was excited to finally have a meal at his table.

Toutain’s cooking was far more intriguing to me than it was delicious or satisfying.  I found some of his combinations bizarre – smoked eel, green apple, and foie gras are fairly common friends in European haute cuisine, but Toutain put all of them in an inky black sesame purée, which I found strange.  Some of them were quite lovely, like coconut ice cream cradled in a billowing cloud of cauliflower and white chocolate.  And some, I recognized from other kitchens, like Toutain’s oysters veiled in a bright-green kiwi purée, a page he readily admits taking from Degeimbre’s playbook.  Or, sea urchin, served in the shell, with a steadying shot of dark, bitter coffee froth, a combination I had seen before at Robuchon’s Mansion in Las Vegas.

I preferred Toutain’s more familiar, more classically based dishes, like a bowl of foamed Comté, garnished with shaved ribbons of the cheese and really great, winter black truffles.  There was also a terrific lamb rib chop served with mushrooms and some nuts.  The rib bone had been removed, leaving the attached flap of fat standing as a visual double.  That made it so much easier to eat.

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Before leaving Paris, I swung by Télescope, a tiny coffee shop in the 2eme opened by former fashion photographer Nicolas Clerc.  The cappuccinos here were great.  And, yes, apparently, Paris has hipsters too.

Before I knew it, I was on a plane bound for Bergen, Norway, where I will continue this travelogue in the next blog post.

Here are the places I ate in Paris and Belgium, with links to the photos of the food I had at each one.

FRANCE

Antoine (Paris, 16eme)
David Toutain (Paris, 7eme)
Le Baratin (Paris, 20eme)

BELGIUM

in de wulf (Dranouter)
l’Air du Temps (Liernu)
souvenir (Ieper)

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* Of my few food allergies, kiwi is the most severe.  Yet, as with all of my food allergens, I always try it if it is served to me.  In this case, Degeimbre’s extraction process must have eliminated the allergen in kiwi.  I had no allergic reaction to this dish.

** Quite a few dishes pointed to Degeimbre’s Korean heritage.  He was adopted and raised by Belgians.  Like his modernist cooking forebears, Degeimbre codifies his dishes with dates and provenance.  This pigeon dish, for example, was entitled “Favorite 2004: Pigonneau from Jean Yves Bruyère, Asian-Style.”

PHOTOS: Old coffee tins at in de wulf in Dranouter, Belgium; couples taking a selfie on the Paserelle Debilly, Paris, France; stormy weather approaches the garden of the Tuileries, Paris France; pigeon at Antoine in Paris, France; cigarette filters and wine on a table at le Baratin in Paris, France; beef with anchovy at le Baratin in Paris, France; Sang Hoon Debeimbre plating pigeon at l’Air du Temps near Liernu, Belgium; “Favorite 2010: Purple Duck version 2014″ at l’Air du Temps; pigeon, plated, at l’Air du Temps; pickles and preserves on the shelves at in de wulf near Dranouter, Belgium; spring and late-winter vegetables with an egg yolk sauce at in de wulf; the roasted, 6-week aged pigeon presented on hay at in de wulf; the wood-fired stove in Dutch-blue tiles at in de wulf; Vilhjamur Sigurdarson peeling radishes at Souvenir in Ieper, Belgium; the pork belly at Souvenir; the lamb chop at David Toutain in Paris, France; cappuccino and “Fool Magazine” at Télescope in Paris, France.

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Chef Christopher Haatuft pulled off the winding road that traces the craggy Norwegian coast near Askøy.  The gloomy sky hung low as we got out of the car and started down a marshy trail that stretched for a while along a creek, before rising over a rocky hill.

We arrived high above a small inlet of water.  There were three cooks with us: a Frenchman, a short Italian, and a Dutchman, who was unbelievably tall in the way that Dutchmen often are.  I only mention the height of these cooks because, comically, the Italian and Dutchman ended up sharing the same wader, which ended badly for the poor Italian, who began hooting halfway out, when his slack suit began taking on the cold, Nordic water.

The cooks fanned out, and began looking for herbs among the low-lying brush.  I followed Haatuft closer to the water, which was incredibly calm and clear, made inky only by its depth.  We were there to meet his sea forager, Arne Duinker.

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After a worrisome wait with no sign of Duinker, Haatuft reassured me that he was on his way.  Looking for him on the horizon, expecting his arrival on foot by the same trail we took, I was surprised when Haatuft pointed at the water, where Duinker surfaced, wearing a wetsuit and snorkel.

Arne Duinker was made for the sea.  A marine biologist at NIFES (the Norwegian National Institute of Nutrition and Seafood Research), he is lean and lithe, and has an incredible tolerance for the cold.  Out of the water, he stripped down naked among the rocks, toweled off, and changed into dry clothes, all the while telling us calmly about his small harvest that day, seemingly unfazed by the chilly, late-winter rain that had begun to fall.

From his water sack, Duinker produced a variety of seaweed, pointing out the features of each, noting that some of them were getting too tough to eat.  He also pulled out two beautiful sea urchins, glowing a shade of neon lavender I had never seen on that type of creature before.  Carefully, he lopped off the tops of each (you’ll want to see this video), revealing the creamy gonads arranged in a star-shaped pattern within.  The familiar, orange-colored ones (the ones that we are accustomed to eating) belonged to females, Duinker said.  The other one had milky-white gonads, which I had never seen before.  Those, Duinker pointed out, belonged to a male.  The gonads of both were incredibly swollen, and looked more watery than creamy, a sign that the urchins were in mating mode.

I tasted both. The female gonads were sweeter than the male gonads, which had a saltier minerality.  But both were far too watery to be considered good for eating.

The rain stopped, and we took turns strapping on the waders and venturing into the water to collect more seaweed and sea snails.

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Arne Duinker is just one of the many people with whom Haatuft works to understand and improve the Norwegian food supply chain.  Since Norway’s population is barely over 5 million, the food community there is relatively small, and it’s stretched thinly over a large, and largely unforgiving terrain.  Since the vast majority of Norwegians live along the coast, the ocean is a major source of food.  As such, it has become a growing concern for Norwegians, like Haatuft, who worry about the sustainability of local aquaculture.

In fact, the reason I was in the Norwegian city of Bergen that week was because a good college friend of mine, Solveig, whose family owns one of the largest fish farming operations in the world, was there attending the North Atlantic Seafood Forum (NASF).  Aware that I’ve attended a couple of international fora dedicated to sustainable seafood, and having toured and photographed her family’s fish farms in Honduras and Mexico, which have an impressive track record for sustainability – both with regard to the environment and the communities that comprise their workforce – she asked me if I’d meet her at one of her industry’s most important events.

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Back from Askøy, Haatuft and I swung by his restaurant, Lysverket, located on the ground level of the Bergen Art Museum, to drop off his cooks and to warm up over hearty bowls of Norwegian fish soup.*  More cream than broth, it was really more like a bisque, with fish quenelles, and some julienne root vegetables.

Afterwards, we picked up his business partner (and co-investor in Lysverket) Fredrik Saroea (who, by the way, not only has the most eclectic collection of Japanese cartoon figurines I’ve ever seen, but is also the vocalist, guitarist and co-founder of Datarock, a Norwegian electronic rock band known for its members’ red jumpsuits), and drove two hours to Voss, stopping along the way at a small apple farm in the sleepy, seaside village of Øystese.  The farm was so small, in fact, that the orchard was in the middle of a neighborhood, tucked in the bend of a switchback with a magnificent view of the sea, and snow-capped mountains beyond.  It couldn’t have been more than a third of an acre at most.  Here, Geir Henning Spilde grows nearly a dozen different varieties of apples, which he presses himself, making single-varietal juices, as well as blends.  We tasted about a half-dozen different juices – my favorite was a particularly fragrant Summerred single-varietal.  Haatuft and Saroea picked up a few bottles for the restaurant, and we continued on our way toward Voss.

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Over the past couple of decades, large-scale fish farming has arrived to the cold, North Sea waters.  Halibut, trout, char, mussels, oysters, and, to a lesser extent, cod, are all raised in  net cages sheltered in the calm, Norwegian fjords.  Salmon, however, comprise the lion’s share of Norway’s fish farming industry. In fact, when I was in Chile last year, where salmon farming has become a major source of revenue, representatives of the Chilean fishing associations told me that they get most of their salmon eggs from Norway.

This boom in fish farming is having a negative impact on local aquaculture.  The density of fish raised in these cages is increasing the level of pollutants in the water.  It’s also spreading diseases to which wild fish are particularly vulnerable.  Also, the further upstream the salmon cages are anchored in the fjords, the more they interfere with seasonal fish runs.  Wild salmon, disoriented by the large quantity of caged salmon in the fjords, are less able to find their way back to their spawning sites upstream.  Caged fish that escape are also mating with wild salmon, altering the natural gene pool, and not necessarily in a good way.  Wild salmon are being weeded out.

That is why people like Geir Ove Henden are so important now.  Henden works at the Voss Klekkeri, a salmon hatchery that hopes to replenish the falling wild salmon population.  We drove to Voss to visit him.

Henden walked us through the incubation and hatching process, starting with dozens of trays of wild salmon eggs at various stages of gestation.  At some point, the eggs are submerged in a non-toxic dye that permeates the eggs’ membrane and stains the spine of the embryos within.  Together, with tiny, metal tags, etched with an identification numbers, that are embedded in the mouths of young salmon, staining the fishes’ spines helps Henden and his fellow marine biologists track their salmon.  Specifically, they want to know how many of their tagged salmon are able to find their way back upstream to Voss to spawn each season.  Likewise, they also want to know how many of their salmon end up swimming up different streams, or not making it back to freshwater to spawn at all, possibly confused by the caged salmon in the fjords.

I wondered aloud: don’t the salmon have to hatch in the wild in order to know where to return to spawn?  Isn’t there some kind of magical encryption process that happens at birth whereby the coordinates of a salmon’s birth site are coded into the fish’s brain?  Yes and no.  According to Henden, salmon mentally record their maiden journey downstream into the ocean, and rely on this memory to find their way back years later when they are ready to spawn.  So, when the Voss Klekkeri’s young salmon are ready to be released into the wild, they are put into cages upstream and then towed downstream by tugboats into the open, ocean waters, where they are released.  In this way, the Voss Klekkeri’s salmon are exposed to the fresh waters of their “birth,” and able to record their journey into the ocean.

As I left the hatchery, I noticed a black and white photo, decades old, of Henden and his colleagues, with salmon larger than they.  I stopped to admire the size of the fish in the picture.  Henden lamented that salmon that size used to be commonplace.  Now, they’re far and few between.

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Bergen is Norway’s busiest port, and the country’s second-most populated city.  But, it’s not very big.  The city center, parts of which are registered as a UNESCO Word Heritage Site, is easily navigable by foot, although the amount of rainfall this side of Norway gets often makes it a pain to get around.  It rained every day I was there, varying between light drizzle and sheets of rain that moved almost horizontally.

I was only in the city for three, short days, so I didn’t get to explore the restaurant scene much.  From what I gathered, both from online research and locals alike,  it’s not a very exciting destination for dining (yet, anyway).  But a few chefs in town, like Haatuft, and Christer Økland, chef of 1877, are striving to make it a better place to eat.

My first night in town, I ate at Økland’s relatively new restaurant, located in the city’s historic meat market (1877 opened in 2013). The restaurant offered two prix-fixe menus (3 and 5 courses).  I chose the longer one (695 NOK; at the then-current exchange rate, about $110).  Like Haatuft, Økland focuses on cooking with local, Norwegian products.  I had king crab, inland trout, and pork from a pig farmer about whom Økland was particularly enthusiastic.  I also loved the local, Norwegian cheeses he served, especially an unpasteurized blue cheese with a dusty rind.  Overall, I found the cooking to be solid, the flavors bold (the meat broth poured over the king crab might have been too bold – it was awfully salty), and the presentation neat enough. There was a hearty rusticity to Økland’s food that matched the charming interior of the restaurant (which had an Old World beauty about it).  But there were also glimpses of modernity that betrayed Økland’s time in more contemporary kitchens, like alinea in Chicago.

(For those who don’t drink alcohol – and even for those who do – I encourage you to explore 1877’s menu of fruit juices.  I ordered the blueberry juice and it was outstanding – rich and velvety, and full of flavor.)

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I heard that exciting things were happening at Colonialen.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a spare night to have dinner there.  But, I did drop by its Café and Brasserie, located in the adjacent Litteraturhuset (Literature House), for lunch.  In addition to offering an assortment of baked goods, the café also had a short menu of mostly cold plates.  I had a terrific pig ear terrine (served on a board with mustard and pickled vegetables) and a hearty smoked salmon salad (with beets, walnuts, and tartar sauce as dressing).  Together, with a bottle of water, that lunch cost me $50, which, perhaps expensive to an American, is normal by Norwegian standards.**

While standing – pressed against a building under the eves to avoid the rain – on Østre Skostredet, admiring the psychedelic (and tastefully applied) graffiti on the buildings across the street, there came a knock on the window behind me.  When I turned around, a young man inside was waving at me.  At first, I thought he was shooing me from leaning on his window.  He picked up my misunderstanding and quickly ran to open the door, inviting me to come in out of the rain.

Inside was a curious outfit.  It was a large, one-room studio-slash-museum.  It was completely bare, save the tiny desk at which this young man – the docent, or guide? – sat, and a strange contraption, mostly made of wood, that looked like a pipe organ collided with a victrola and a series of discs that looked like astronomy charts.  I thought it might be a modern art installation.  Attached to this contraption was a crank, and the young man encouraged me to turn it.  When I did, the contraption came to life – the astronomy charts (which turned out to be some kind of perforated sheet music) started to turn, the bellow started to pump, and the pipes begin emitting strange, atonal sounds.  This was Bergen’s Lydgalleriat (“Sound Gallery”), a non-commercial gallery space for exploring experimental sound-based art.  Funded by the Arts Council of Norway, the Lydgalleriet is a testament to   how strange and wonderful the world can be when people, and their government, support the arts enthusiastically.  But, I suppose one’s government must be solvent before it can support the arts at all (more on this in a later post).

My unexpected visit to the Lydgalleriet of Bergen is just one example of the many curious corners of the city that I unintentionally discovered while seeking relief from the rain (the city’s famous fish market was another).  A few blocks away, I ducked into a small boutique that sold magnificent raincoats made by T. Michael, a Bergan-based clothing designer.  Despite the fact that Norwegians tend tall and big, and I am short and small, to my great surprise and joy, his Norwegian Rain coats fit me like a glove.  If anyone out there is feeling particularly generous, I invite you to send me a double-breasted in his smallest size (XXS).  I prefer any shade of blue or grey over black.  Thanks.

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I had two dinners at Lysverket.  The night we returned from the hatchery in Voss, we dropped in for some bar snacks.  The next night, I returned with my friend Solveig for a proper meal.

Haatuft cooked for us, so I am unsure how my meal might have detoured from his menu that night.

Unsurprisingly, his cooking focused mostly on seafood.  We had octopus, langoustine, mahogany clams, and scallops, all from local waters.  Haatuft’s dishes demonstrated good cooking technique, although, since his sauces, like Økland’s, tended salty, I started to question whether the Bergen palate is accustomed to a higher level of salinity than my American one.

The three dishes that stood out the most included a beautiful, alabaster round of cod with cauliflower and sherry gastrique.  There was also a terrific piece of braised veal tongue, served with radicchio marmalade and a rich juniper sauce.  And, towards the end, I particularly liked his composed cheese course: “Krafkar,” a marbled blue, with poppyseed cake, cranberries, and pretty little leaflets of lettuce.  Those plates were clean and neat, and focused on a few, excellent ingredients.

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The next morning, Solveig and I boarded the famous Bergen rail line and took a magical, 300-mile journey through the snowy, Norwegian mountains to Oslo, where I will pick up in my next blog post.

In the months since, Haatuft and I have kept in touch, both of us very much inspired by the conversations we had that day with Duinker on the rocks, Spilde in his orchard, and Henden at the hatchery in Voss.  Recently, Haatuft reached out to me and asked me if I would accompany an American chef to Bergen to recreate that day, and to further our cross-cultural conversation about sustainability and responsible aquaculture.  The trip would culminate in a small, private dinner that the guest chef would cook at Lysverket, using the ingredients that we’d find at the various farms, fields, and fjords along the way.  I happily accepted his invitation and, given Haatuft’s charge, invited Justin Cogley, chef of Aubergine in Carmel, California, to be the guest chef.   Cogley has been a particularly admirable champion of sustainable aquaculture, partnering with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, as well as the Monterey Bay Abalone Co., and other entities and organizations in his region to bring more awareness to this important issue.  For two years now, he has also hosted the Rediscovering Coastal Cuisine dinner series, which brings chefs from all over the country to the Monterey Bay peninsula to learn about and celebrate sustainable aquaculture.  I have attended this event both years, and, like that day that I spent touring with Haatuft, they have proven to be unforgettable learning experiences.

So, next month, Cogley and I will be traveling to Bergen on a cross-cultural exchange and adventure.  (The dinner, I have been told by Haatuft, has already sold out, even before it has been officially announced.) I look forward to telling you about it.

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* The Bergen Art Museum is spread over a number of buildings.  Lysverket is located in KODE 4.  Next door, is a terrific exhibit of Edvard Munch’s ghostly characters.  It is the second-largest collection of Munch’s artwork in the world, second only to Oslo.

** Like most of Scandinavia, Norway is expensive.  When I arrived at the airport in Bergen, one of the first things I did was let out some cash from an automated teller.  Because I had barely slept the night before, but mostly because I am very bad at math, I selected one of the pre-set withdrawal amounts and ended up with $500.  When I expressed surprise to my Norwegian friends that their cash machines had pre-set withdrawal amounts that hight, they laughed.  They told me that I’d likely go through $500 in a day or two without even trying.  They were right.

PHOTOS: Both male and female sea urchins on the rocks at Askøy; Christopher Haatuft on this mobile in the inlet at Askøy; the famous wharf in Bergen, a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the interior of Lysverket at the Bergen Art Museum Kode 4; the view from the Spilde orchard in Øystese; the interior of 1877 in Bergen; pig ear terrine and smoked salmon salad at Colonialen’s café in the Litteraturhuset in Bergen; Krafkar composed cheese course at Lysverket; the psychedelic graffiti art in Bergen; the KODE 4, in which Lysverket resides, was partially covered with scaffolding that was decorated with graffiti at the invitation of the local radio station, which invited any and all to come help decorate the museum’s plywood exterior while the museum was under renovation.

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At its highest, the Bergen Rail Line climbs 1,300 meters above sea level, making it the highest elevated rail line in Europe.  Running over 480 meters (300 miles), the line anchors at both ends on the coast of Norway.

When I last left this blog, I had boarded the train on the west coast in Bergen, and was headed to the eastern terminus in Oslo.   In between those two cities, fjords and forests, mountains and valleys rushed by my big, picture window in a blur of grey and white.  It was the tail of winter, but most of the Norwegian highlands remained shrouded in clouds and blanketed with snow.

The train stopped about a half a dozen times, just long enough for passengers, bundled in snow and ski gear, to offload.  Outside, skimobiles, piled with people and packs, motored off towards silhouettes of cabins beyond, half-buried in snow.

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Oslo was rainy.

Conveniently, the main train station is right next to the Oslo Opera House, where my friend Sjøgren works.  I went straight from the station to meet her for a tour.  Sjøgren had been a graduate student in the theater department at my university.  As a part of a scholarship for costume design that I was awarded by the department, I was assigned to assist her on a production that she was designing.  I later shared a class with her, before being assigned to design a show of my own, which I could not have done without her help.  The last time the two of us saw each other was on my first and last visit to Norway in 2005.

The Oslo Opera House is magnificent.  The building merges classical and modern opera house design concepts, drawing inspiration from famous theaters from around the world (visit the website for more).  It houses the Norwegian state opera, the ballet, and a black box theater for more experimental performance art.

The building is immense.  The square footage devoted to the costume shop, alone, was unbelievable, not to mention the miles of corridors lined with dance studios, changing rooms, and offices.  The number of productions and the amount of traffic that this venue sees on any given week is mind-blowing.  The day Sjøgren walked me through the building, the opera was opening a production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, although I also found wigs and costumes in the shop tagged with La Bohême, and at least a half dozen other shows.

Sitting at the water’s edge, the Norwegian Opera House is built entirely on landfill, and with public funds.  The vast majority of its productions and operations are supported with public funds as well.  It stands as a testament to the Norwegian commitment to the performing arts.  To an American, whose government nickel-and-dimes its way each year to an embarrassingly small budget for its already starved National Endowment for the Arts, the Norwegian Opera House is an enviable and inspiring sight.  Whereas the Norwegians collectively agree to support and sustain the arts, in America, we rely on the generosity of wealthy philanthropists.

Then again, owing to the vast fields of oil in the Norwegian North Sea, Norway boasts the second highest GDP in Europe (second only to the small Grand Duchy of Luxembourg), and is the second wealthiest country in the world, in terms of monetary value.  So they can afford it.

[The Norwegian Opera House cost a little over $700 million to build (this does not include its annual operating budget).  The 2014 budget for the United States National Endowment for the Arts was $146 million.]

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I had three dinners in Oslo.  I’d like to tell you about two of them.

The first dinner I had was at Maaemo, located in an unexpected corner of a building that was tucked on a side street near the tracks of the central train station.  The restaurant is small, and, to the credit of its designers, takes advantage of its awkwardly shaped space.  Spotlights trained on the generously spaced tables made them the center of attention, throwing an ambient glow onto the walls, hung with art, which was strangely alluring.  It was an eclectic, but well-curated lot.  (Young and upcoming artists are encouraged to submit their work for consideration here.)

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Overlooking part of the dining room from the floor above, is the kitchen.  A narrow, spiral staircase, is the only means by which food and service items are shuttled between the kitchen and the dining room.

Next to the kitchen, divided by a wall of glass, was the “Test Kitchen Table,” so named because, in addition to being a private dining room, with a stunning, black marble hightop that seats four (six if you don’t mind being cozy), it is also equipped to double as a kitchen.  Also, diners seated in this room may receive some off-menu dishes that are still in development.  Encased in glass on all four sides, Maaemo’s Test Kitchen Table is the ultimate skybox.  It affords diners a view of the kitchen, the dining room below, and the glittering expanse of Oslo beyond.  The room had just been completed and had only been made available for reservations the week before. To my great surprise, my friend and I were one of the first ones to be seated there.

(The photo above was taken from the small landing at the top of the spiral staircase, which you can see through the glare in the glass on the lower right, that circles it’s way down to the dining room below.  The Test Kitchen Table is in the room to the left.)

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Maaemo is Finnish for “mother earth,” and it is suggestive of chef Esben Holmboe Bang’s terroir-driven cuisine.  Aligned with the current wave of haute, pan-Nordic cookery, Bang’s cooking focuses on indigenous ingredients, most of which are hearty and humble: root vegetables, dairy, grains, cold-water seafood, and game.  But what makes many of these Nordic chefs – like Bang – stand out is the quality of their ingredients, and the simplicity and precision with which they are presented.  Very rarely outside of the Scandinavian countries have I found such a high level of ingredient quality, confidence in simplicity, and precision in execution to co-exist.  (Japan is an obvious exception.  But, there are many cultural similarities between Scandivania and Japan.)

Bang seems particularly talented at concentrating flavor in stocks and sauces.  With a crisp oyster, he served a creamy emulsion of mussels and dill that tasted intensely of both.  To highlight the sweetness in a meaty mignon of scallop, which was presented on its shell before being divided between my friend and me, he spooned a reduction of celeriac juice, infused with apples.  And to help punch up a simple salad of charred onions and a coddled quail egg, there was a rich onion vinaigrette, woodsy with thyme.

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My favorite dishes included a gorgeous breast of duck, roasted with birch wood and presented whole under a thick rind of fat and crackling.  We were each served a strip of the breast meat, rosy and juicy, with preserved pear, kale, and a jus made from the duck legs.

Scandinavians are excellent bread bakers, so, unsurprisingly, the bread at Maaemo was stellar.  It was served (and deserved to be served) as its own course, on traditional Norwegian matpapir – parchment wrapping paper – with whipped butter.  I’ve noticed that some Nordic restaurants are baking bread in small, bite-sized molds.  I like this because there is a higher crust-to-crumb ratio.  On the flip side, these little nuggets cool quickly, and as they do, the dense interior stiffens.  I suspect this is one of the reasons why this type of bread is typically served as its own course, and not let to sit and linger at the table over multiple courses like traditional bread service.

At Maaemo, the bread looked like it had been baked in mini muffin molds.  They were cylindrical, but too short to have crowned a muffin top.   The bread at Ylajali the next night was very similar. The molds there were, perhaps, slightly smaller, and the bread was allowed to crown.  At Rasmus Kofoed’s Geranium in Copenhagen, where I first encountered bread service in this fashion, they were shaped like oval financiers.  In all three cases, the bread was made of milled grains and encrusted with seeds and grains.

At the end of dinner, there was a wonderfully silky brown butter ice cream, plated with hazelnut crumbles and molasses, and drizzled with a syrup of brown butter.  That was terrific.

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I can’t say that I loved all of the dishes at Maaemo.  My least favorite ones were the porridges, like rømmegrøt, described as sour cream topped with shaved reindeer heart.  These dishes, which also included a thick mushroom cream topped with “savory muesli” and a porridge of spelt and buckwheat with cheese, were extremely rich and, even though they were served in small portions, cloying.  I do, however, recall Bang saying that at least one of these dishes was still being tweaked, and that ours was just a preview in progress.

Nevertheless, based on the meal I had, Maaemo undoubtedly deserves both of the Michelin stars it has earned (it is the highest, Michelin-ranked restaurant in Norway).  Bang’s cooking has the sort of flawless consistency for which Scandinavian chefs are celebrated.  (I note, however, that his staff was fairly international. At the time I ate there, there was not one Norwegian in the kitchen. Bang is Danish, and his partner and sommelier, Pontus Dahlgren, who served my friend and me most of the night, is Finnish, by way of Sweden. We were also presented dishes by cooks from the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and Asia.)  The ingredients were great, the flavors were clean, and the message was clear, relatively free of superfluous shills for terroir and unnecessary theatrics (although, a fat langoustine perched on boughs of evergreen above a misting sea of dry ice was pretty dramatic).  The quality of the experience, which included a magical setting and excellent service, spoke for itself.  Maaemo is impressive.  I look forward to experiencing Bang’s collaboration dinner with Christopher Kostow later this year at the Twelve Days of Christmas at Meadowood Napa Valley.

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On my way to Oslo, I read “Sult” (translated as “Hunger” in English).  The book, written in 1890 by Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun, has since become a modern classic.  Considered one of the first psychology-drive books, it follows a tortured, young, starving artist in his daily life in Kristiana (the former name of Oslo).  His encounters with the heroine, Ylajali (to the best of my knowledge, it is pronounced ee-LY-ah-lee), are brief, but notable.  And it is because of her that I read the book.

On my second night in Oslo, I had dinner at St. Olavs Plass 2, the heroine’s home address in Hamsun’s novel, now occupied by a restaurant named after her.  Owing to this literary birth, the restaurant’s menu is presented as a book, with the sections of the meals broken down into “chapters.”

Norwegian Even Ramsvik is chef at Ylajali.  And his food falls squarely on the Nordic track, so much so that I recognized a number of his dishes based on ones I’ve seen elsewhere.

A crispy tangle of fried angel hair potato, encasing chicken liver and dusted with lingonberry powder, was awfully similar to the potato and duck liver course I had at Noma in Copenhagen.  Likewise, Ramsvik’s charred leek – a stalk tied at both ends and unseamed lengthwise to reveal a re-stuffed heart of melted leeks with löjrom (roe) and hazelnuts – was nearly identical to the one I had at Noma (and strangely similar to this other version at Eric Frechon’s three Michelin-starred Le Bristol in Paris).  And how about this sack of bread, which I had mentioned above?

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I don’t mean to pick on Ramsvik, or accuse him of copying others.

With the internet age in full swing, the borders of originality are becoming fuzzier. Indeed, there seems to be such a great exchange of information and dialogue about food these days that the international culinary playbook has become communal, and only loosely codified.  Furthermore, much of what modern chefs are doing now is revising age-old dishes that have existed for centuries. What troubles me, however, is that diners – including journalists – seem less and less interested in originality, and more and more focused on trends and personalities.

In some cases, a unique style of plating, or presentation, or pairing of ingredients has an established provenance (Michel Bras’s famous “Gargouillou,” for example, or Ferran Adria’s “Caviar Cream and Hazelnut Caviar,” or Alain Passard’s “egg” at l’Arpege).

Other times, an idea evolves until it becomes something different, but with a recognizable pedigree.  Ramsvik’s “wild cow” tartare might fall into this category (note: I am not saying that it does, I am saying that it might).  A few years ago, Rene Redzepi of Noma was serving a plaque of musk ox tartare covered with sorrel (I found this article about the dish from 2009; in later photos, the tartare appears to be completely papered over with sorrel).  In 2013, I had a wild beef tartare dish at Rodolfo Guzman’s Boragó in Chile, where the chopped meat was formed into a ball and then covered in oxalis petals.   I was told that the dish was inspired by Redzepi’s, but referred to the terroir of Quintay, in Chile.  At Ylajali, Ramsvik served the wild cow chopped, formed into a ball, and covered with nasturtium.

And, with enough passage of time and facsimiles, some dishes surpass being merely a trend and become a part of popular, culinary lexicon, thereby entering the “public domain.”  The molten chocolate cake – which I have heard attributed to both Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Michel Bras, although certainly countless bakers before them have accidentally half-baked a chocolate cake before  –  is a good example.  It can now be found on dessert menus from here to the moon.

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Since I have seen a wide spectrum of international cooking over a rather long period time, it’s hard to avoid connecting dots that seem to be related.  Take, for example, a rash of edible sea shells that has spread across fine dining tables recently.

Is the “razor clam,” that I had at Matthew Lightner’s Atera in New York a copy of Rasmus Kofoed’s version at Geranium, which I assume is the original version?

Redzepi served a smoked mussel on an edible mussel shell at Noma, pointing to the shellfish-rich waters not 100 yards from the restaurant’s front door. Sang Hoon Degeimbre served me something very similar at his farmhouse restaurant l’Air du Temps.  The shell of Degeimbre’s was made of fried potato, a clever reference to the fries that are served with mussels in his native Belgium (moules frites).  Certainly, both chefs had a great storyline for their edible mussel shells.  But one had to come before the other.  It would be awfully hard to believe that both came up with the idea independent of each other, sui generis.

Coffee siphons, liquid nitrogen, ash-coating: I could continue connecting dots, but it’s probably better if I save them for a rumination.  Suffice it to say, my opinion on the matter is simple: if your diners might know the origin of your copy or inspiration – and here, I’m not talking about the 99%, who probably will not know, but rather that 1% that will – it’s better to clarify and disclose.  You’d rather the 1% leave your restaurant admiring you for acknowledging and crediting those who have inspired you, rather than thinking that you’ve tried to fool them.

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As for Ylajali, Ramsvik’s cooking was technically sound, and his flavors were bold and clear, which likely accounts for the Michelin star that he was awarded just a couple of weeks after I ate there.  Among my favorite dishes was a warm mushroom broth poured into a bowl of tender duck hearts and a gently cooked duck egg, still runny inside.  And I was surprises by how much I likes the subsequent course, which presented a hearty slice of reindeer on a splatter of blood and truffles.  I expected the dish to be extremely heavy (especially with a melting knob of butter to one side).  But the meat was surprisingly tender, and the flavor of the sauce was not nearly as messy as it appeared on the plate.

The ørskog svele at the end was, perhaps, the highlight of the meal for me.  These little pancakes, made from a fragrant, yeasty batter, were griddled table side, and served with hazelnut ice cream and toasted hazelnuts.  It was terrific.

Ylajali is a lovely restaurant.  The interior is elegant in its spartan simplicity, with well-worn floors, and high ceilings trimmed in crown molding.  The space might have seemed a bit cold and empty, if it had not been filled with the warmth of a hospitable staff.

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On my last morning in Oslo, my friend Sjøgren invited me to a traditional Norwegian breakfast at her place.  She joked that everything was from a package.  The Norwegians love their tubed meat and tinned mackerel with tomato sauce.  And they love butter too.

That night, we attended an experimental dance performance mounted by a Swedish dance troupe.  It involved about a dozen dancers interacting with a giant curtain of stretchable fabric.  Parts of it were really engaging, but most of it was too experimental for me, especially after the curtain was dropped to the stage and the dancers began bundling it up with cords while crawling on the floor in slow motion.

Afterwards, we took a walk along the docks of Tjuvholm, with the old Arkshus fortress glowing across the water.  We found an Italian restaurant there on the pier – Olivia – and ducked in for a simple dinner of pizza and tiramisu.

Oslo is far from the most cosmopolitan city in Europe.  Despite its high net worth, Norway still lags behind its peers in pop culture and fashion, as my friend Sjøgren laments.  But the culinary scene there seems to be awakening, if not burgeoning.  When I last visited nine years ago, only the storied Bagatelle (opened since the 1930s) passed for fine dining. Now, chefs like Esben Holmboe Bang and Even Ramsvik are putting Oslo on the culinary map, and hopefully, mentoring young chefs who will grow the Oslo dining culture in the near future.  The rise of the hipster culture has even brought great, third-wave coffee roasters and brewers, like Tim Wendelboe, to the fore (you’ll find his micro roasterie and café a couple of blocks off the Olaf Ryes plass).  And there were so many other exciting new restaurants, coffee shops, and bars, recommended to me by friends and locals alike, that I didn’t have time to explore on this trip. I look forward to doing so next time.

Here are the restaurants that I visited in Oslo.  They are hyperlinked to photos that I took at each meal.

Maaëmo
Olivia Tjuvholmen
Ylajali

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Photos: A cabin half-buried in snow near Finse, Norway; a giant leg and sneaker as installation art in an underground parking lot in Tjuvholm, Oslo; the dark and elegant dining room of Maaemo in Oslo; Maaemo from the second-floor landing; Pontus Dahlgren steeping mushroom broth with a coffee siphon at Maaemo; Esben Holmboe Bang presents a gorgeous roasted duck breast at Maaemo; brown butter ice cream with molasses at Maaemo; the dining room at Ylajali in Oslo; Even Ramsvik presenting turbot baked in hay at Ylajali; an aromafusion of apple, tea, an tarragon at Ylajali; griddling ørskog svele (mini pancakes) at Ylajali; the Arkshus fortress at night, from the docks at Tjuvohlm.

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My only complaint about my visit to Kyoto is that it was too short.

The imperial capital of Japan for over a millennia (the capital was moved to Edo – modern-day Tokyo – in the second half of the 19th Century), Kyoto is full of history and culture.  Thankfully, much of it is preserved for us to explore today.  And forty-eight hours is hardly enough time to do so.

But my friend and guide, Tomo, helped maximize our hours there.

[This is the long-overdue second post in a series of posts about my trip to Japan in March.  You can read the first post here.]

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We took the bullet train to Kyoto from Tokyo Station.

Tokyo Station is immense.  It’s like an underground city unto itself.  Before boarding our train, Tomo took me to Matsuri, a shop that specializes in bento boxes, which are a popular “pastime” for commuters.

The selection, which represented regional cuisines of all of the prefectures of Japan, was overwhelming.  There were, easily, over a hundred different boxes (perhaps even two hundred), including one featured bento box of the month (this display of plastic bento boxes near the door offered a quick survey).  The variety was incredible: meat, fish, rice, noodles, dumplings, sushi – almost anything you could imagine or want.  And the packaging varied in size and shape, each one ergonomically tailored to its contents. I chose a bento box from the island prefecture of Niigata. Inside the long, narrow box were about a half-dozen mackerel oshizushi neatly wrapped in persimmon leaves.  The fish, which had been lightly marinated, was fresh, and the rice was perfectly seasoned and cooked.  I washed it down with some chilled, black tea, and capped it with doriyaki (think two silver dollar pancakes filled with red bean paste).  I marveled that I could eat so simply, and yet so well, while watching the Japanese countryside fly by me at warp speed.

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I was told that Kyoto is so densely crowded with shrines and temples that the subway system, which is not allowed to tunnel beneath sacred ground, is not as comprehensive or accessible as it should be. In many cases, taking a bus is more practical, especially when visiting temples.  (There are 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites in Kyoto.)

We devoted one day to visiting these historic, religious sites.  To pack in as much sightseeing as possible, we hired a family friend of Tomo’s, who is a tour guide in Kyoto, to drive us from temple to temple.  We hit three, major temples, in addition to many minor temples and shrines along the way.  The Kiyomizu-dera temple, which is the most visited site in Kyoto (attracting more than 4 million visitors a year) was impressive in its scope and panoramic vistas.  Perched on the side of the mountain, the temple’s hondo, or main hall, is also impressive for its network of wooden stilts and cross-beams constructed without nails.  But the temple grounds were so choked with tourists that it was hard to enjoy my time there.

We found the grounds of the Kinkaku-Ji temple just as crowded, owing to its flamboyantly decked “Golden Pavilion,” which is literally covered in gold.  It is breathtaking, especially when seen in double, mirrored on the pond before it.  But as eye-catching as the pavilion was, I was particularly attracted to a tiny waterfall that we found along the path.  Our guide explained that a tall, slender rock was positioned under the cascade to resemble a fish fighting its way up the fall.  Known as the Toryumon (or the Dragon Gate Waterfall), it represents the Chinese legend that any fish that can swim up a waterfall will become a dragon.

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I preferred the secluded calm of the Ginkaku-Ji, a former Zen temple known for its “Silver Pavillion.”  Unlike the Golden Pavilion, the Silver Pavilion was never finished, and remains a modest, wooden structure (which probably explains why it receives far less foot traffic than the showier temples).  I especially loved the moss-covered woods just beyond the temple gardens, veined with roots centuries old.

Likewise, our afternoon stroll through the immense Daitokuji Temple complex, and visit to the lovely Koto-in temple within it (an important landmark in the history of Japanese tea ceremony), was wonderfully peaceful.  We practically had the place to ourselves.

Our day of touring ended among the thousands of vermillion torii at the colorful Fushimi Inari Shrine. Torii are wooden gates that are most often seen at the entrances to Shinto shrines, like this one.  At Fushimi Inari, they stretch for kilometers up the side of a mountain, breaking only at minor shrines along the way.

In the middle of the day, we had stopped for a quick lunch at Yubasen.  As its name suggests, this restaurant specializes in yuba – the elastic “skin” that is a byproduct of making tofu.  Despite the rather casual appearance of the restaurant’s interior, the food was well-made.  Some of the main course options for the set lunch menu were curiously out of synch with the rest of the menu (lamb chops with red wine sauce was an option, if I recall correctly).  But, I really loved the milky, soybean broth we were served, with silky tofu suspended in it.  There was also a hearty stack of yuba in a warm, clear, dashi, that was pretty unforgettable.

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On another day, Tomo and I grazed our way through the Nishiki Market, Kyoto’s largest, and most well-known market.  Unlike most markets, which occupy square blocks, this one runs linearly across multiple blocks along one street.  Here, we found shops and stalls devoted to a wide range of goods and foods, like forged cutlery, pickled vegetables, rice, and fish cakes.  We even stumbled upon a store that focused exclusively on a type of sesame known as “golden sesame.”  Tomo and I couldn’t resist ordering a cone of sesame soft serve topped with toasted golden sesame.

Later, we walked through the great Arashiyama bamboo forest, marveling at the limber stalks that seemed to shoot out of a ground littered with red camellia blossoms.  Their whispy tops, swaying in the wind, towered high above us.

Afterwards, we lingered a while on the banks of the Hozu River, enjoying the afternoon sun, before making our way back to the train station to return to the city for dinner with friends.

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For lunch, we stopped at Souhonke Yudofu Okutan Kiyomizu (総本家ゆどうふ奥丹清水), a restaurant specializing in tofu.  The restaurant, lined in tatami – the straw mats that require guests to leave their shoes at the door – was set among wooded gardens that were meticulously manicured and beautifully framed by floor-to-ceiling windows.

The tables here were low, requiring us to kneel, or sit pan-legged on the tatami.  Sunken into the middle of our table was a gas flame that was used to heat our clay pot of tofu.

The set lunch was simple, but good.  It started with a few cold dishes, including a bowl of grated Japanese mountain yam. Slimy and mucousy, it had to be slurped from the bowl, helped along with chopsticks.  There was a block of chargrilled tofu, glazed with a surprisingly sweet kinome and white miso paste.

The house-made tofu could be ordered in varying degrees of firmness.  We ordered both the “firm” and “delicate” tofu, which came stacked in a clay pot around a small vase filled with dashi.  All of it was bathed in a light broth, which kept the contents of the clay pot hot.  With one hand holding my bowl, I used the other to fish out a block of tofu with a flat ladle that was perfectly designed for the job.  While the texture of the two types of tofu were certainly distinguishable, I was pleasantly surprised by how soft the firm tofu was.  I was also surprised by how sweet and milky the tofu tasted, reminding me of the natural sweetness of the freshly squeezed soybean milk I used to have for breakfast in Taiwan as a kid.  It was incredibly fresh.

Despite being known for its tofu, Souhonke Yudofu Okutan Kyomizu makes pretty good tempura too.  For our last course, we were presented with a small assortment of vegetables encased in gossamer shells, including a beautifully fried leaf of shiso.  With these tempura vegetables came a bowl of warm rice with pickles.  It was such a gratifying end that we waved off dessert.

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Rich with history and culture, Kyoto seemed like an especially appropriate place to have a kaiseki meal, a traditional, multi-course dinner that celebrates seasonal ingredients with artistic, cultural, and philosophical references.  Tomo arranged for us to have two.

The first night, we ate at Ifuki in the historic, Gion district of Kyoto.  That meal deserves its own blog post, which shall follow this one.

The second night, we ate at the three Michelin-starred Kichisen, near the Shimogamo-jinja Shrine.

Our meal there was odd and exquisite all at once.

Our party of four was seated at a table in a private room.  Tomo had requested this to spare our lazy American butts and knees from having to kneel on a tatami through dinner (I was especially thankful for this, since Tomo and I had knelt on a hard, tatami floor that afternoon for a traditional, Japanese tea ceremony).  The room was vast – it could easily have seated fifty or more.  But that, in itself, was generosity.

What was odd was some of the food, and the service, which, though well-meaning, at times was a bit clumsy and negligent.  Especially odd was an inexplicable invasion of fruit flies, which plagued us the entire night.

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For the most part, the food at Kichisen was well-made.  At its best, it was great, like a meaty trunk of bamboo shoot, served with seaweed and garnished with kinome.  There was also a comforting clay pot of rice paved with baby anchovies and decorated with rapeseed florets.  And for dessert, we were all wowed by a passion fruit filled with passion fruit sorbet.  The server gave us a flask of Suntory V.S.O.P. brandy and encouraged us to pour liberally into our frozen fruit cups.  We had no problem following instructions.  Though I’m tempted to admit that brandy probably pairs well with most fruit, it seemed to pair especially well with passion fruit.

As beautiful and stunning as some of the presentations at Kichisen were, the overall production came across as more glossy than sincere, perhaps pitched more towards a Western audience (Why wasn’t I surprised when they handed me a press packet with a DVD as I left the restaurant?).  The sakura (cherry blossom) trout that arrived “sizzling” on a slice of pineapple atop a hot stone, with avocado and tomato sauce, was a good example of this.  It was bit of a head-scratcher, and overcooked.

Nigiri were formed into cute, bite-sized balls, stacked on top of each other.  These arrived under beautiful, bamboo cages.  When one of our servers raised one of the cages to reveal the sushi, he knocked over the stack of nigiri, sending the balls rolling and some of the ikura spilling.  Instead of offering to replace the dish, he simply apologized and left. We then realized that we had one plate of nigiri to share between two diners.  This wasn’t a problem, except there were four types of nigiri, and only one of each kind on the plate. At a restaurant of this caliber and class, this seemed stingy (This happens a lot on petits fours plates, and it always irks me.  Just stick another one on there so your guests don’t have to decide who gets which!).

Did the service seemed detached because we literally were detached, eating in a cavernous annex far from the warmth and glow of the kitchen?  Was that our mistake?

Maybe, on a different night, with different servers, under different circumstances, Kichisen offers a three Michelin-starred experience.  The night we went, it fell short of that standard.

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By day, Kyoto bustled with business and tourists alike.  But by night, Kyoto was magical, with its streams and bridges, and hauntingly stoic temples and shrines looming quietly in the dark.  Geishas meted out a soft, steady click-clack, click-clack on their way home.  And cyclist whirred past on boulevards glowing with cherry blossoms.

As I said, forty-eight hours was hardly enough.  I’m not sure a lifetime would even be enough.

From Kyoto, we headed back towards Tokyo, stopping in Osaka for one night.  When I have time, I’ll continue my report there.

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Photos: A geisha in the night in the historic Gion District of Kyoto; tourists dress up in kimonos to visit the Golden Pavilion at the Kinkaku-ji Temple in Kyoto; the Golden Pavilion at the Kinkaku-ji Temple; a peaceful scene at the Koto-in Temple in Kyoto; the bamboo forest at Arashiyama, littered with camellia blossoms; tofu in a clay pot at Souhonke Yudofu Okutan Kyomizu; the entrance to three Michelin-starred Kichisen in Kyoto; peas in a sweet broth at Kichisen; two maikos, arm-in-arm, on the streets of Kyoto.

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Kyoto’s ancient Gion district is famous for its geishas.  Full of theaters, where geishas perform, the Gion also offers some of Kyoto’s best, and judging by the hoards of tourists who visit, worst dining.  This is where my friend and guide Tomo and I had our first dinner in Kyoto – at Ifuki, a one Michelin-starred kaiseki restaurant owned by chef Norio Yamamato (where, as it turns out, we shared the counter with three businessmen and their geishas*).

Despite the hushed formality of the restaurant, intensified for me by the fact that no one spoke English, Yamamoto’s warm smile and cheerful mood put me at ease.

Following the traditional kaiseki philosophy, Yamamoto’s multi-course meal celebrated the season by showcasing its best ingredients; highlighting their texture, flavor, and color; and presenting it all artfully on beautiful plates.  But, unique to Ifuki was Yamamoto’s use of live fire.  Almost everything he served had, in some way, passed over the open flame that flickered on the grill all night.   On top of excellent ingredients and simple, confident cooking, Yamamoto’s subtle use of smoke and char made this meal stand out.  Of the dozens of meals I had in Japan on this trip, high and low, this one was my favorite.

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The meal started with a Hassun plate, which is traditionally composed of an assortment of cold dishes. This was followed by sashimi, vegetables (here, it was a fat, white asparagus dressed with a terrific fava bean and pistachio purée), and then soup.

Because the Hassun plate was often the first, substantial course served in a kaiseki meal, I used it as a litmus test for how the rest of the meal would go.  In my opinion, the Hassun is a particularly difficult dish to pull off.  First, there are many components to the Hassun, all of which need to be prepared, and then properly stored, and then reassembled for service.  Secondly, the Hassun plate is served cold.  It’s harder to impress me with cold food than with hot food.  Proteins lose their juiciness and sexiness as they cool and stiffen.  Flavors tend to be more muted.  And gone is the simple comfort of warmth.

But, the Hassun plate at Ifuki was particularly great.  Everything was nicely cooked and beautifully presented.  The flavors were clean and clear.  I particularly liked the lily root served with ume (plum), a marriage of crispy and tangy.  I also loved the tender crunch of an emerald-green floret of rapeseed, the bitterness of which helped cut into the richness of a creamy ball of sea bream roe.

There was also a tiny tentacle of octopus propped on a small cluster of octopus eggs and rice, the two of which, when mixed together, were nearly indistinguishable from each other. (I didn’t know octopus eggs looked like that either.)

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It was clam season, so this meal (like most of the kaiseki dinners I had in the two weeks I was in Japan) leaned heavily on clams.  The most interesting one I encountered was the first clam that we were served at Ifuki (it reappeared the following night on the Hassun plate at Kichisen). This clam had a purplish-brown coloring, and its thin flesh had an unexpected snap to its texture.  It appeared and tasted more like squid.

Clam- a giant, meaty one – also starred in the soup course, which was a hot, clear clam broth.  In the bowl with the clam were a marshmallow-soft block of mugwort tofu, a couple of tender fiddlehead ferns, and kinome, a waxy-leaf herb (you may be more familiar with it in its dried and ground form, known as sansho) with the strong scent of citrus, mint, and pepper.  Kinome appeared often as a garnish throughout my trip.

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The two most-memorable courses from our dinner at Ifuki were the meat courses.  Usually, there’s at least one substantial meat (or fish) course towards the end of the meal.  At Ifuki, we were offered a few choices for this course, which included both fish and meat.  I chose the turtle dish.  Tomo chose wagyu beef.  Yamamoto coursed these two dishes out for us, sending them one after another as shared plates so that Tomo and I could enjoy them one at a time.

Although my experience with turtle meat is limited, I’ve always found it to be tough and dry.  Yamamoto’s turtle meat, taken from the neck, was surprisingly soft and juicy. Dark and rich, it could have been mistaken for a leaner cut of beef.  It was served with grilled turtle liver and a cluster of its eggs.  Since turtle eggs have shells, and these did not – they appeared to be merely yolks – I assumed that these were not fully developed eggs (but, what do I know?).  The texture of the yolks was dense and creamy; they hadn’t been cooked long enough to go stiff or chalky.

Owing to the richness of this course, the portion was small.  And to help break the monotony of fat and flavor, Yamamoto topped the turtle with a generous grating of spicy horseradish, which I absolutely loved.

Between meat courses, we were each served a beautiful, de-skinned cherry tomato that had been slightly warmed on the grill and dusted with truffle salt.  It burst with juice, the gentle acidity of which helped clear the turtle to make way for beef.

The wagyu beef arrived in three different cuts.   The tongue and striploin were served with a bit of wasabi.  The rump meat, which was left wonderfully rosy within, was served with miso.  Each part was perfectly cooked and delicious in all the ways that you’d expect and hope from wagyu beef.

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After fish and meat, the kaiseki always concludes with a rice dish.  A comforting reminder of my childhood and family gatherings, which always revolved around rice, the rice course was always my favorite one.

Yamamoto’s rice dish was simple, flecked with little more than bits of chopped bamboo and fried tofu.  With it, came a warm broth with fried tofu and greens, and a side dish of pickles and another with one two, small grilled fish.

To close, Yamamoto presented us with a colorful assortment of melons, kiwi, papaya, and berries, glistening with honey jelly.  It was light, bright, and refreshing.

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Luxury is not found simply in plushness or pleasantries.  Without confidence and consistency, these are merely platitudes, deployed to distract and deflect.

To me, luxury in dining is the ability to trust, and ultimately give yourself over to the chef and the experience without worry or want.

It is the thoughtfulness of Japanese chefs, like Yamamoto – their obsession over quality, detail, and consistency – that makes dining at their hands luxurious, despite the austerity, and sometimes, asceticism of the setting.  And the incredible humility and softness with which it is delivered makes it all the more wonderful.

I highly recommend Ifuki.

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Yamamoto bid us farewell at the door.  And, in the tradition of a good host, bowed, and bowed again, until Tomo and I turned out of sight.

Unlike our kaiseki meals in Tokyo, which spit us out into the bustling, neon-glow of the city’s vibrant night life, the transition from the calm of Ifuki back into Kyoto was much more seamless.  Tomo and I slipped into the empty, cobblestone streets of the Gion, threaded with narrow alleyways and mysterious corners lit only by the glow of lanterns swaying gently in the breeze.  Every now and then, there was the hushed bowing and farewell of a sendoff into the night, or the steady, hurried gait of a geisha on her way home.  Otherwise, our world was still.  For a moment, for a night, I was in a different time and place.

Dinner cost ¥16,000 (or about $160 at the then-current exchange rate).

To see all the photos from my meal at Ifuki, visit the album on Flickr.
To read more about my trip to Japan, read these two posts:

“travel: scatter my ashes at isetan…“
“travel: kimonos and kaiseki…“

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* A note on geisha culture: Tomo explained to me that geisha are women who have been formally trained to entertain.  Young women who enter into geisha life start as maikos.  These geishas-in-training can be identified by their heavy make-up, elaborate kimonos and hairdos, and thick, platform sandals.  Because of their outfit, maikos do not move very quickly, and can often be seen walking, arm-in-arm, in pairs.  As a part of their training, which lasts a few years, maikos are expected to learn how to dance, sing, and recite poetry.  At the end of their training, maikos graduate to the stage, performing as geishas.  Once a geisha, these women simplify their dress, hairdos and make-up.  As a geisha, these women are not permitted to marry; they must leave their career as a geisha to do so.  And, contrary to popular belief, geishas are not prostitutes.  They are hired strictly to entertain and, sometimes, to keep their clients company, often at extremely high prices (which explains why their audience and clients are almost exclusively wealthy businessmen).  Thus, geishas must not only be charming and entertaining, but also knowledgeable about current affairs.  Geishas can attain cult, and even celebrity status.  After years on the stage, geishas retire.  Some, like the three women at dinner with us at Ifuki, continue to work, hiring themselves out to businessmen as escorts to dinner.

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Photos:  Chef Norio Yamamoto at his open-fire grill at Ifuki; the Hassun plate; abalone with a sauce of its liver; turtle neck with its liver and eggs; bamboo rice with soup, fish, and pickles; the drink menu; and chef Yamamoto bidding us farewell from the curb.

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Evidently, the gestation for Midwestern maturity is slow.  Two years ago, I took an honest (some might characterize it as critical) look at the eating culture of my hometown of Kansas City.  Cautious with praise and focusing mostly on quality, I also used that blog post to acknowledge and recommend a few local restaurants, businesses, artisans, and food producers that I thought were contribute something meaningful to our city’s culinary identity.

Most of what I wrote then still stands today.  So, I happily bring forward those same people, places, and products that I recommended in 2012.  I continue to support them with my dollars and with my word-of-mouth here. At the same time, Kansas City’s dining culture has shown little progress or change since.  Ours is a city that remains largely dependent upon trickle-down trends from elsewhere.  Despite the fact that a number of new restaurants and bars have opened in the past two years, I haven’t found much that is worthy of discussion or mention.  So, I have relatively few additions to my previous list of recommendations, which, in my humble opinion, remains a comprehensive list of the best of what our city has to offer.  What little I have to add this time I do so after first noting a few changes to some of the businesses that I mentioned two years ago:

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Boulevard Brewery, once locally owned and operated, is now only locally operated.  In January of this year, the brewery was sold to the Belgian beer conglomerate Duvel Moortgart.

Also, last year, Josh Eans and his wife Abbey-Jo bought Happy Gillis Café & Hangout in the Columbus Park neighborhood from Todd Schulte, who still owns Genessee Royale in the West Bottoms (I mentioned both restaurants in my 2012 post, and still recommend them today).  The Eanses have tweaked the menu at Happy Gillis, but haven’t changed the restaurant’s charming, mismatched interior, or its simple, comforting breakfast and lunch dishes made with great, local ingredients.  I have long-believed that Eans is one of Kansas City’s most talented chefs.  He has a keen palate with a good mind for flavor (he’s also a Cicerone, who has been inspired to host a series of beer dinners at Happy Gillis on occasion).  More importantly, Eans understands the importance of simplicity and quality.*

Michael Corvino is the new executive chef of The American Restaurant, which marks its 40th anniversary this year.  Corvino, who comes to Kansas City from the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, Texas, took over in July of 2013, after James Beard Award-winning chef Debbie Gold left to pursue another project.  In his one, short year here, Corvino has given the restaurant a much-needed shot in the arm, injecting a new sense of excitement and renewal into Kansas City’s oldest fine dining venue.  I have had the opportunity to work with Corvino on a number of events, including the annual Harvesters Chefs Classic earlier this year, and The American Restaurant’s annual Friends of James Beard Foundation dinner (there are just a few seats available for the upcoming one on September 28), and I find him highly collaborative, shockingly humble, and wonderfully enthusiastic.  I look forward to good years of eating ahead at The American Restaurant.

And, just last week, Oklahoma Joe’s Bar-B-Q, perhaps Kansas City’s most-celebrated barbecue restaurant (outside of Arthur Bryant’s, which I believe is largely riding on tattered coattails three decades-old), announced that it will be changing its name to Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Q.  The announcement caused quite a stir, especially among some longtime loyalists and marketing pundits, who questioned the decision to abandon a well-branded name.  While I appreciate the owners’ desire to identify their restaurant with the great, barbecue capital for which it stands, I have to admit that the change came as a surprise to me.  But, like the changes in ownership and leadership with the other Kansas City businesses I’ve mentioned above, I consider Joe’s name change to be merely cosmetic.  I am confident that its core mission of producing the best product possible remains, and that consumer trust in the quality and consistency of Joe’s barbecue surpasses its brand recognition.  Judging by the queue at the original location on the corner of 47th and Mission, which often wraps around the old gas station in which the restaurant resides, I doubt Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Q will miss a beat.**

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The vast majority of those who read this blog are not in Kansas City.  Mindful of that fact, and the fact that I receive a large number of inquiries about my hometown each year, I offer the following, in addition to my blog post from two years ago, as an informal guide to my favorite places for eating and drinking in Kansas City.  I want to make it clear that neither this blog post nor the previous one to which I refer is complete or definitive.  Based on years of eating and drinking around town, it is merely my list of personal commendations.

Because Kansas City’s food and beverage community is small, it is unavoidable that I know – and in some cases, am good friends with, or have worked with – many of the people who appear here.  I have made addition disclosures where I feel they are needed.

Comfort

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Colby and Megan Garrelts’s Rye Restaurant, which opened in Leawood, Kansas in late 2012, is an easy addition to my list of recommendations in the comfort category.  Although the Garreltses scripted Rye to be a “Midwestern” restaurant, I remain unconvinced about the identity of a “Midwestern” cuisine apart from its roots in more-established regional American cookery (namely, Southern cooking).  Regardless, however you categorize the Garreltses’ food at Rye, it is well-made, and unquestionably delicious.  The fried chicken and the “smoked picnic pork” (or, what I call the “pull your own pork” shoulder) are personal favorites.  And Megan’s pies are phenomenal — the coconut cream pie is tops; the rest – especially the banana cream pie – are not far behind it.***

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Barbecue

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After a number of disappointing experiences, I avoided Gates Bar-B-Q for years.  But, I recently revisited (the original location at 1221 Brooklyn Avenue) on a narrowly tailored mission for burnt ends.  And I was surprised by what I found.  In an article I wrote for eater.com earlier this year about burnt ends, I described my experience:

“For years, I shied away from Gates because [its] barbecue was way too salty, and not very good. But, this time, [the] burnt ends knocked my socks off. When asked, the young carver behind the station held up a hunk of brisket and showed me the crispy corners that he was cutting off for my order. Using two cleavers, he chopped all of the burnt scraps into bits and piled them on white bread (normally it’s served on a hoagie, you have to request white bread). He asked me if I wanted them sauced. I said yes. He reached for a giant brush in a canister and generously painted the meat, and then shingled more white bread on top.

The best way to describe Gates’ burnt ends is brisket feuilletine. They reminded me of Rodney Scott’s famous pulled pork in South Carolina. Scott separates the crisped skin from the pulled pork meat and then chops the two back together so that every bite is mottled with crystals of crunchy crackling. Gates’ brisket burnt ends are just like that. And it’s marvelous. On this latest visit, the meat was still noticeably salty, saved only by the tanginess of the restaurant’s signature sauce, speckled with celery seed.”

For the burnt ends (and for the burnt ends alone), I add Gates Bar-B-Q to my very short roster of recommended barbecue restaurants in Kansas City. (Maybe the rest of Gates’s menu is just as good as its burnt ends, but I am unable and unwilling to include that in my endorsement here.)

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Coffee

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I like to drink what I describe as “Robert Parker coffee” – I want it dark, rich, and velvety; aligned much more with Old World sensibilities than those of the newer world in which I live.  The only local roaster that offers that kind of a coffee experience is Broadway Café and Roasting Company, which has been so successful in its 20-plus years in Westport that the Starbucks next door to it closed.  But, the third wave of coffee culture has arrived in Kansas City, bringing with it a caffeinated surf of mustaches and tattoos with a taste for something lighter, fruitier, and more acidic.  While that’s not the type of coffee I like to drink, the beans and brews produced by these newcomers are of very good quality. I applaud and acknowledge them for it here. Gregory Kolsto’s Oddly Correct has quickly cornered the local, third wave coffee movement with its beans, which are roasted next door to its coffee shop on Main Street in Midtown (Kolsto also does letterpress at the shop; you’ll see his art on Oddly Correct’s coffee bags). You’ll also find Oddly Correct’s beans being used in a number of restaurants, including Port Fonda (see below under “Hipster Mexican”), as well as other great coffee shops in Kansas City, including Lindsay Laricks’s Little Freshie on the city’s near-west side (Little Freshie is a “hand-crafted soda fountain and espresso bar” that also serves baked goods and shaved ice with house-made syrups) and Cory Stipp’s Quay Coffee in the River Market.  In addition to always pulling Oddly Correct espresso, Quay Coffee also rotates through other roasters for its pour-over and Kyoto drip coffees (for example, Quay is currently offering Kickapoo out of Wisconsin, and Sump out of St. Louis).  Likewise, Nathan and Leia Anderson’s  Second Best Coffee in Waldo (it has the hilarious slogan “Midwestern modesty”), which focuses on espresso, also rotates through a variety of roasters, including beans from PT’s Coffee Roasting Co. out of Topeka, Kansas (which just opened its first Kansas City coffee shop when it took over the old Coffee Girls space in the Crossroads District).  If you are looking for good coffee, I recommend that you start your Kansas City search at one of these coffee shops.****

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Hipster Mexican

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It all started in May of 2011 with a shiny Airstream parked downtown on Friday and Saturday nights.  Blasting eighties hip-hop and serving up a short menu of delicious Mexican caricatures to a steady stream of walk-ups, Patrick Ryan quickly developed a cult following, making the corner of 20th and Main Streets the happening spot for late-night meet-ups that summer.  By that August, “El Comedor” –  the six-seat table inside the trailer, which Ryan seated twice each night for a special four-course dinner showcasing a giant, roast pork butt – was booked solid through the fall (I recall eating at El Comedor in that un-air-conditioned trailer on the hottest day that summer.  It had peaked at 115-degrees earlier in the day.  Near midnight, the fans inside the trailer were circulating air that was still well-above 100-degrees).  In November, the trailer was put into storage for winter.  It has yet to make a reappearance.  That’s because in that short, hot summer, Ryan had generated enough excitement, momentum, and support to open Port Fonda as a brick and mortar space in Westport the following June.  Now, two years later, Port Fonda still remains one of the most exciting restaurant openings for Kansas City in recent memory.  Of it, I wrote a few months after it opened: “It offers everything a modern, community-conscious restaurant should: the interior design, the server outfits…, and many of the ingredients are locally sourced. It has become a gathering place for a wide spectrum of Kansas Citians; mostly hipsters, but also yuppies, athletes (Chiefs and Sporting Kansas City players are regularly spotted at the restaurant), and business folk too. With a great playlist…, a hopping bar scene, and a fairly solid menu with fairly reasonable prices, Port Fonda has made eating out fun for Kansas City diners, mobilizing them on those Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights, when our city’s restaurants are either closed, or stall for business. For Kansas City, this is important.”  Although I was thrilled by Port Fonda’s opening, I hesitated in making too many judgments about the food at first.  The quality was inconsistent.  But, to his credit, Ryan kept an open dialogue with me about his cooking, and over time, I came to trust his desire for honest feedback.  More and more, I found myself recommending Port Fonda to friends and strangers alike. After watching Port Fonda feel its way through its first few months, and then improve gradually over the past two years, I now consider the restaurant less of a scene (although it remains very much a scene) and more of a place I like to eat.  And it has definitely contributed to improving the dining culture of Kansas City.  As such, I now recommend Port Fonda to you.  Look elsewhere for authenticity. Come here for a fun time with friends, some delicious food (the Chimichanga del Dia is invariably fantastic; the salads are also consistently terrific), and a solid list of cocktails.  Can we get the fried oyster tacos back on the menu, please?

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Wine & Spirits

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Due to a deficiency in alcohol dehydrogenase (the enzyme that helps humans metabolize alcohol), I’m not a big drinker. (If you ask my doctor, he would tell you that I shouldn’t drink at all.)  So I have little business making recommendations in this department.  That said, there are two new places in Kansas City that I think deserve a mention.  Ryan Sciara has opened Underdog Wine Co., a wine shop in the Crestwood strip in Brookside.  Despite my inability to drink what he sells, I have known Sciara for years, and happily vouch for his knowledge about wine and spirits, and especially his ability to guide a rube like me through his tiny, but well-stocked store.  Beau Williams left Ryan Maybee’s popular speakeasy concept Manifesto and opened Julep with his wife Keely in Westport.  Although Julep is billed as a whiskey bar (there are even whiskey lockers for the serious coinnoisseurs), Williams offers a full menu of cocktails, which include a few versions of the bar’s namesake. And there is a small menu of food, which is written and developed by John Brogran, the chef de cuisine at Rye (see above under “Comfort”).*****  

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* In addition to having worked for Guenter Seeger and co-founding Blanc Burgers + Bottles in Kansas City,  Eans was most-recently sous chef at The American Restaurant.  Disclosure: I have worked with Eans in a professional context, including being hired to photograph for the Happy Gillis Café & Hangout website.

** The owners of Oklahoma Joe’s (or Joe’s Kansas City), Jeff and Joy Stehny, are longtime Kansas City residents.  They are acquaintances of mine.

*** The Garreltses are not only longtime friends of mine, but we have worked together professionally.  I wrote and photographed their cookbook, “Bluestem, The Cookbook,” and have photographed for both of their restaurants, as well as their upcoming cookbook, “Made in America” (expectant April, 2015; Andrews McMeel Publishing).

**** If you, like me, enjoy getting work done at coffee shops, you’ll be happy to know that Oddly Correct, Quay, Second Best, and PT’s Coffee Roasting Co. all offer wifi. Broadway Café does not.  Also, I note that both Oddly Correct and Second Best Coffee close unusually early.  Lastly, I should mention Messenger Coffee, which is a coffee roaster based in Shawnee, Kansas.  Messenger Coffee can be found at its partner coffee shop Black Dog in Lenexa, and, according to Recommended Daily, at Homer’s in Overland Park, Alchemy in Lawrence, and the Filling Stations (that’s the name of a local chain of coffee shops) around Kansas City.  I have never had Messenger’s coffee, nor have I visited Black Dog, Homer’s, or Alchemy, so I did not include them in my recommendation above.

***** Disclosure: Sciara has hired me to photograph his wine store for its website and press.  And, for what it’s worth, Ryan Maybee and I have known each other since middle school; we graduated high school in the same class.  I also note that, new to Westport is ça va, a Champagne bar that is a partnership among Howard Hanna (chef of The Rieger Grill & Exchange, he oversees the food menu at ça va), Jim Coley (wine director at Gomer’s Midtown, he oversees the wine list at ça va), and Justin Norcross (he manages the bar).  I have not visited at ça va yet, so I do not include it in my recommendation above.

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Photos: Andrew Iwersen at the pour-over station at Quay Coffee in the River Market District; Henry Eans reaching at the wall of “abandoned art” at Happy Gillis Café & Hangout in Columbus Park; Ryan and Jenny Sciara at Underdog Wine Co. in Brookside; fried chicken and fixings at Rye Restaurant in the Mission Farms development in Leawood; the burnt ends at Gates Bar-B-Q’s original location on Brooklyn Avenue; the Slayer at Second Best Coffee in Waldo; Patrick Ryan inside the Port Fonda Airstream trailer; and the banquet at Julep in Westport.

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There are two guest chefs on the roster for this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood whose restaurants I have not visited.  One of them is Joshua McFadden, chef of Ava Gene’s, a “Roman”-style Italian restaurant in Portland, Oregon.

I first met McFadden at The Restaurant at Meadowood last year when he and the owner of Ava Gene’s, Duane Sorenson*, attended the Twelve Days of Christmas.   This year, chef Christopher Kostow invited him back as the guest chef for the sixth night of this dinner series, with wine pairings by Kongsgaard.

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Of all of the Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I’ve attended so far, McFadden’s was one of the most collaborative.  There were only five courses, and for four of them, it was call-and-echo, with McFadden presenting a dish, and Kostow answering with a counterpart.  And everything was served family-style.

The first course, which McFadden presented alone, was focused on bread and its condiments.  He served warm Tartine Bakery sesame bread with some Katz extra virgin olive oil, butter that McFadden brought from Portland, a spread made from Borlotti beans from Ayres Farm (one of McFadden’s purveyors in Oregon), and a bright, colorful citrus salad that included super-crunchy celtuce that had been crisped in ice water.

For the second course, each chef presented a cold salad, and for the third course, they both served pasta.

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The highlight of this dinner for me was the fourth course.  Chef Kostow and his team cooked a gorgeous côte de boeuf that had been aged about two months by Bryan Flannery.  The ribs were removed, cut into individual portions, cooked confit in its own tallow, and then crisped on the open-flame grill.

The rest of the beef was broken down – the cap removed, and the ribeye cut into smaller portions. The meat was cooked confit in its own tallow, sliced, and dressed with a bit of the melted fat and some of its natural juices.  Each guest was served a piece of the rib, along with slices from the ribeye. I was served a few strips of the meat from the cap – my favorite cut.  I rarely gush about food.  But this was fantastic: simple, delicious, perfect.

The beef was served with three side dishes.  There were matsutake and potatoes à la grecque, and a “pesto” made from “trimmings” from The Restaurant at Meadwood’s garden.**  Joshua McFadden served creamy polenta.

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Similar to the Franks, who based their menu on the traditional, Italian Christmastime “Feast of Seven Fishes,” McFadden ended his dinner with a “flood of sweets.”  On that carousel of mini desserts, McFadden served silky vanilla panna cotta and crispy cannoli shells filled with whipped ricotta and rolled in chopped pistachios.  The pastry team at The Restaurant at Meadowood added a number of its own mignardises, including a toasty tuile made of brown butter and coffee garnished with walnut purée and candied black walnuts.

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Below, you’ll find the menu from the sixth night of the Twelve Days of Christmas featuring Joshua McFadden of Ava Gene’s and wines by Kongsgaard (I’m obsessed with Kongsgaard’s medieval-looking label).  Following the menu, you’ll find a slideshow of all of the photos that I took.

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Canapés
Nuka Vegetables
Radishes, carrots.

Kale Chip
Flavors of chorizo.
(Gauthier)

Black Olive Meringue
Whipped olive oil.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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First Course 
Citrus, Avocado, Celtuce Herbs
Katz New XVOO
Tartine Bakery Sesame Bread
(McFadden)

Second Course
Pumpkin
Brown butter, currants, pecans.
(McFadden)

Grilled Gem Lettuces
“Bagna cauda,” cellar vegetables.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Third Course 
Mezzi Rigatoni
Lamb ragu, greens, Grove 45 XVOO.
(McFadden)

Chicken Ravioli
Rye, cabbage.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Fourth Course 
Côte de Boeuf
Dressed with its own tallow and jus,
Amish butter, matsutake à la grecque,
Polenta, and “pesto” of garden trimmings.
(McFadden & The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Fifth Course 
“A Flood of Sweets”
Sweet Potato “Mochi”
Walnut “Cookies”
Vanilla Panna Cotta with Pine Cone Syrup
Connoli
(McFadden & The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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Kongsgaard Albariño
2013

Kongsgaard Chardonnay
2011

Kongsgaard “The Judge”
Chardonnay, 2010

Kongsgaard Syrah
2007

Kongsgaard Cabernet Sauvignon
2009

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Below are links to my posts and photos from all of the Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I have attended over the past three years at the Restaurant at Meadowood.  Each chef is listed with the restaurant with which they were cooking at the time they participated in the event (some have moved on to other projects and restaurants).

2012

Scott Anderson (Elements; Princeton, New Jersey)
John & Karen Shields (Formerly of Townhouse; Chilhowie, Virginia)
Phillip Foss (EL Ideas; Chicago, Illinois)
Stuart Brioza & Nicole Krasinski (State Bird Provisions; San Francisco, California)
Jason Franey (Canlis Restaurant; Seattle, Washinton)
Matthias Merges (Yusho; Chicago, Illinois)
Mori Onodera (Formerly of Mori Sushi; Los Angeles, California)
James Syhabout (Commis; Oakland, California)
Nick Anderer (Maialino; New York, New York)
David Toutain (Agapé Substance; Paris, France)
Josh Habiger & Erik Anderson (The Catbird Seat; Nashville Tennessee)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2013

Andy Ricker (Pok Pok, Portland, Oregon & New York, New York)
Rodolfo Guzman (Boragó; Santiago, Chile)
Carlo Mirarchi (Blanca and Roberta’s; Brooklyn, New York)
Tim Cushman (O Ya; Boston, Massachusetts)
Ashley Christensen (Poole’s Diner; Raleigh, North Carolina)
David Chang (Momofuku; New York, New York)
Matthew Accarrino (SPQR; San Francisco, California)
Mark Ladner & Brooks Headley (Del Posto; New York, New York)
Rasmus Kofoed (Geranium; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Nicolaus Balla & Cortney Burns (Bar Tartine; San Francisco, California)
David Kinch (Manresa; Los Gatos, California)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2014

Matthew Orlando (Amass; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Frank Castranovo & Frank Falcinelli (Frankies 457, Prime Meats; New York, New York)
Kobe Desramaults (In de Wulf; Dranouter, Belgium)
Alexandre Gauthier (La Grenouillère; La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, France)
Blaine Wetzel (Willows Inn; Lummi Island, Washington)
Joshua McFadden (Ava Gene’s; Portland, Oregon)

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* In addition to owning two restaurants, one of which is Ava Gene’s, Duane Sorenson also owns Stumptown Coffee.  Sorenson named Ava Gene’s after his daughter.

** Since this “pesto” contained neither cheese nor nuts, I debated with some of the cooks as to whether this rough purée of vegetable trimmings with oil was more of a “chimichurri” than “pesto.” But, they noted that this “pesto” didn’t contain garlic or vinegar, so “chimichurri” wouldn’t be an accurate label either.

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Besides Joshua McFadden, who cooked on the sixth night, Virgilio Martinez is the only other chef on this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas roster whose restaurant I had never visited.

Martinez is chef and owner of Central, a high-end restaurant in Lima, Peru.  His colorful cooking, representing both the Peruvian coast, as well as the “high-altitude” ingredients of the Andes, together with dishes presented by hosting chef Christopher Kostow of the Restaurant at Meadowood, were paired with wines by the Mondavi family’s Continuum label.

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Like Rodolfo Guzman, the Chilean chef of Boragó, who cooked at last year’s Twelve Days of Christmas, Virgilio Martinez introduced some unfamiliar ingredients from South America to the Restaurant at Meadowood.  He brought with him a rainbow of grains – variations of quinoa ranging from red to black – and colorful powders made from beets, Peruvian herbs, as well as clay taken from the mountainous shores of Lake Titicaca near the Bolivian border.
The grains he cooked separately, and then scattered them over a smooth purée of kohlrabi.  To add more color, he painted the dish with beet dust and fresh herbs.

The clay dust he passed around the tables in communal bowls for diners to taste – just a pinch. It had a chalky, tannic affect, and tasted to me like green bananas (he reassured us that the soil was safe to eat, telling us that it is used by the indigious Andeans as a remedy for upset stomachs).  This grey soil he mimicked in a landscaped dessert that conveyed the contours and colors of the Andes Mountains.  There were undulating slices of mangoes tucked between dollops of chocolate ganache, and an avalanche of grey “soil.” Over the top of all of this was a light dusting of bright-green powder made from indigenous herbs.

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Peru is known for its hundreds of varieties of potatoes.  So, Martinez showcased them in a fancy version of a Peruvian dish that reminded me of the Chilean curanto.  A stew of potato and meat, or sometimes seafood as in this case (Martinez used clams), it was a hearty and flavorful gathering of humble ingredients.  But unlike the curanto, which, is a tumble of root vegetables and meat in brothy stew, Martinez’s version was more of a thick potato mash.  He topped it with a tissue-thin “paper” made from red fruits and a quail egg yolk.  Diners were instructed to mix everything together.

And, of course, Peru is known for its marinated seafood.  Martinez started the meal with a light and pretty plate of scallop tiradito, garnished with parsnip and basil seeds.  Over all if it, he drizzled “leche de tigre” (“tiger’s milk”), the milky marinating juices from ceviche.  (In my limited understanding of Peruvian cuisine, the difference between ceviche and tiradito is based on how the seafood is presented. Whereas ceviches are served in a bowl or cup with the seafood soaking in the marinating juices, tiradito is usually sliced seafood, served on a plate, with some of the marinating juices drizzled over it as sauce or dressing.)

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At this dinner, Christopher Kostow served two of my favorite dishes from this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas.

Samp (a rough form of grits) with squid is a dish that I was served at The Restaurant at Meadowood the night before this dinner series started (and one that I was thrilled to have again). The squid was cut up and cooked to such a tender texture that it all but melted into the porridge, leaving a hint of its flavor and aroma.  Over the top of the samp were shingled thin slices of matsutake mushrooms, which were garnished with young pine needles.  The nuttiness of the samp, the sweetness of the squid, and the woodsy scent of pine made an alluring combination of flavors. Buttery and warm, it was extremely comforting too.

He also served a pink fist of veal short rib smothered in a rich suc made of tendon.  I’ve noticed that Kostow likes high viscosity — his signature kohlrabi and rye, served in a kudzu-enriched glaze, is a good example — and this dish definitely fell along that spectrum.  He used the breezy scent of celery and dill (who knew those two flavors overlapped so well) to lift the heaviness.  This was a great dish.

I also want to mention the last course that Kostow served at this dinner.  It was a transition course from his veal short rib to Martinez’s dessert.  And in that role, it was brilliant.  Kostow made a creamy pudding out of gjetost (the Norwegian, caramel-like “brunost,” or “brown cheese”) and served it with a fragrant sorbet made from pear lees.  But whereas the pear lees offered acid and iciness to help thin the richness of the cheese, a dusting of spice bush – with its more biting scent – really helped to cut through the rest.  Salty and sweet, and immensely fragrant too, this was a delicious course.

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A week after this dinner, Martin Winters, one of the sommeliers at The Restaurant at Meadowood, took me up Pritchard Hill to visit the Continuum Estate — the winery that was featured on this seventh night of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Chiara Mondavi – daughter of Tim Mondavi – was kind enough to host us.  She showed us her family’s vineyards and winery, walking us through a brief history of both.  She also explained the Continuum label, which she designed.  Having studied art, Chiara has a great eye and a wonderful imagination (and a highly expressive personality).  The Continuum label features the silhouette of a Cabernet Franc vine in her family’s vineyard.  She traced the silhouette of the vine on a giant canvas that she stretched herself (technically, it’s a triptych, since there are three panels — she added two “wings” to the main canvas after she realized she needed more space).  Staking a frame into the ground, she laid the canvas next to the vine in the same spot over the course of a few days, tracing as long as the shadow stayed relatively true to the dimensions of the plant.  I marveled at her method, which not only required sunlight (it had been raining two weeks straight when I arrived at Continuum), but also required her to work efficiently, as the sun not only moves quickly through the sky, distorting shadows within seconds, but also moves against the rotation of the earth, shifting the placement of shadows daily.

Continuum wines are red wine blends, dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon.  They paired beautifully with the heartier courses in the second half of the Martinez-Kostow dinner.  The lighter courses at the beginning — the tiradito, samp and matsutake, and kohlrabi and quinoa — were paired with a Sancerre (Domaine LaPorte “LaRochoy”).

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Below, you’ll find the menu from the seventh night of the Twelve Days of Christmas featuring Virgilio Martinez of Central, and wines by Continuum.   Following the menu, you’ll find a slideshow of all of the photos that I took.

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Canapés
Nuka Vegetables
Radishes, carrots.

Kale Chip
Flavors of chorizo.

Black Olive Meringue
Whipped olive oil.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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First Course 
Scallop
Parsnip, tiradito.
(Martinez)

Second Course
Matsutake
Squid, pine, samp.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Third Course 
Kohlrabi
Andean grains.
(Martinez)

Fourth Course 
Clams
Dry potato, quail egg, and red and black fruits.
(Martinez)

Fifth Course 
Gem Lettuce
Amaranth, flowers, crustacea broth.
(Martinez)

Sixth Course 
Veal Shortrib
Tendon suc, dill, celery gnudi.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Seventh Course 
Pear Lees
Gjetost pudding, spicebush.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Eighth Course 
Cacao and Clay
(Martinez)

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Domaine LaPorte “Le Rochoy”
Sancerre, 2012

Continuum 2005

Continuum 2008

Continuum 2011

Arnaud Margaine “Traditionelle”
Demi-Sec, N.V.

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Below are links to my posts and photos from all of the Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I have attended over the past three years at the Restaurant at Meadowood.  Each chef is listed with the restaurant with which they were cooking at the time they participated in the event (some have moved on to other projects and restaurants).

2012

Scott Anderson (Elements; Princeton, New Jersey)
John & Karen Shields (Formerly of Townhouse; Chilhowie, Virginia)
Phillip Foss (EL Ideas; Chicago, Illinois)
Stuart Brioza & Nicole Krasinski (State Bird Provisions; San Francisco, California)
Jason Franey (Canlis Restaurant; Seattle, Washinton)
Matthias Merges (Yusho; Chicago, Illinois)
Mori Onodera (Formerly of Mori Sushi; Los Angeles, California)
James Syhabout (Commis; Oakland, California)
Nick Anderer (Maialino; New York, New York)
David Toutain (Agapé Substance; Paris, France)
Josh Habiger & Erik Anderson (The Catbird Seat; Nashville Tennessee)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2013

Andy Ricker (Pok Pok, Portland, Oregon & New York, New York)
Rodolfo Guzman (Boragó; Santiago, Chile)
Carlo Mirarchi (Blanca and Roberta’s; Brooklyn, New York)
Tim Cushman (O Ya; Boston, Massachusetts)
Ashley Christensen (Poole’s Diner; Raleigh, North Carolina)
David Chang (Momofuku; New York, New York)
Matthew Accarrino (SPQR; San Francisco, California)
Mark Ladner & Brooks Headley (Del Posto; New York, New York)
Rasmus Kofoed (Geranium; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Nicolaus Balla & Cortney Burns (Bar Tartine; San Francisco, California)
David Kinch (Manresa; Los Gatos, California)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2014

Matthew Orlando (Amass; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Frank Castranovo & Frank Falcinelli (Frankies 457, Prime Meats; New York, New York)
Kobe Desramaults (In de Wulf; Dranouter, Belgium)
Alexandre Gauthier (La Grenouillère; La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, France)
Blaine Wetzel (Willows Inn; Lummi Island, Washington)
Joshua McFadden (Ava Gene’s; Portland, Oregon)
Virgilio Martinez (Central; Lima, Peru)

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Of this year’s twelve dinners, I was most anxious about the eighth one: the night that Grant Achatz cooked.

Early in alinea’s life, I was one of the very few, if not alone, in my criticism of that restaurant – or, more accurately, that style of dining.  Now, eight years and four meals at alinea later, the restaurant has evolved, and my perspective has shifted.  I would venture to say that Achatz’s opinion of me (or, rather, his opinion of my opinion) has also changed.

I never questioned Achatz’s talent or inventiveness, of which I remain in awe.  Neither did I dare overlook his sense of adventure, or underestimate his partner Nick Kokonas’s keen sense of business – these are the traits that I have admired most in the two.  Thankful to have had a rather open (and, I think, rather honest) dialogue about my experiences at alinea with both of them over recent years, I’ve since narrowed the gaps, and, at the very least, have come to more fully appreciate the empire and world that they have created. Personal dining preferences aside, what they have built is very impressive.

To keep the alinea world spinning on its axis, with its three Michelin stars in orbit, is no small feat. But to set it spinning on another platform is a totally different story.  That is what the alinea team set out to do when it decided to transplant alinea to The Restaurant at Meadowood for one night.

As I watched Achatz’s 1,500-pound shipment of boxes being unloaded onto the dock at Meadowood Napa Valley the day before the dinner, I wondered how, or if this was going to work.

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Achatz brought with him Mike Bagale, the current chef de cuisine at Alinea; Eric Rivera, alinea’s Director of Culinary Research; and Tim Coppola, who is on the service staff at alinea, and who helped train the front of the house staff when Eleven Madison Park and alinea switched places for a week in 2012.

Together, they worked with The Restaurant at Meadowood to assemble a truly incredible show.

Some of what they presented on the eighth night were well-known alinea dishes, or variations of them. Both the “Hot Potato, Cold Potato,” as well as the “Black Truffle Explosion” were served as passed appetizers during the hour-long reception in the kitchen before dinner.   I also recognized the “skate necklace” with brown butter and lemon from my first meal at alinea in 2006, trimmed down into a one-bite canapé.  The pheasant tempura skewered on a maple branch (which I had in 2010) was reincarnated here as a nugget of eggplant and banana, battered and fried, and skewered on a cinnamon stick.  It was spiced with something musky, something curry-like.  It was delicious.

And, at the end of the meal, those famous “balloons” filled the dining room with high-pitched giggles as diners sucked in the helium with delight before eating the deflated bubble made out of green apple taffy (you’ll want to see the video of Bagale and Achatz making the balloons).

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Many of Achatz’s courses at this dinner were inspired by alinea dishes, past and present, with which I was unfamiliar.

There was an alabaster square of gurnard — sea robin – served on the gentle slopes of oak barrel staves.  He had used this plating at alinea before, and it seemed an appropriate presentation in Napa Valley (the staves are torched and washed after each service).

There was a two-part campfire course, recently on the menu at alinea, that I had never seen before.  It lit up the tables at The Restaurant at Meadowood that night. Arranged around a flaming stack of binchotan were cubes of hamachi on pine skewers.  Diners were given the option to either cook the hamachi over the flames, or to eat it raw.  After the flames died down, the cooks came out of the kitchen to remove some of the large binchotan logs, which were actually charred parsnips made to look (very convincingly) of charcoal, from the ashes (the ashes had been doused in Everclear and set alight). Beneath the campfire was revealed a packet of pork belly wrapped in thick kombu.  The pork and parsnips were carved and plated table-side.

To properly set the stage for a “graffiti” dessert based on urban tag art, Achatz and his team spent some time mixing concrete behind the restaurant the day before their dinner, molding special concrete “plates.”  On the plates, they presented hazelnut ice cream, an intense shot of Perigord truffles, and some crispy meringue-like crumbles made to look like chipped concrete.  Servers came to the tables with pressurized cans filled with balsamic vinegar (a bolt had been dropped into each can before they were sealed and pumped, so that when the servers shook them, they sounded like actual aerosol spray paint canisters), and “tagged” the desserts.

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When I last ate at alinea (last year), we were served a skyscraper city of seafood, including a sweet shrimp that was served nearly raw.  At line-up at The Restaurant at Meadowood, Achatz told the staff about this shrimp, which he also served raw at this dinner, draped over fried lentils and an assortment of beans that looked like pebbles (hence the name of this course on the menu, “pebbles”). The texture of the fried lentils – still tender, yet also crispy – against the silky shrimp was terrific.  The flavors were great too.  This was my favorite Achatz course of the night.

I didn’t catch the story about Achatz’s matsutake course, which was remarkably similar to Kostow’s samp and matsutake course from the seventh night (Kostow’s course was a porridge of samp grits and squid paved with thinly sliced matstutake mushrooms and garnished with young pine needles).  Achatz’s dish was a “porridge” made from tapioca pearls, with bits of abalone throughout.  Tented around the porridge were thinly shaved slices of matsutake, scented with pine.  Whether the similarity was by design or coincidence, I know not.

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Since Achatz’s cooking style differs from Kostow’s, The Restaurant at Meadowood presented a few supporting courses, including a gorgeous cut of cured sea trout sporting an ultra-crispy “skin” made entirely out of buckwheat.  This was a two-bite finger food.  And it was my favorite of Kostow’s dishes that night.  (I suppose the tromp-l’oeil aspect of the sea trout jived with the alinea approach to plating, as did Kostow’s “Taleggio Bread & Butter” dish, which he also served at this dinner.)

The Restaurant at Meadowood revived its salt-baked rutabaga on this night, which I had seen in years past.  It was sliced thinly, and sauced with maple syrup and goat butter, and garnished with white truffles.  Every year, I marvel at how much the flavor of rutabagas overlap with the aroma of white truffles.

And for dessert, Kostow’s kitchen painted the tropics with a more saturated palette of flavors: dates and caraway, brightened with young coconut and lime.

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Logistically, this dinner was extremely complicated.  And it is a testament to the professionalism and talent of both Achatz and his cooks, who arrived extremely organized – with pre-printed labels, prep-lists, and even station markers for the cooks at The Restaurant at Meadowood – as well as the team at The Restaurant at Meadowood, that the dinner went off without a hitch.  As someone who had a rare glimpse at both the behind-the-scenes prep, as well as the game-day play-by-play in both the kitchen and dining room, I was amazed by the quality and consistency of the food that left the kitchen, and the ease and grace with which the night passed.

Nathaniel Dorn, the Restaurant Director at The Restaurant at Meadowood, and his front of the house staff, are especially to be congratulated for their work that night. The servers, who didn’t receive the final menus until 16:00 at staff line-up, had all of the dishes, service technicalities, dietary restrictions, and the guest list memorized by the time the first diner showed at 18:00.  Although these same demands are required of the staff every night of the Twelve Days of Christmas, the moving parts on this eighth night of service were especially complex.

This dinner required every staff member, from the front door to the dish pit, to fire on all cylinders.  And they did so effortlessly.  If for nothing else, this dinner stood out among this year’s twelve as proof that The Restaurant at Meadowood is capable of that which very few other restaurants in America are.  Consistency at this level, with this many last-minute curveballs is rare.  This night gave some meaningful credit to six Michelin stars and The Restaurant at Meadowood’s shiny, new James Beard Award for Outstanding Service.  It was a delight to see and experience it.

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Below, you’ll find the menu from the eighth night of the Twelve Days of Christmas featuring Grant Achatz of Alinea, and wines by Larkmead.   Following the menu, you’ll find a slideshow of all of the photos that I took.

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Canapés
“Black Truffle Explosion”

“Hot Potato, Cold Potato”

Skate Wing
Brown butter, lemon.

Eggplant Tempura
Banana, cinnamon stick.

(Achatz)

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First Course 
Osetra
Traditional garnishes, brioche foam, yolk.
(Achatz)

Second Course
“Pebble”
Ebi, ogo, clam shells, beans, fried lentils.
(Achatz)

Third Course 
Gurnard
White pepper, peanut, Vietnamese coriander,
served on a oak barrel stave.
(Achatz)

Fourth Course 
Salt-Baked Rutabaga
Maple, nasturtium, goat butter, white truffle.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Fifth Course 
Buckwheat-Cured Ocean Trout
Turnip.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Sixth Course 
Matsutake
Pine, abalone, tapioca.
(Achatz)

Seventh Course 
Pork Belly
Parsnip, hamachi, kombu.
(Achatz)

Eighth Course 
Taleggio “Bread & Butter”
Apple-manzanita blossom jelly.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Ninth Course 
“Graffiti”
Hazelnut, Perigord, balsamic.
(Achatz)

Tenth Course 
“Balloon”
Helium, green apple.
(Achatz)

Eleventh Course 
Dates
Hearts of palm, caraway cake, heart of palm custard,
young coconut, lime.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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Larkmead Tocai Friulano, 2013

Larkmead “Lillie” Sauvignon Blanc, 2009

Larkmead Cabernet Sauvignon, 2002

Larkmead “LMV Salon,” 2006

Larkmead “The Lark,” 2012

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Below are links to my posts and photos from all of the Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I have attended over the past three years at the Restaurant at Meadowood.  Each chef is listed with the restaurant with which they were cooking at the time they participated in the event (some have moved on to other projects and restaurants).

2012

Scott Anderson (Elements; Princeton, New Jersey)
John & Karen Shields (Formerly of Townhouse; Chilhowie, Virginia)
Phillip Foss (EL Ideas; Chicago, Illinois)
Stuart Brioza & Nicole Krasinski (State Bird Provisions; San Francisco, California)
Jason Franey (Canlis Restaurant; Seattle, Washinton)
Matthias Merges (Yusho; Chicago, Illinois)
Mori Onodera (Formerly of Mori Sushi; Los Angeles, California)
James Syhabout (Commis; Oakland, California)
Nick Anderer (Maialino; New York, New York)
David Toutain (Agapé Substance; Paris, France)
Josh Habiger & Erik Anderson (The Catbird Seat; Nashville Tennessee)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2013

Andy Ricker (Pok Pok, Portland, Oregon & New York, New York)
Rodolfo Guzman (Boragó; Santiago, Chile)
Carlo Mirarchi (Blanca and Roberta’s; Brooklyn, New York)
Tim Cushman (O Ya; Boston, Massachusetts)
Ashley Christensen (Poole’s Diner; Raleigh, North Carolina)
David Chang (Momofuku; New York, New York)
Matthew Accarrino (SPQR; San Francisco, California)
Mark Ladner & Brooks Headley (Del Posto; New York, New York)
Rasmus Kofoed (Geranium; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Nicolaus Balla & Cortney Burns (Bar Tartine; San Francisco, California)
David Kinch (Manresa; Los Gatos, California)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2014

Matthew Orlando (Amass; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Frank Castranovo & Frank Falcinelli (Frankies 457, Prime Meats; New York, New York)
Kobe Desramaults (In de Wulf; Dranouter, Belgium)
Alexandre Gauthier (La Grenouillère; La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, France)
Blaine Wetzel (Willows Inn; Lummi Island, Washington)
Joshua McFadden (Ava Gene’s; Portland, Oregon)
Virgilio Martinez (Central; Lima, Peru)
Grant Achatz (Alinea; Chicago, Illinois)

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Corey Lee, chef of the 3 Michelin-starred Benu, showed up looking like a sifu, and knocked my socks off with ham and black truffles wrapped in cabbage and glazed in a thick, gelatinous stew of fish maw.

This happened when Lee cooked with chef Christopher Kostow on the ninth day of the Twelve Days of Christmas at the Restaurant at Meadowood,  with wines paired by Matthiasson.

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Corey Lee’s cooking explores Asian ingredients and flavors on a classically European platform. My two meals at Benu (my last one was in December of 2012) have been flawless. Corey Lee, who was the chef de cuisine of The French Laundry for more than half a decade (he was the chef when I first ate there in 2006), is a technician.  It shows in his food at Benu, which has been unimpeachable in my limited experience.  Fish and meat were cooked perfectly. Flavors were pure. And his plating was particularly clean and concise, marked by sharp lines and tight corners.

Whether perceived, or actual, I found his cooking at the Twelve Days of Christmas a little less rigorous, and a little more fluid.  It wasn’t sloppy by any means, but it felt more relaxed, more comforting, and more familiar.  And I absolutely loved it.

That ham and cabbage dish, with tender bits of fish maw melting into the glistening sauce, was unspeakably delicious, and rang the bells of nostalgia for me.  That warm coupling of ham and cabbage was a reminder of childhood soups, and the many similar dishes I’ve had in Hong Kong that have left my lips sticky with gelatin (cabbage, ham, and fish maw are favored Cantonese ingredients).  For me, it was the highlight of this dinner.

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I know that rice and matsutake mushrooms make a well-known pair in Japanese cuisine.  But I can’t help to think that there was an inside joke among this year’s chefs about matsutake porridge.  Or maybe I missed the memo, or that conversation?  Or maybe I’m just making it up.

On night seven, Christopher Kostow served a warm samp (a type of grits) and squid porridge with thinly shaved matsutake mushrooms and pine.  On night eight, Grant Achatz served a warm tapioca pearl and abalone porridge with thinly shaved matsutake mushrooms and pine.  And on this night, Corey Lee served a warm rice dish (it was a blend of different rice varieties) with grilled eel, thinly sliced matsutake mushrooms, and julienne strips of sesame leaf. The rice was soft, warm, and inviting.  I loved it.

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Two of my favorite canapés from this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas appeared this night.  At the reception, Christopher Kostow presented spiny lobster toast (think shrimp toast, but with lobster instead).  Those were buttery and delicious.

Corey Lee served ginkgo nuts that had been breaded in panko, deep-fried, and then dipped in mildly sweet pine syrup.  They were finished with a dash of orange salt.  The nuts were meaty and warm on the inside, with an impossibly thin shell that managed to stay crispy, despite being soaked with the pine-scented syrup. I could have eaten bowls full of them. [The gingko nuts had been threaded through with pine needles, by which the cooks lowered the nuts into the fryer and the syrup, and by which diners picked up the nuts to eat them.]

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I won’t speak for all Asian-Americans with immigrant parents. But, I’m sure many will relate to the observation that my siblings and I made as children about Asians and desserts.  We always knew when our parents (and their peers) approved of them.  After taking a bite, they would pause and comment, “Very good. Not too sweet.”

I think there is some truth to the generalization that (East) Asian cultures shy away from sweetness.  Most of the sweetness that I encountered as a child at home (outside of my American diet, that is) was fruit-based.  Otherwise, my parents had very little use for refined sugar.

My parents would have approved of Corey Lee’s desserts.  I certainly did.

First, he served Fuyu persimmons, which had been hung to dry for 56 days.  They had shriveled and bloomed a beautiful coat of dusty sugar.  The interior was dense and sweet, and still very much tender and moist.  The persimmons were simply sliced and presented on a plate with the stem and tie string attached.

For the main dessert, Lee presented a milky, mellow-sweet combination of almond ice cream and white chocolate wrapped in yuba.  The overlap in flavor between the almond milk and soy milk (in the yuba) was eye-opening.  Where the flavor of one began and the other ended, I could not tell.  This was an extraordinary end to a very thoughtfully planned menu.

This dinner with Corey Lee and Christopher Kostow was steady and consistent in a way that few others were.  There was something soothing about the progression of the courses, a seamlessness to the transitions, and a quieting comfort about the food.  Perhaps more than any other dinner this year, I felt that this one saw the closest meeting of the minds between two chefs.  Just like the flavors in that almond-yuba dessert, I couldn’t readily tell where one began and the other ended.

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Below, you’ll find the menu from the ninth night of the Twelve Days of Christmas featuring Corey Lee of Benu, and wines by Matthiasson.   Following the menu, you’ll find a slideshow of all of the photos that I took.  (If you’re viewing this on a mobile device, click here to see the photos.)

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Canapés
Puffed Fish Skin
Yuzu, jellyfish.

Ginko Nut
Panko, pine syrup, orange salt.

(Lee)

Spiny Lobster Toast

(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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First Course 
Anchovy
Bercy butter, crudité.
(Lee)

Second Course
Abalone
Chicken liver, onion.
(Lee)

Third Course 
Pine Mushroom Porridge
Grilled eel, sesame leaf.
(Lee)

Fourth Course 
Black Cod
Sunchoke, brown butter.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Fifth Course 
Fish Maw
Cabbage, baked ham, black truffle.
(Lee)

Sixth Course 
Matsutake
Pine, abalone, tapioca.
(Lee)

Seventh Course 
Aged Lamb
“Fudge,” sorrel, yogurt.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Eighth Course 
Andante Dairy Triple Cream
Tartine Bakery oatmeal bread, apple “Marmite.”
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Ninth Course 
56-Day Persimmon
(Lee)

Tenth Course 
Fresh and Dry Yuba
Almond, white chocolate.
(Lee)

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Matthiasson
“Napa Valley White,” 2012

Matthiasson
“Linda Vista Vineyard,” Chardonnay, 2013

Matthiasson
“Red Hen Vineyard,” Merlot, 2011

Matthiasson
Cabernet Sauvignon, 2011

Matthiasson
“Yount Mill Vineyard,” Vermouth, 2011

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Below are links to my posts and photos from all of the Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I have attended over the past three years at the Restaurant at Meadowood.  Each chef is listed with the restaurant with which they were cooking at the time they participated in the event (some have moved on to other projects and restaurants).

2012

Scott Anderson (Elements; Princeton, New Jersey)
John & Karen Shields (Formerly of Townhouse; Chilhowie, Virginia)
Phillip Foss (EL Ideas; Chicago, Illinois)
Stuart Brioza & Nicole Krasinski (State Bird Provisions; San Francisco, California)
Jason Franey (Canlis Restaurant; Seattle, Washinton)
Matthias Merges (Yusho; Chicago, Illinois)
Mori Onodera (Formerly of Mori Sushi; Los Angeles, California)
James Syhabout (Commis; Oakland, California)
Nick Anderer (Maialino; New York, New York)
David Toutain (Agapé Substance; Paris, France)
Josh Habiger & Erik Anderson (The Catbird Seat; Nashville Tennessee)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2013

Andy Ricker (Pok Pok, Portland, Oregon & New York, New York)
Rodolfo Guzman (Boragó; Santiago, Chile)
Carlo Mirarchi (Blanca and Roberta’s; Brooklyn, New York)
Tim Cushman (O Ya; Boston, Massachusetts)
Ashley Christensen (Poole’s Diner; Raleigh, North Carolina)
David Chang (Momofuku; New York, New York)
Matthew Accarrino (SPQR; San Francisco, California)
Mark Ladner & Brooks Headley (Del Posto; New York, New York)
Rasmus Kofoed (Geranium; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Nicolaus Balla & Cortney Burns (Bar Tartine; San Francisco, California)
David Kinch (Manresa; Los Gatos, California)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2014

Matthew Orlando (Amass; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Frank Castranovo & Frank Falcinelli (Frankies 457, Prime Meats; New York, New York)
Kobe Desramaults (In de Wulf; Dranouter, Belgium)
Alexandre Gauthier (La Grenouillère; La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, France)
Blaine Wetzel (Willows Inn; Lummi Island, Washington)
Joshua McFadden (Ava Gene’s; Portland, Oregon)
Virgilio Martinez (Central; Lima, Peru)
Grant Achatz (Alinea; Chicago, Illinois)
Corey Lee (Benu; San Francisco, California)

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It had been raining every day for two weeks.  California was finally finding some much-needed relief from a severe, two-year drought.

So, when a rare window of blue sky opened up one morning, Cameron Cole Rahtz, the forager for The Restaurant at Meadowood, jumped on the opportunity.  He grabbed Esben Holmboe Bang and me, we grabbed our raincoats, piled into his car, and raced off towards the woods. We found the forest shaggy with moss and verdant with new growth.  Delighted by the abundance, Holmboe Bang started compiling a wish list of wild herbs and mushrooms for Rahtz to help him find for the dinner he was cooking the next day: California red bay, chickweed, Miner’s lettuce, sorrel, oyster mushrooms…

Esben Holmboe Bang is the Danish chef of the two Michelin-starred restaurant Maaemo in Oslo, Norway, where I had the chance to dine earlier this year. He was the tenth guest chef to cook at this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas hosted by Christopher Kostow, with wines paired by Colgin Cellars.

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Esben Holmboe Bang’s dishes were relatively light in size, but full on flavor.

He started the meal with a small but rich and creamy combination of oysters and mussels, rife with the flavor of dill.  This was a dish that I had at Maaemo earlier this year.  I had also had his charred onion dish before.  As it appeared at Maaemo, this course included a quail egg yolk that had been coddled in bone marrow fat, and tangy onion-thyme vinaigrette that was chunky with fenalâr (a type of cured lamb meat).

Caviar, chestnuts, chicken stock: these comprised a small, but mighty dish.  Two bites, and it was gone. But the memory of the contrasts drawn by it lingers: salty and sweet, cool and warm, the luxurious and the humble.  It was my favorite course.

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Christopher Kostow anchored the meal with meat and potatoes.

From years past, he brought back those small butterball potatoes cooked in beeswax.  They sat on a creamy bed of whipped potatoes, garnished with baby blood-veined sorrel.

There was a tender round of pork, glazed in acorn miso, and served with meaty hoshigaki dried persimmons.

And, because Paul Roberts, Master Sommelier and Chief Operating Officer of Colgin Cellars, requested it to be paired with the wine, Kostow served Snake Rivers Farm beef. It appeared on the menu as “Paul’s Beef.”  I thank Mr. Roberts for his request, and Kostow for granting it in the form of a beautiful cut of the bavette, which was sauced with a beefy shiitake mushroom reduction.  It paired wonderfully with the Colgin reds.

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Holmboe Bang’s dessert, entitled “The Norwegian Black Currant Bush,” spurred lots of discussion in the dining room.  The plating alone — a forest of piped, tuile “branches” in a snowy bank of black currant-flavored ice cream — was a conversation starter.  But after diners started digging in, their attentions turned to the flavor.  Some liked it. Some didn’t.

I have to admit, even though I liked the flavor, it was an unfamiliar one.  I’m tempted to describe it as odd, if it weren’t for the fact that it was, perhaps, simply unexpected. In my experience, currants have a tart, bright, red fruit flavor, sometimes with a darker, raisiny aftertaste if they are dried.  This Norwegian currant was unexpectedly floral, with a much warmer, more tropical feel.  It had what I can best describe as a green banana flavor.  Regardless of what I thought, I really enjoyed seeing the reactions of those around me, and hearing them work through their differences with one another. Dinners, like the ones hosted by The Restaurant at Meadowood during the Twelve Days of Christmas, seem to draw a self-selecting crowd of more adventurous diners. And it’s always a joy to participate in the refreshingly open and free exchange of opinions at the table.

As if anticipating the mixed reaction to his foreign berry, Holmboe Bang returned us to Napa Valley at the very end with a soothing tea of herbs that he found in the forest the day before.  Diners were given fragrant bouquets garni and pots of hot water for the steeping.  Inspired by the budding manzanita trees among which he found these herbs, Holmboe Bang named this tea, “This is our tree.”

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Below, you’ll find the menu from the tenth night of the Twelve Days of Christmas featuring Esben Holmboe Bang of Maaemo, and wines by Colgin Cellars.   Following the menu, you’ll find a slideshow of all of the photos that I took.  (If you’re viewing this on a mobile device, click here to see the photos.)

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Canapés
Aged Salsify
Juniper gel, juniper powder, vinegar.

(Holmboe Bang)

Chips of Sea Lettuce and Brown Rice

(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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First Course 
Oysters
Mussels, dill.
(Holmboe Bang)

Second Course
Caviar
Roasted chestnuts.
(Holmboe Bang)

Third Course 
Potatoes Cooked in Beeswax
Assorted sorrels.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Fourth Course 
Beets
Blackthorn, chamomile, roasted yeast.
(Holmboe Bang)

Fifth Course 
Quail Egg
Charred onions, salted lamb.
(Holmboe Bang)

Sixth Course 
Pork
Acorn miso, succulents, hoshigaki
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Seventh Course 
“Paul’s Beef”
Fermented onion turnip.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Eighth Course 
“The Norwegian Black Currant Bush”
(Holmboe Bang)

Ninth Course 
“This Is Our Tree”
(Holmboe Bang)

Tenth Course 
Fresh and Dry Yuba
Almond, white chocolate.
(Holmboe Bang)

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Krug
Grand Cuvée

Camille Giroud
“Corton-Charlemagne,” 2009

Colgin
“Tychson Hill,” 2010

Colgin
“Cariad,” 2006

Colgin
“IX Estate” Red, 2009

Colgin
“IX Estate” Syrah, 2007

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Below are links to my posts and photos from all of the Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I have attended over the past three years at the Restaurant at Meadowood.  Each chef is listed with the restaurant with which they were cooking at the time they participated in the event (some have moved on to other projects and restaurants).

2012

Scott Anderson (Elements; Princeton, New Jersey)
John & Karen Shields (Formerly of Townhouse; Chilhowie, Virginia)
Phillip Foss (EL Ideas; Chicago, Illinois)
Stuart Brioza & Nicole Krasinski (State Bird Provisions; San Francisco, California)
Jason Franey (Canlis Restaurant; Seattle, Washinton)
Matthias Merges (Yusho; Chicago, Illinois)
Mori Onodera (Formerly of Mori Sushi; Los Angeles, California)
James Syhabout (Commis; Oakland, California)
Nick Anderer (Maialino; New York, New York)
David Toutain (Agapé Substance; Paris, France)
Josh Habiger & Erik Anderson (The Catbird Seat; Nashville Tennessee)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2013

Andy Ricker (Pok Pok, Portland, Oregon & New York, New York)
Rodolfo Guzman (Boragó; Santiago, Chile)
Carlo Mirarchi (Blanca and Roberta’s; Brooklyn, New York)
Tim Cushman (O Ya; Boston, Massachusetts)
Ashley Christensen (Poole’s Diner; Raleigh, North Carolina)
David Chang (Momofuku; New York, New York)
Matthew Accarrino (SPQR; San Francisco, California)
Mark Ladner & Brooks Headley (Del Posto; New York, New York)
Rasmus Kofoed (Geranium; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Nicolaus Balla & Cortney Burns (Bar Tartine; San Francisco, California)
David Kinch (Manresa; Los Gatos, California)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2014

Matthew Orlando (Amass; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Frank Castranovo & Frank Falcinelli (Frankies 457, Prime Meats; New York, New York)
Kobe Desramaults (In de Wulf; Dranouter, Belgium)
Alexandre Gauthier (La Grenouillère; La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, France)
Blaine Wetzel (Willows Inn; Lummi Island, Washington)
Joshua McFadden (Ava Gene’s; Portland, Oregon)
Virgilio Martinez (Central; Lima, Peru)
Grant Achatz (Alinea; Chicago, Illinois)
Corey Lee (Benu; San Francisco, California)
Esben Holmboe Bang (Maaemo; Oslo, Norway)

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It has been quite an international Twelve Days of Christmas.  In fact, judging by past rosters, this was, perhaps, the most culturally diverse line-up at The Restaurant at Meadowood yet.

Kobe Desramaults (Day 3) is Flemish, Alexandre Gauthier (Day 4) is French.  Matthew Orlando (Day 1) is an American expat who opened a restaurant in Denmark, and Esben Holmboe Bang (Day 10), a Dane, is chef of a restaurant with a Finnish name in Norway. Corey Lee (Day 9) is Korean-born, though raised in the United States, where he now cooks. And then came Ignacio Mattos, an Uruguayan chef who owns Estela in New York City, the darling au courant of the American food media.  His dinner on the eleventh night, in collaboration with hosting chef Christopher Kostow, was paired with wines by DANA Estates.

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There are two things I really like about Ignacio Mattos.

First, he’s just a really nice guy.

Second, when it comes to food, he thinks outside the box.  But flavor remains his priority.  At first glance, a lot of his dishes don’t seem to make much sense, a meeting of ingredients that you don’t expect to find together: cod with tabouleh, peas and mint, for example, or squid ink-fried rice with romesco; both of which I had at Estela earlier this year.  Yet, all of it’s tremendously delicious.

A couple of dishes that I had at Estela reappeared this night.  Mattos’s beef tartare, mixed with bits of fried sunchoke chips, with more chips scattered on top, was served as a canapé.

And those moist, pillowy dumplings, made with ricotta and punchy with cheesy umami (there was a healthy amount of Pecorino Sardo added) – beloved by almost all who have eaten at Estela – were easily the crowd favorite. The dumplings were coated in a buttery sauce and blanketed with a shingled layer of thinly sliced button mushrooms.  The sharpness of the cheese and the butteriness of the sauce paired extraordinarily well with the 2011 Domaine William Lafeve Chablis poured with it, perhaps my favorite wine pairing of the entire dinner series.

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In the middle, Christopher Kostow served one of my favorite dishes from his new menu.  He coated black cod with a powder made from sunflower petals and basted it with fat.  He served the cooked fish with a dollop of creamy sunflower seed butter, sunflower seeds, and a slice of the sunflower cap – which is very similar in form and texture to its cousin, the artichoke heart – pickled in a barigoule-style brine.  I especially loved the fattiness of the sunflower seed butter cut by the acidity of the barigoule.

The Restaurant at Meadowood excels at baking en croute, whether it be rutabagas in salt crusts, or chickens in sourdough. For this meal, Kostow buried guinea hens in a salt meringue mixed with leftover trimmings from the restaurant’s garden.  Out of the salt shells, the hens were carved, the skins crisped, and the meat was served with a creamy purée of potatoes and matsutakes.

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For dessert, Christopher Kostow served his take on the old shopping mall favorite, the “Orange Julius” (I haven’t stepped inside of a mall in well-over a decade, but apparently, this franchise still exists, now in partnership with Dairy Queen.).  His version included citrus (a variety of it).  But the majority of the sweetness came from dates – date purée, as well as small pieces of the dried fruit.  Like the original, Kostow’s version was capped with a foamy top of orange froth.  It was light and lean, and a treat for so many of us who, like me, I suspect, had all but forgotten about this childhood drink (my last reminder of it was at Eleven Madison Park, where I ordered a cocktail based off of the Orange Julius).

Mattos’s dessert was equally simple.  First, a layer of custardy vanilla ice cream in a ring mold. This was dotted with little pieces of cooked sweet potato.  Then, another layer of the frozen custard on top.  And finally, a light dusting of toasted flour, which I assume from an exchange that I had earlier in the day with Jake Nemmers, Mattos’s assistant chef, was all-purpose flour.  Earlier, when Nemmers was making the dumplings, I asked him what kind of flour he was using.  “AP,” he replied with a smirk. “We don’t use anything fancy at Estela.  It’s just simple, good cooking.”  And that,  I believe, explains why Mattos’s cooking at Estela has become so quickly embraced and celebrated.

This was a good dinner.

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Below, you’ll find the menu from the eleventh night of the Twelve Days of Christmas featuring Ignacio Mattos of Estela, and wines by DANA Estates.   Following the menu, you’ll find a slideshow of all of the photos that I took.  (If you’re viewing this on a mobile device, click here to see the photos.)

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Canapés
Miyagi Oysters
Trout roe, mignonette

(Mattos)

Charred Parsnips
White truffle, vinegar.

(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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First Course 
Flounder
Kohlrabi, avocado.
(Mattos)

Second Course
Dumplings
Button mushrooms, Pecorino Sardo.
(Mattos)

Third Course 
Cod
Sunflower petals.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Fourth Course 
Salt-Baked Guinea Hen
Matsutake, potato purée, tiny greens.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Fifth Course 
Pork
Cabbage, pears.
(Mattos)

Sixth Course 
“Orange Julius”
Citrus, dates.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

Seventh Course 
Sweet Potato
Vanilla ice cream.
(Mattos)

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Domaine William Fevre
Chablis Grand Cru, Valmur, 2011

DANA
“Hershey Vineyard” Sauvignon Blanc, Howell Mountain, Cabernet Napa Valley, 2011

DANA
“Hershey Vineyard” Cabernet Sauvignon, Howell Mountain, Napa Valley, 2011

DANA
“Helms Vineyard” Cabenet Sauvignon, Rutherford, Napa Valley, 2005

DANA
“Lotus Vineyard” Cabernet Suavignon, Napa Valley, 2010

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Below are links to my posts and photos from all of the Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I have attended over the past three years at the Restaurant at Meadowood.  Each chef is listed with the restaurant with which they were cooking at the time they participated in the event (some have moved on to other projects and restaurants).

2012

Scott Anderson (Elements; Princeton, New Jersey)
John & Karen Shields (Formerly of Townhouse; Chilhowie, Virginia)
Phillip Foss (EL Ideas; Chicago, Illinois)
Stuart Brioza & Nicole Krasinski (State Bird Provisions; San Francisco, California)
Jason Franey (Canlis Restaurant; Seattle, Washinton)
Matthias Merges (Yusho; Chicago, Illinois)
Mori Onodera (Formerly of Mori Sushi; Los Angeles, California)
James Syhabout (Commis; Oakland, California)
Nick Anderer (Maialino; New York, New York)
David Toutain (Agapé Substance; Paris, France)
Josh Habiger & Erik Anderson (The Catbird Seat; Nashville Tennessee)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2013

Andy Ricker (Pok Pok, Portland, Oregon & New York, New York)
Rodolfo Guzman (Boragó; Santiago, Chile)
Carlo Mirarchi (Blanca and Roberta’s; Brooklyn, New York)
Tim Cushman (O Ya; Boston, Massachusetts)
Ashley Christensen (Poole’s Diner; Raleigh, North Carolina)
David Chang (Momofuku; New York, New York)
Matthew Accarrino (SPQR; San Francisco, California)
Mark Ladner & Brooks Headley (Del Posto; New York, New York)
Rasmus Kofoed (Geranium; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Nicolaus Balla & Cortney Burns (Bar Tartine; San Francisco, California)
David Kinch (Manresa; Los Gatos, California)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2014

Matthew Orlando (Amass; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Frank Castranovo & Frank Falcinelli (Frankies 457, Prime Meats; New York, New York)
Kobe Desramaults (In de Wulf; Dranouter, Belgium)
Alexandre Gauthier (La Grenouillère; La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, France)
Blaine Wetzel (Willows Inn; Lummi Island, Washington)
Joshua McFadden (Ava Gene’s; Portland, Oregon)
Virgilio Martinez (Central; Lima, Peru)
Grant Achatz (Alinea; Chicago, Illinois)
Corey Lee (Benu; San Francisco, California)
Esben Holmboe Bang (Maaemo; Oslo, Norway)
Ignacio Mattos (Estela, New York, New York)

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And finally, the twelfth night.

The last day of the Twelve Days of Christmas is fraught with mixed emotions.  For the staff, there are nerves about the menu, which, year-after-year, seems to spring out of Christopher Kostow’s mind at the last minute.  There’s always a marked bump in energy, as the cooks reclaim their kitchen – without a guest chef to host, the workflow seems leaner, more efficient. There’s the anticipation of the holidays, and a much needed break from the exhausting run of the dinner series. And for a few, it’s the bittersweet end of a chapter; a move, a new job, the last shift.

I’m there somewhere right in the middle.  Although I’ve spent the last eleven posts talking about the guest chefs, their food, the vintners, and their wine, I’m going to take some time out of this report to tell you a little about my role and my perspective at the Twelve Days of Christmas.

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I first came to the Twelve Days of Christmas three years ago as a guest, with a small part to play in collaboration. And I’ve been lucky to have returned twice now as the photographer, an observer, and in my own way, a commentator and chronicler, who has also happened to have actually eaten at most of each year’s guest chefs’ restaurants (not entirely a coincidence, of course).  That added context has enriched my experience and perspective tremendously.

Although I’m sometimes so busy during the dinner series that I forget where I am, those moments are rare and short-lived. Twenty days and twenty nights at Meadowood Napa Valley, and twelve dinners at the Restaurant at Meadowood with some of the world’s most celebrated chefs aren’t exactly burdens to bear, and I’m mindful of that nearly every waking hour.  It is a magical corner of the world during a magical time of the year, and I am very, very lucky to be able to experience it.

The staff accords me all of the privileges and care of a guest on property. And yet, as I’ve gotten to know many of them over the years, I’ve been made to feel very much like one of the family as well.  For a good part of my year, Meadowood, quite literally, becomes my home away from home.  I’ve known chef Kostow and his wife Martina before she was pregnant, then very pregnant, and, this year, made sure Elmo sipped from the cup instead of taking a bath in it (their daughter is incredibly cute, and incredibly in love with her red, furry friend).  I’ve spent Thanksgiving with them. I’ve been to all of their staff Christmas parties (which are awesome, by the way). And some of us meet up for lunches and dinners on our days off.  I’ve even become friends with some of the restaurant’s regulars, who I see every December, and sometimes in between.

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All of this is to say that, although I am very much a fly on the wall at The Restaurant at Meadowood – the hired photographer who goes back to his room every night after dinner and edits photos into the early morning hours in order to turn them around for press the next day – I am, admittedly, not an impartial one.  At the end of last year, I wrote about the slowly shifting ground beneath this blog.  I’d like to think that I’ve been as open as possible about those blurred lines, acknowledging them, while trying to give some shape and order to them.

And so, I feel it’s only fair, at the end of this year’s posts about the Twelve Days of Christmas, for me to say: Yes, they pay me to photograph for them.  Yes, they put me up at Meadowood Napa Valley for nearly three weeks, where the thread count on the bedsheets is so high, they’re probably bullet-proof.  Yes, we’re friends.  And yes, in a lot of ways, I’m on Team Meadowood.

But to be fair, there aren’t any other rules.  Christopher Kostow and his team don’t tell me what to do, and they don’t tell me what to write. I move through their space unhindered at all hours.  I am free to express my opinion. And I do. And the fact that they ask me for it tells me that they really care.  Personal preferences aside (I don’t like everything that comes out of their kitchen, and they know it — they know, for example, that I thought Kostow’s sweetbreads dish from night five was the clunker of this year’s series), there is a mutual respect and trust among us.  Underneath the reams of press, the Michelin stars, the James Beard Awards, and the façade of a mighty restaurant that calmly maintains its excellence and relevance in a cutthroat industry, is a chef who just wants to cook good food with nice people. I see that every day that I have spent at the Restaurant at Meadowood.  I see it in the cooks he keeps, and the way he works with them.  He demands a lot from his kitchen staff, but he also invests an incredible amount in them (if I haven’t said it before, let me say it here: the Twelve Days of Christmas is an incredible opportunity for his cooks to stage in eleven different kitchens around the world in two weeks).  As a result, his team is strong.  I know some of the challenges that the staff members face (both front and back of the house), and see how they industriously overcome them.  I’ve been privy to some of the problems they encounter, and the professionalism with which they respond. I taste the consistency, and experience the technical flawlessness of it all, night after night. And I feel, firsthand, the enthusiasm and talent that they pour into every day and every service.  It is admirable.

I’m on Team Meadowood because it’s a great one.  They cheer for the nice guys, and so do I.  I like their mission, I like their message.  It’s one of good cheer and good food, of hospitality and charity.  And I have no problem helping them spread it.  I wouldn’t return, year-after-year, if I did.

But working with The Restaurant at Meadowood and writing about the Twelve Days of Christmas is merely representative of the bigger picture I’ve been painting in my little corner of the internet.  This blog is, and has always been, about recording and sharing this magical and blessed life I lead, filled with adventure in extraordinary places with amazing food and passionate people.  Christopher Kostow and his staff at The Restaurant at Meadowood play a part in that picture, one that I hope inspires others.  Aspiration makes tomorrow an exciting time.  As Kostow and I have reminded each other often: the day that we lose our sense of wonder about it all is the day we’re done.

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When Christopher Kostow walked into the kitchen the morning of the twelfth day, he gave me a nervous look. “I don’t know if this is going to work.”

Many of the dishes he and his team presented at this last dinner were untested.  They were ideas and flavors that had been bounced around the kitchen in various forms.  But, they were relying on their collective talent and experience to bring it all together quickly.

Katianna Weiner and outgoing line cook Coleman Griffin* were in one corner, glazing squab with elderberry sauce.  They had fans trained on the birds to dry the glaze and the skin, important in getting a crispy, burnished crust later.

Line cook Miles Pundsack-Poe was in another corner, trimming a mound of romanesco that gardner Christine Kim had hauled in from the restaurant’s garden at Kostow’s request.  Kostow had this crazy idea of roasting them whole, torching them slightly to get a little color on the prehistoric-looking exterior, and carving them, like trimming Christmas trees, in the dining room.  He was really nervous about this one.

In the pastry department, Jenna Hodges and Alyssa Tokumura were venturing into uncharted territory.  They were packing pearl sugar and comice pears into molds shaped like pears.  The idea was to bake the molds, causing the sugar to melt and form a pear-shaped crust around the pears within.  Kostow wanted to crack the molds, table side, and spoon the warm, cooked pears over acorn bread perfumed with rosemary.  He was really nervous about this one too.

And morning sous chef Oliver Antunes, who had spent some time cooking in France, including under Yannick Alleno at Le Meurice in Paris, was trying his hand at making marrons glacés.  His wife Sandra, who is a server in the front of the house, explained at line-up, in her adorable French accent, that the chestnuts had to be poached gently in simple syrup every day for a week (or more), until they were candied.  A proper marron glacé should have an opaque look to it, taking on a waxy coat. Oliver was setting his chestnuts on the stove for one last simmer, hoping they’d finally achieve the look and texture he wanted.

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But, in a very Shakespearean way, all was well that ended well on the twelfth night.

Those birds were beautifully bronzed. The skin was crisp, and the meat was rosy and tender.  The slices of breast meat nested with tournés of pumpkin under sheets of plum gelée and a shiso leaves.

There was a bit of drama getting the “Christmas trees” to stand up straight.  But they went out, looking beautiful and perky.  Cooks paraded them around the dining room before landing at carving stations to debranch the romanesco. The florets were set on creamy romanesco purée, and drizzled with a spoonful of sauce musky with hawayej – a spice with a curry-like flavor.

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Those pears turned out beautifully too.  The “white coats” (as the cooks are called) accompanied the servers to the tables to help them crack open the sugary shells, purple with pomace (grape must), and scoop out the steaming pears within. This was a particularly fragrant dessert, with the grape must infused into the sugar, and the woodsy scent of rosemary throughout.

And Oliver’s chestnuts couldn’t have been better.  Just as his wife had described, they were translucent and tender, just like the fabled ones I’ve had Bernarchon in Lyon, France.

Even Kostow’s rye crumpets, which he griddled for the first time earlier that day with success, came out better than expected.  Sturdy and spongey, with that springiness that’s peculiar to crumpets, they made the perfect, buttery mattress for a thick schmear of minced raw aji and caviar; fancy Jewish appetizing for a Christmastime feast.

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The house was packed.  With Christopher Kostow cooking, and wines provided by one of three cult wineries associated with Meadowood Napa Valley – Screaming Eagle, Harlan Estate, and BOND Estate – seats for the twelfth night are always the first to sell out (this year was BOND Estate’s turn).

Most who attend the twelfth dinner are friends of Meadowood.  And so, there is a particularly familial atmosphere on the last night.  This year, the guests seemed especially boisterous, with diners hopping from table to table, catching up with one another between courses, and lingering well past the last course over coffee and cocktails.

In the kitchen, the staff celebrated the end to the Twelve Days of Christmas with a round of Champagne, taking a moment to enjoy a last toast before they stripped all the counters and soaped everything down in preparation for the week-long holiday closure.

When other guests find out what I’m doing at the Twelve Days of Christmas, they always ask: don’t you get tired of doing this?  Three years, thirty-six dinners later, it still feels like magic to me.  Maybe it’s the Christmastime spirit.  Maybe it’s the smell of fresh pine as I reflect on the day during my quiet walk home every night after service.  Maybe it’s the ever-changing palette of colors and flavors in the kitchen each day. Or maybe, it’s the cheery smiles and fist bumps I get every morning from the cooks as they trickle into the kitchen.  No matter what happened the day before, every day is a new day, a better day.  Who could get tired of that?  I’ve still got that sense of wonder.

To all of Meadowood Napa Valley, The Restaurant at Meadowood (Chef Kostow, Nathaniel Dorn, the cooks, the wine team, and the front of the house staff), and this year’s guest chefs, I extend a heartfelt thanks for making December the highlight of my year.

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Below, you’ll find the menu from the last night of the Twelve Days of Christmas with the Restaurant at Meadowood’s very own Christopher Kostow cooking, and wines by BOND.   Following the menu, you’ll find a slideshow of all of the photos that I took.  (If you’re viewing this on a mobile device, click here to see the photos.)

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Canapés
Smoked Haddock Wrapped in Nasturtium
Potato and Matsutake
Aged Beef with Juniper

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First Course 
Ground Aji
Caviar, beet, rye crumpet.

Second Course
Samp Grits
Sea urchin, coastal grasses.

Third Course 
Romanesco
Trimmings, hawayej.

Fourth Course 
“Peking” Squab
Eldberry glaze, pumpkin, plum “skin,” shiso.

Fifth Course 
Pork
Wrapped in wakame, cabbage, black truffle.

Sixth Course 
Andante Dairy
Cow’s milk cheese cured in spruce, last year’s persimmons.

Seventh Course
Date Cream
Rancho Chimiles walnut oil.

Eighth Course
Pears in Pomace
Acorn, rosemary.

Mignardise
Marrons Glacés

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Jean-Philippe Fichet
“Les Chevalières” Meursault, 2010

Jean-Philippe Fichet
“Le Tesson” Meursault, 2010

Bond, “Vecina,” 2004

Bond, “Melbury,” 2005

Bond, “Pluribus,” 2005

Bond, “Quella,” 2009

Bond, “St. Eden,” 2010

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Below are links to my posts and photos from all of the Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I have attended over the past three years at the Restaurant at Meadowood.  Each chef is listed with the restaurant with which they were cooking at the time they participated in the event (some have moved on to other projects and restaurants).

2012

Scott Anderson (Elements; Princeton, New Jersey)
John & Karen Shields (Formerly of Townhouse; Chilhowie, Virginia)
Phillip Foss (EL Ideas; Chicago, Illinois)
Stuart Brioza & Nicole Krasinski (State Bird Provisions; San Francisco, California)
Jason Franey (Canlis Restaurant; Seattle, Washinton)
Matthias Merges (Yusho; Chicago, Illinois)
Mori Onodera (Formerly of Mori Sushi; Los Angeles, California)
James Syhabout (Commis; Oakland, California)
Nick Anderer (Maialino; New York, New York)
David Toutain (Agapé Substance; Paris, France)
Josh Habiger & Erik Anderson (The Catbird Seat; Nashville Tennessee)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2013

Andy Ricker (Pok Pok, Portland, Oregon & New York, New York)
Rodolfo Guzman (Boragó; Santiago, Chile)
Carlo Mirarchi (Blanca and Roberta’s; Brooklyn, New York)
Tim Cushman (O Ya; Boston, Massachusetts)
Ashley Christensen (Poole’s Diner; Raleigh, North Carolina)
David Chang (Momofuku; New York, New York)
Matthew Accarrino (SPQR; San Francisco, California)
Mark Ladner & Brooks Headley (Del Posto; New York, New York)
Rasmus Kofoed (Geranium; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Nicolaus Balla & Cortney Burns (Bar Tartine; San Francisco, California)
David Kinch (Manresa; Los Gatos, California)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2014

Matthew Orlando (Amass; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Frank Castranovo & Frank Falcinelli (Frankies 457, Prime Meats; New York, New York)
Kobe Desramaults (In de Wulf; Dranouter, Belgium)
Alexandre Gauthier (La Grenouillère; La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, France)
Blaine Wetzel (Willows Inn; Lummi Island, Washington)
Joshua McFadden (Ava Gene’s; Portland, Oregon)
Virgilio Martinez (Central; Lima, Peru)
Grant Achatz (Alinea; Chicago, Illinois)
Corey Lee (Benu; San Francisco, California)
Esben Holmboe Bang (Maaemo; Oslo, Norway)
Ignacio Mattos (Estela; New York, New York)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

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* Coleman has been in the kitchen for all three years that I have photographed the Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood.  In that time, he has become known for his shameless attempts to get in front of my camera in a sorely misguided attempt at fame (despite my repeated assurances that neither I, nor my blog can offer him any significant noteriety, even if he were to appear in every photo). On his last night with the restaurant, Christopher Kostow and Nathaniel Dorn, the restaurant’s director, decided to ambush him with a pasta party.  The ingredients were pretty simple: flour, water, and eggs.  Coleman: this won’t make you famous, but here’s your long awaited debut on this blog:

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Another year is gone, and I’ve barely written about it.  This is especially sad to me, since so many wonderful things happened.

Every year, I pause at calendar’s end to record and remember the anxieties and adventures that made the preceding months memorable, including an accounting of all the restaurants I visited, and my favorite meals and dishes among them.  With this blog post, I initiate that annual tradition.

Last year, I commemorated 2013 with an honest look at my evolving career in photography and explored the blurring edges of my relationship with the restaurant community and my place within it. I questioned whether I could write responsibly about chefs and restaurants, given my increasing professional ties with them; or, whether I should write about them at all.  Although I ended that blog post with a fair sense of resolution, those issues and concerns spilled over into 2014, as I considered them anew.

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At the end of every year, I’m convinced that I’ve peaked, that no subsequent year could possibly beat the one before.  And again, I’m happy to report that 2014 was my busiest and best year yet.

My days and weeks seemed to leapfrog over one another as I criss-crossed time zones hopping the globe, circling the Earth five times in the number of miles I flew (I always say, if you never sleep, you’re never jet-lagged). In many ways, it was a particularly liberating year for me as well. With a rapidly growing demand for my attention to photography, I finally escaped the long shadow of the practice of law, cutting loose some last, tangled threads that tethered me to that safety net.

As always, my work introduced me to some amazing people this year, and has taken me to some amazing places.  I found joy in forging new partnerships and friendships, as well as strengthening ones that I’ve enjoyed developing over the past few years.  I’m continually blessed with the opportunity to work with some of the best in their fields, and being granted generous access to the amazing worlds they inhabit.  I’m eager to tell you about these adventures below, as I skip through the highlights of my year and work, and make a few disclaimers along the way.  I’ll warn you now: the list is long, the detours are many. It’s more of a record for myself than for you, so feel free to ignore it.

And, of course, I ate very well; shockingly well, actually.  In my travels, I passed through a galaxy of over 75 Michelin stars, visiting well over 250 different restaurants in eight countries on three continents.  As soon as I finish this post, I’ll turn to combing through them; cherry picking my favorite dishes, desserts and meals; and preparing my annual “best of” lists.  When you see the full roster of restaurants that I visited this year at the bottom of this post, you’ll know that I have a particularly challenging task ahead of me.

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I eased into 2014 with a quiet January at home in Kansas City.  I spent much of it planning for the months ahead, and tinkering with a potential job offer that would set me on a different course.  In many ways, that job was a dream job for me. It offered great travel opportunities and perks, and, more importantly, the opportunity and excitement of building something new, something potentially great.  And, I felt uniquely well-suited to its requirements.  However, I didn’t feel that I would be fairly compensated for the amount and type of work I’d be doing. More significantly, it would end my status as a free agent.  I left the corporate world in hopes of building something for myself instead of for someone else. I wanted to own and make something out of the patch of earth on which I stand.  I had spent enough time playing on other people’s teams, where the main incentive for loyalty and performance was a financial one.  It was time for me to focus on Team Me.

So, when the formal job offer came, I walked away.*

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The following few months put me back on the road.  In February, I was in Chicago, and then in St. Helena, where I was invited to speak at the 10th annual Wine Writers Symposium at Meadowood Napa Valley (I was asked to present on the subject of photography).  Coming to the symposium and subject as an outsider and novice, I relished sitting on the sidelines – a third-party observer with no pony in the race – considering the differing (and sometimes, strong) opinions and perspectives of industry leaders on a subject steeped in as much science as myth.

Of particular note was the keynote address, delivered by wine titan Robert Parker to an audience of friends, admirers, and detractors alike.  I can’t  give the exchange justice here, so I will refer you to Jon Bonné, the resident wine writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, who issued a detailed account from a more knowledgeable (albeit, in my opinion, biased) vantage.  [In that post, Bonné links to another thoughtfully written recap of Parker’s keynote address by David White of the Terroirist blog.]

Perhaps I sympathized with Mr. Parker, a fellow former attorney, because I found him wonderfully articulate and rather well-prepared to take on his jury (more specifically, I was impressed that he anticipated precisely the allegations against him, and had pointed rebuttals at the ready).  Or maybe it’s because I don’t wholly dislike his preferences in wine (“bombastic” isn’t such a dirty word to me).  But I found some of the criticism against him unfair.

But, I also empathize with those who take issue with Mr. Parker (or the institution of taste for which he is accused of standing), and with some of what Messrs. Bonné and White had to say about those points of disagreement.  At the risk of making a complete fool of myself: if I’m understanding the issues correctly, and if I may analogize the wine industry to the restaurant industry (about which I feel much more confident discussing) to show that I do, then the “Parker Effect” is sort of like that dumb San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants list (against which I have railed on this site).  The objection is not to the opinions held by these arbiters of taste, but rather with the absoluteness and authority with which their opinions are advanced and to which they are ascribed in a dangerous snowball of hype and ignorance.  Adding fuel to this are the shameless wineries and chefs who see profit in advancing these opinions.  They not only cater to them, but promote them as well, thereby taking advantage of a relatively uninformed and impressionable consumer base. If this is the issue, then yes, I agree, there is a problem. However, those arbiters of taste — Parker and the San Pellegrino committee – are only a small part of it.  The far greater challenge, in my opinion, lies in educating consumers, so that they can be discerning judges of taste and quality for themselves.  Instead of telling me what’s good, tell me what I need to know in order to determine whether it’s good.  This isn’t being done enough in the food writing world.

[In a last-minute effort to avoid totally embarrassing myself in the company of experts at this symposium, I read Bonné’s book “New California Wine.” It not only provided a good framework for the history of California winemaking, and mapped out the states’s geographic points of winemaking significance, but was also an informative and well-presented opinion about a growing school of preference in California winemaking and drinking.]

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March and April marked a high point in my year.

I stopped briefly in Paris to eat and catch up with some friends before moving on to the Flemish fields of Belgium to check off a few of lingering bucket list entries.  (You’ll find my post about the Paris and Belgian parts of this trip here.)

And then, Norway.  I started on the country’s rugged west coast in Bergen and worked my way east to Oslo, where I was last seen in 2005.

In the middle of March, I returned to Aubergine in Carmel-by-the-Sea to photograph the second-annual Rediscovering Coastal Cuisine dinner hosted by chef Justin Cogley.  John Shields (of Riverstead Inn) returned as a guest chef, joined this year by Kyle Connaughton (of unnamed restaurant in Healdsburg, California), Dave Beran (of Next in Chicago), Blaine Wetzel (of Willows Inn on Lummi Island, Washington), Justin Woodward (of Castagna in Portland, Oregon), and Stephanie Prida (pastry chef at Manresa in Los Gatos, California).  It was another terrific weekend, full of fun, food, and friends.  Among the highlights was a private tour of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where we got to feed bluefin tuna from the rafters, dropping feed from twenty feet above the circling fish.  I also loved the morning we spent wading among the crystal-clear tidal pools of the windswept coast of the Monterey Bay peninsula, as well as a hike we took through the seaside cliff trails of Point Lobos State Reserve.  And, of course, how could I forget a laugh-filled and breathtakingly scenic road trip down Highway 1 to Big Sur with friends?  That stretch of American coastline is one of the most beautiful parts of our world.  If you haven’t been, make it a priority.

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I finally made it to Japan.  My friend and guide DrTomostyle, hosted me for a three-week tour, which started in March and ran over into April.  She planned an enviable itinerary centered around Tokyo, with side trips to Kyoto and Osaka (that resulted in a jaw-dropping credit card bill afterward).  We ate high and low, reveled in the cherry blossom frenzy, and spied geishes in the night. You’ll find a brief overview of that trip here, and a more detailed report about the Kyoto portion here.

April ended with a short trip to Austin to photograph for a special, one-off Music To Your Mouth dinner featuring guest chef John Currence (of City Grocery and Big Bad Breakfast in Oxford, Mississippi).  I took the liberty of staying a couple of extra days to eat in and around Austin with my friends.

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For the last time (at least in the near future), I celebrated New York in May, for the James Beard Awards and the attendant and “assorted asshattery and hot messary,” as I put it in a comprehensive post I penned about that trip.

I used a brothers trip as an excuse to reacquaint myself with the restaurant scene in Washington, D.C., where I lived for two years long, long ago.  I wrote about that trip here.

And Knoxville: I was invited to attend the Southern Food Writing Conference, which coincided with the International Biscuit Festival, now in its fifth year (who knew?).  Among the speakers was Belinda Ellis, who charmed me with her eloquent and thoughtful stories about biscuit-making, and the people she encountered while writing her cookbook, “Biscuits.” I loved Joe Yonan’s confessions of a vegetarian food editor (“Eat Your Vegetables” is his first cookbook; he is the food editor for the Washington Post).  And former attorney Adrian Miller made us all laugh with his uproariously funny talk about “Soul Food,” a book that took him to over a hundred soul food restaurants across the United States and won him the James Beard Award.

My weekend in Knoxville also included dinner and a tour at The Blackberry Farm in nearby Walland, Tennessee.  Chef Joseph Lenn’s cooking was impressive, and the grounds were absolutely stunning (the garden and seed saving program there are especially admirable).  And that black walnut honey butter they make…

But the two most memorable moments from that weekend in Tennessee were my quaint encounters with two women.

I will never forget the look on Sharon Benton’s face – she, the baroness of American country ham, and a true Southerner – when I, a misguided Midwesterner, tried to convince her that my home state of Missouri should be considered a Southern state. In my lobbying effort, I argued, for example, that Missouri is the only non-Southern state that has a notable barbecue tradition.  To that, Mrs. Benton replied in genuine astonishment: “Really?  What kind of barbecue is that?”  She would have none of it. And I have never laughed so hard in my life.

The second encounter was with the woman who first introduce me to the biscuit, and taught me how to make them on her PBS show “New Southern Cooking.”  In one of those wonderful moments in life, when far-reaching lines intersect under the most unexpected but appropriate circumstances, I met Nathalie Dupree – cookbook author, television cooking show host, James Beard Award-winner, and the woman who introduced me to the biscuit – at the International Biscuit Festival.  Dupree was attending the writing conference as a speaker. We shared a biscuit and a laugh.

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In June, I stayed at home, save for a short pop into New York to celebrate my friend Adam Goldberg’s birthday (he of A Life Worth Eating).

July was quiet too, except for a quick trip to San Francisco.

In August, I paused in Chicago for a few days on my way to Hong Kong, where I met up with chef Paul Qui and his fiancé and publicist Deana Saukam.  The Hong Kong Board of Tourism had invited the two to participate in a weeklong, culinary and fashion tour of the city.  Qui and Saukam asked that I be hired to photograph the tour for interested media outlets.

Every time I go to Hong Kong, I’m both impressed by how much the city has grown and changed since my last visit, and charmed by how much of the local culture hasn’t changed (for example, climbing the side of glassy skyscrapers, you’ll still find bamboo scaffolding, lashed together with ropes, and often leaning at unnatural angles).

The Hong Kong Board of Tourism arranged a packed eating and shopping agenda, showing us a good slice of the city during that hot and steamy (and often wet) week.  We visited the Michelin-starred restaurants of Hong Kong’s upmarket districts, as well as the humble noodle bars and dim sum houses of Kowloon.

The shopping was great too.

Qui and I bought some leather boots from Koji Sonoda, a Japanese leather goods craftsman who had opened a pop-up in the brand new PMQ shopping development.  PMQ stands for “Police Married Quarters.” As the name suggests, it was, literally, the dormitory for married, Hong Kong police officers decades ago.  Instead of tearing the unused building down, creative developers turned it into a shopping mall dedicated to featuring starting artisans.  A few, large, anchor tenants on the ground floor, plus a swanky fine dining restaurant on the top level (opened by Paolo Casagrande, the chef de cuisine of Martin Berasategui’s two Michelin-starred restaurant Lasarte in Barcelona), help to subsidize the rent for all of the artisan tenants in between.  Retailers set up shop in the former police living units – fewer 500 sq. ft. each.  In addition to Sonoda, there were clothiers, home furnishers, booksellers (even one dedicated to pop-up books), photographers, confectioners, and toymakers.  I even found one shop that made custom eyeglass frames out of ox horns.  They had drawers full of uncut ox horn plates from which you could make your frames.  Of all of the things I experienced on this trip, PMQ was one of the highlights.  It’s a fantastic concept, and I hope more urban centers around the world can figure out a way to make this kind of business model work.

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From the beginning of September to Christmas, I was home in Kansas City for fewer than 20 days.

Christopher Haatuft, chef of Lyvserket, whom I had met on my trip to Bergen earlier in the year, contacted me over the summer.  He was inspired by the day we had spent touring his region together, and wanted to mount a recurring dinner series at his restaurant based on the purveyors and artisans we met, and ones like them.  He asked me to help him plan the dinners, find guest chefs to bring, and proposed hiring me to photograph them.  I agreed on all fronts.

So, in September, I took the first chef in this collaborative dinner series to Norway. This inaugural dinner focused on the coastline.  Who better to take than the chef and host of the Rediscovering Coastal Cuisine dinners, in which I have participated and photographed (and mentioned above): Justin Cogley of Aubergine in Carmel-by-the-Sea.

I returned in November for the second dinner. This time, we focused on the deep sea.  So, I called up my friend Stephen Harris, chef of The Sportsman on the coast of Kent, and lured him out for a rare appearance.  On my way to Bergen, I swung through the United Kingdom for a taste of that salt marsh umami that Harris offers at his restaurant in Seasalter.

I don’t want to spend too much time talking about the “Friends of Lysverket” series here, because I will be writing a more detailed blog post about  it after I complete these year-end round-up posts (there really is a lot more to these dinners than just the guest chefs and their food).  But, I will tell you that I’ll be heading back to Bergen in a few weeks with the third guest chef, and hopefully others every two months thereafter

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Since I was already in Norway, I figured, I might as well tack on some European eating.

So, on my way to Bergen in September, I first swung through Paris, using it as a gateway to visit Alexandre Gauthier’s two restaurants in and around the medieval, walled city of Montreuil-sur-Mer in the north of France (Froggy’s Tavern – where they denied me a bill – and Le Grenouillère, where I paid full fare for dinner and lodging).

I spent the week after Bergen in Copenhagen, which has quickly become one of my favorite destinations for food, culture, and people.  I tried to focus mostly on restaurants I hadn’t visited before. And to the degree that I only returned to one restaurant to which I had already been – Geranium (at the invitation and full comp of chef Kofoed) – I largely succeeded.  But the real focus of my trip to Copenhagen this time was an overnight trip to the Danish island of Bornholm, where chef Nicolai Nørregaard, his business partner Magnus Høegh Kofoed, and their assistant Pelle Magnus Berg Petersen (if that’s not the most amazing string of Danish names, I don’t know what is) took a day out of their busy schedule to show me their bucolic homeland, and host me for dinner at their restaurant Kadeau (I had been to Kadeau’s second location in Copenhagen, but this was my first visit to the original location on Bornholm; they surprised me with a plane ticket and took care of my lodging, but I insisted on paying for dinner).

On my November trip to Bergen, I spent the week after the Friends of Lysverket dinner in Stockholm, Sweden, where I last ate in 2005.  I was there for three nights, and ate very well, but with mixed feelings.  Perhaps I’ll sort them out for you in a subsequent blog post.

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While I was in Denmark, I was contacted by Vox Media, parent company to Eater (and the Curbed family of websites).  Vox had a client that wanted me to photograph a series of advertorials involving chefs and its product.

The company was Absolut Vodka, and it wanted to bring awareness to the fact that its vodka is made from winter wheat growing within 75 miles of its distillery in Åhus, Sweden.  So, the series I shot, entitled “75 Miles,” had me going to local green markets in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles with six chefs (two in each city).  Each chef was given a food budget and a bottle of Absolut vodka.  After each market visit, the chef and I hauled everything back to his or her home kitchen (or a borrowed kitchen) and the chef cooked me a meal using the ingredients they bought, and mixed me a couple of cocktails.

This project required me to fly twice to San Francisco and Los Angeles, and once to New York within a two-week span starting in September and leaking into October (somewhere in there was a delayed flight that left me stranded for one night in Salt Lake City, which gave me a convenient excuse to catch up with my friend and chef Viet Pham, who is in the midst of opening is own restaurant).  I chose three of the chefs, and Vox Media arranged the others.  It was a fun project that taught me a lot about vodka, and gave me the opportunity to meet and work with some awesome people.  You’ll find links to all six of the 75 Miles posts (which include photos stitched together by my commentary) on the Eater website here.

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October ended and November began with a rapid-fire of back-to-back-to-back trips.  I was in Chicago for my friend Dave Beran’s wedding (this, my sixth and last wedding of the year, including chef Joshua Skenes’s wedding in San Francisco earlier in April).  From there, I flew to Minneapolis to photograph my friend Gavin Kaysen’s beautiful new restaurant Spoon & Stable (unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the opening, so I photographed it the week before). I look forward to going back in this new year for a proper meal.

And from Minneapolis, I went on to Dallas to photograph a Friends of James Beard Foundation dinner at the storied Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek.  Hosting chef Bruno Davaillon of the Mansion Restaurant (and his pastry chef, Nicolas Blouin) brought in an impressive roster of chefs: Michael Cimarusti (of Providence in Los Angeles), Scott Conant (of Scarpetta in Toronto and Miami), Paul Kahan (of Blackbird, Publican, etc. in Chicago), Jose Mendin and Andreas Schreiner (of Pubbelly in Miami), and Bryan Voltaggio (of VOLT, Aggio, etc. in Fredericksburg and Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.).  Each of the seven chefs was allotted a pound of white truffles to shave for their course, and each course was paired with Champagne.  The dinner was aptly named “Truffles & Bubbles.”  I had the great pleasure of sitting next to chef Dean Fearing, who, among other alumni chefs of the Mansion Restaurant, had been invited back to participate in the dinner.

The hotel’s Food and Beverage Director Luke Mathot was a consummate host.  He took the guest chefs and me out eating and drinking on the town that Halloween weekend, and even threw us a dinner party at his house.  It was a great time.  I hope they do it again.

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If the preceding months were a frantic scramble, I had the pleasure of ending 2014 in two of the most beautiful and relaxing settings that have become a part of my annual schedule. Maybe it’s because I’ve photographed these two events before, and find comfort in the familiar. Maybe it’s because the people involved are awesome; and indeed, have become good friends. Or maybe, it’s because the quality of the content at both events is so high.  Most likely, it’s a combination of all of these things, plus the spectacular backdrop in front of which it is all presented that makes them such a joy to attend and record.

In mid-November, I had the pleasure of returning to the Inn at Palmetto Bluff to photograph the eighth “helping” (and my fourth) of the Music To Your Mouth event.  Under the swaying Spanish moss of the Low Country of South Carolina is this four-day gathering of good food, great people, and wonderful music.  I’ve written about this event before, and again here.  This year’s, Music To Your Mouth saw a few changes in venues – to spectacular effect, in my opinion (the events organizers Courtney Hampson and Jeremy Walton are true visionaries) – and a slight increase of traffic.  But the event remained relatively intimate, and I readily picked out many familiar faces and friends who make this weekend in South Carolina one of the best of my year.  On my way home, I extended my layover in Atlanta to eat and catch up on sleep for a few days before heading back to have Thanksgiving with my family.

And, for the third time, I ended my year with three weeks in California at Meadowood Napa Valley for the Twelve Days of Christmas, a dinner series hosted by chef Christopher Kostow of The Restaurant at Meadowood, which has consumed this blog for the past dozen posts.  You’ll find a recap of this year’s event, and a link to all twelve of this year’s dinners in this blog post (you’ll also find links to my blog posts about the twenty-four dinners that I’ve attended in years past).

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Given my schedule, you can understand why I didn’t have the time to research and write a piece for my friend Adam Goldberg’s (he of the birthday and blog mentioned above) new magazine about coffee culture, when he came knocking on my door in the fall.  But, I did work with his sister Elyssa, executive editor of the magazine, as the copywriter for this inaugural issue.  I have read every word, every article, and I am excited for you to discover the great stories within it.  You can preorder your issue of Drift on the magazine’s website.

In Kansas City, I continued photographing for my friends Colby and Megan Garrelts and their two restaurants, bluestem and Rye.  In the spring, I also photographed their second cookbook, “Made in America,” which is currently on pre-order (due to hit bookshelves this coming spring).

I photographed my friend Ryan Sciara’s new wine shop Underdog Wine in the Brookside Crestwood shops.  And my friends Josh and Abbey-Jo Eans took over one of my favorite breakfast-lunch spots in Kansas City – Happy Gills Café & Hangout – and asked me to photograph it for them.  I did so happily.

I continued working with Michael Corvino, chef at The American Restaurant, hosting a couple of annual collaborative dinners.  It was my fourth (or was it the fifth, or sixth?) year serving on the Harvesters Chefs Classic committee, which hosts a dinner at the restaurant every June to raise money for our city’s largest food bank. This year, I invited chefs Gerard Craft (of Niche in St. Louis), Gavin Kaysen (who was unable to come to a previous dinner in Kansas City due to Hurricane Sandy), and Stephanie Prida (pastry chef at Manresa). Corvino invited local chefs Ryan Brazeal (of Novel), Colby Garrelts (of Bluestem and Rye), and Debbie Gold (former chef of The American Restaurant).  In September, Corvino and I co-hosted the 16th annual Friends of James Beard Foundation dinner at The American Restaurant – the longest-running dinner of its kind for the foundation in the nation (here is the list of the chefs who cooked this year).

And my cookbook project with Joshua Skenes, chef of the newly minted 3 Michelin-starred restaurant Saison, continues. After a few, long delays in 2014 due to life events, we’re moving again. I look forward to reporting more about it this year.

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I can only wish that 2015 will be filled with half as much fun and fulfillment as I had 2014.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, between all of my travels, I ate very well.  In the coming days, I will turn to picking out the very best of what I ate this year in a series of blog posts that has become one of my favorite annual exercises.  Given the high-level of cooking I encountered this year, it will not be easy.  In the meantime, I leave you with the complete list of restaurants that I visited in 2014. It includes over 250 different restaurants in a dozen U.S. States, eight countries, on three continents, and representing over 75 Michelin stars.**

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JANUARY

Bluestem (Kansas City, Missouri) (once, twice)
Happy Gillis Café & Hangout (Kansas City) (once, twice)
Michael Smith (Kansas City, Missouri)
Rieger Grill & Exchange (Kansas City) (once, twice)
Rye (Leawood, Kansas)

FEBRUARY

American Restaurant, The (Kansas City, Missouri)
Anton’s Taproom (Kansas City, Missouri)
Bar Tartine (San Francisco, California)
Blackbird (Chicago, Illinois)
Boka (Chicago, Illinois)
Café Provence (Prairie Village, Kansas)
Café Zuni (San Francisco, California)
Central Kitchen (San Francisco, California)
Delicias Elenita Tacos (Santa Rosa, California)
Diavola Pizzeria & Salumeria (Geyserville, California)
Hai Ky Mi Gia (San Francisco, California)
Hamano Sushi (San Francisco, California)
Iguana Café (Chicago, Illinois)
Madrona Manor (Healdsburg, California)
Milwaukee Delicatessen (Kansas City, Missouri)
Mission Beach Café (San Francisco, California)
Oklahoma Joe’s Barbecue (Kansas City, Kansas)
Press (St. Helena, California)
Publican Quality Meats (Chicago, Illinois)
R&G Lounge (San Francisco, California)
Restaurant at Meadowood, The (St. Helena, California)
Rye (Leawood, Kansas)
Saison (San Francisco, California)
Sea Change (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Shanghai Dumpling King (San Francisco, California)
Stella Barra (Chicago, Illinois)

MARCH

1877 (Bergen, Norway)
Antoine (Paris, France)
Aubergine (Carmel-By-The-Sea, California (once, twice)
Bistro B (Oslo, Norway)
Bluestem (Kansas City, Missouri) (once, twice)
Butagumi (Tokyo, Japan)
Café Europa (Kansas City, Missouri)
David Toutain (Paris, France)
Den (Tokyo, Japan)
In De Wulf (Dranouter, Belgium) (dinner and breakfast)
Ishikawa (Tokyo, Japan)
Kohikan (Tokyo, Japan)
Kyorakutei (Tokyo, Japan)
L’Air du Temps (Éghezée, Belgium)
L’Atelier Joël Robuchon (Tokyo, Japan)
Le Baratin (Paris, France)
Le Colonialen (Bergen, Norway)
Lysverket (Bergen, Norway)
Matsukawa (Tokyo, Japan)
Maaemo (Oslo, Norway)
Mizutani (Tokyo, Japan)
Oklahoma Joe’s Barbecue (Kansas City, Kansas)
Olivia (Oslo, Norway)
Oreryu Shioramen (Tokyo, Japan)
Ryugin (Tokyo, Japan)
Seikaan (Tokyo, Japan)
Sotto (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Souvenir (Ypres, Belgium)
Sushisho Masa (Tokyo, Japan)
Toritama (Tokyo, Japan)
Uokyo (Tokyo, Japan)
Ylajali (Oslo, Norway)

APRIL

A16 (San Francisco, California)
American Restaurant, The (Kansas City, Missouri)
Bufalina (Austin, Texas)
Cotogna (San Francisco, California)
East Side Kings Thaikun (Austin, Texas)
Fukamachi (Tokyo, Japan)
Franklin BBQ (Austin, Texas)
Ifuki (Kyoto, Japan)
Ishibashi (Tokyo, Japan)
Justine’s (Austin, Texas)
Kichisen (Kyoto, Japan)
Kin Khao (San Francisco, California)
Kushikatsu (Osaka, Japan)
Mille Caresses (Osaka, Japan)
Nico (San Francisco, California)
Noble Sandwiches (Austin, Texas)
Novel (Kansas City, Missouri)
Odd Duck (Austin, Texas)
Port Fonda (Kansas City, Missouri)
Rye (Leawood, Kansas) (once, twice)
Qui (Austin, Texas)
Salt & Time (Austin, Texas)
Shabu Gen (Tokyo, Japan)
Souhonke Yudofu Okutan Kiyomizu (Kyoto, Japan)
Taian (Osaka, Japan)
Yakizen (Osaka, Japan)
Yubasen (Kyoto, Japan)

MAY

ABC Kitchen (New York, New York)
Barbuto (New York, New York)
Betony (New York, New York)
Birch & Barley (Washington, D.C.)
Bluestone Lane (New York, New York)
Breslin, The (New York, New York)
Bridger’s Bottle Shop & Preservation Market (Kansas City, Missouri)
Casa Mono (New York, New York) (once, twice, thrice)
Clinton Street Baking Co. (New York, New York)
Contra (New York, New York)
Cucina della Ragazza (Kansas City, Missouri)
Daniel (New York, New York)
Del Posto (New York, New York)
Eleven Madison Park (New York, New York)
Empellon Cocina (New York, New York)
Estela (New York, New York)
Etto (Washington, D.C.)
Fiola (Washington, D.C.)
Gander, The (New York, New York)
Happy Gillis Café & Hangout (Kansas City, Missouri) (once, twice)
Hearth (New York, New York)
Jean-Georges (New York, New York)
Il Buco Alimentari (New York, New York)
Knox Mason (Knoxville, Tennessee)
Little Serow (Washington, D.C.)
Luke’s Lobster (Washington, D.C.)
Luksus (New York, New York)
Maialino (New York, New York)
Marea (New York, New York)
Mercer Kitchen (New York, New York)
Narcissa (New York, New York)
Osteria Morini (New York, New York)
Otto (New York, New York)
Rotisserie Georgette (New York, New York)
Rye (Leawood, Kansas)
Sushi Dojo (New York, New York)
Toki Underground (Washington, D.C.)
Tupelo Honey Café (Knoxville, Tennessee)

JUNE

Accurso’s (Kansas City, Missouri)
American Restaurant, The (Kansas City, Missouri) (once, twice, thrice)
Arthur Bryant’s BBQ (Kansas City, Missouri)
Atera (New York, New York)
Barbuto (New York, New York)
Bâtard (New York, New York)
Blaue Gans (New York, New York)
Bluestem (Kansas City, Missouri) (once, twice, thrice, four times)
Bluestone Lane (New York, New York) (once, twice, thrice)
Cull & Pistol (New York, New York)
Daniel (New York, New York)
Danny Edward’s BBQ (Kansas City, Missouri)
Empire Diner (New York, New York)
Fiorella’s Jack Stack (Martin City, Missouri)
Fung Tu (New York, New York)
Gates Bar-B-Q (Kansas City, Missouri)
Genessee Royale (Kansas City, Missouri)
Gramercy Tavern (New York, New York)
Happy Gills Café & Hangout (Kansas City, Missouri)
Johnny Jo’s Pizzeria (Kansas City, Missouri)
Morandi (New York, New York)
NoMad (New York, New York)
Novel (Kansas City, Missouri)
Oklahoma Joe’s Barbecue (Kansas City, Kansas)
Papa Bob’s (Kansas City, Kansas)
Port Fonda (Kansas City, Missouri) (once, twice)
Q39 (Kansas City, Missouri)
Quick’s BBQ (Merriam, Kansas)
Rye (Leawood, Kansas) (once, twice, thrice)
Smokin’ Guns (North Kansas City, Missouri)
Snead’s BBQ (Belton, Missouri)
Spotted Pig, The (New York, New York) (once, twice)

JULY

American Restaurant, The (Kansas City, Missouri)
Boulevard (San Francisco, California)
Coqueta (San Francisco, California)
Delfina Pizzeria (San Francisco, California)
El Pollo Rey (Kansas City, Kansas)
Hai Ky Mi Gia (San Francisco, California)
Hamano Sushi (San Francisco, California)
Happy Gillis Café & Hangout (Kansas City, Missouri)
Monsieur Benjamin (San Francisco, California)
Outerlands (San Francisco, California)
Pizza Bella (Kansas City, Missouri)
Saison (San Francisco, California)
Tosca Café (San Francisco, California)
Town Topic (Kansas City, Missouri)

AUGUST

Aberdeen Social (Hong Kong)
American Restaurant, The (Kansas City, Missouri)
Australian Dairy Co. (Hong Kong)
Bibo (Hong Kong)
Bluestem (Kansas City, Missouri)
Bo Innovation (Hong Kong)
Café Sebastienne (Kansas City, Missouri)
Crystal Jade (Hong Kong)
Duddell’s (Hong Kong)
Four Seasons Pizza (Lenexa, Kansas)
Happy Gillis Café & Hangout (Kansas City, Missouri)
Kam’s Goose (Hong Kong)
Kau Kee (Hong Kong)
Kwan Kee Bamboo Noodle House (Hong Kong)
L2O (Chicago, Illinois)
Little Goat (Chicago, Illinois)
M&C Duck (Hong Kong)
Mak’s Noodle (Hong Kong)
Mott32 (Hong Kong)
Next: Modern Chinese (Chicago, Illinois)
Port Fonda (Kansas City, Missouri)
Ronin (Hong Kong)
Rye (Kansas City, Missouri)
Sing Kee (Hong Kong)
Tim Ho Wan (Hong Kong)
Yan Toh Heen (Hong Kong)

SEPTEMBER

Amass (Copenhagen, Denmark)
American Restaurant, The (Kansas City, Missouri)
Atelier September (Copenhagen, Denmark) (once, twice)
Atsushi Tanaka (Paris, France)
Bella Napoli (Kansas City, Missouri)
Bestia (Los Angeles, California)
Boulette’s Larder (San Francisco, California)
Chez Panisse (Berkeley, California)
Christianshøj Kro (Bornholm, Denmark)
Eggslut (Los Angeles, California)
Froggy’s Tavern (Montreuil-sur-Mer, France)
Gates Bar-B-Q (Kansas City, Missouri)
Genessee Royale (Kansas City, Missouri)
Geranium (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Huge Tree (Monterey Park, California)
Hungry Cat (Hollywood, California)
Kadeau (Bornholm, Denmark)
La Grenouillère (La Madeleine-sous-Montreuil, France) (dinner and breakfast)
L’As du Falafel (Paris, France)
LC’s Bar-B-Q (Kansas City, Missouri)
Les Clos (San Francisco, California)
Lysverket (Bergen, Norway) (once and Friends of Lysverket)
Manfreds & Vin (Copenhagen, Denmark)
MASH (Copenhagen, Denmark)
No. 2 (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Oklahoma Joe’s (Kansas City, Kansas)
Pabu (San Francisco, California)
Pizzeria Mozza (Los Angeles, California)
Rustic Canyon (Santa Monica, California)
Saison (San Francisco, California)
Salazar (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Schønneman (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Son of a Gun (Los Angeles, California)
Studio (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Superba Snack Bar (Los Angeles, California)
Z&Y (San Francisco, California)

OCTOBER

American Restaurant, The (Kansas City, Missouri)
Aubergine (Carmel-By-The-Sea, California)
Bachelor Farmer Sausage Stand, The (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Bento Naru (San Mateo, California)
Bluestem (Kansas City, Missouri)
Casa Mono (New York, New York) (once, twice)
Connie & Ted’s (Los Angeles, California)
Copper Onion (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Duarte’s Tavern (Pescadero, California)
Eddy, The (New York, New York)
FT33 (Dallas, Texas)
Fundamental L.A. (Los Angeles, California)
GT Fish & Oyster (Chicago, Illinois)
Happy Gillis Café & Hangout (Kansas City, Missouri)
Hog Island Oyster Co. (San Francisco, California)
Hub 51 (Chicago, Illinois)
Gjelina (Venice, California)
J&G Grill at the St. Regis (Park City, Utah)
Lockhart Smokehouse (Dallas, Texas)
Maison Premier (New York, New York)
Mansion on Turtle Creek, The (Dallas, Texas)
Modern, The (New York, New York)
Pecan Lodge (Dallas, Texas)
Pequod’s (Chicago, Illinois)
Providence (Los Angeles)
Quince (San Francisco, California)
Russ & Daughters Café (New York, New York)
Sixteen (Chicago, Illinois)
Superba Food + Bread (Los Angeles, California) (once, twice)
Tei An (Dallas, Texas)
Union Square Café (New York, New York)

NOVEMBER

All Good Café (Dallas, Texas)
American Restaurant, The (Kansas City, Missouri)
Bacchanalia (Atlanta, Georgia)
Bakfickan (Stockholm, Sweden)
Boulevardier (Dallas, Texas)
Brasserie Zentral (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Cakes & Ale (Decatur, Georgia)
Ekstedt (Stockholm, Sweden)
Frantzén (Stockholm, Sweden)
General Muir, The (Atlanta, Georgia)
Hedone (London, The United Kingdom)
Lysverket (Bergen, Norway) (once, twice, and Friends of Lysverket)
Mansion on Turtle Creek, The (Dallas, Texas) (Truffles & Bubbles)
Miller Union (Atlanta, Georgia)
Oaxen Krog (Stockholm, Sweden)
Port Fonda (Kansas City, Missouri)
Restaurant Eugene (Atlanta, Georgia)
Rolfs Kök (Stockholm, Sweden)
Sportsman, The (Seasalter, The United Kingdom)
Star Provisions (Atlanta, Georgia)

DECEMBER

Archetype (St. Helena, California)
Bar Tartine (San Francisco, California)
Bouchon (Yountville, California) (once, twice)
Chez Panisse Café (Berkeley, California)
Flour + Water (San Francisco, California)
Fox and the Farmer, The (St. Helena, California)
Fremont Diner, The (Sonoma County, California) (once, twice)
Glen Ellen Star (Glen Ellen, California) (once, twice)
Gott’s Roadside (St. Helena, California) (once, twice)
Great China (Berkeley, California)
Hawker Fare (Oakland, California)
Hog Island Oyster Co. (Marshall, California)
Izakaya Rintaro (San Francisco, California)
Izakaya Yuzuki (San Francisco, California)
La Taberna (Napa, California)
Les Clos (San Francisco, California)
Press (St. Helena, California)
Redd Wood (Yountville, California)
Restaurant at Meadowood, The (St. Helena, California)
Restaurant at Meadowood, The (Twelve Days of Christmas: Orlando, Castranovo & Falcinelli, Desramaults, Gauthier, Wetzel, McFadden, Martinez, Achatz, Lee, Holmboe Bang, Mattos, and Kostow)
Rye (Leawood, Kansas)
State Bird Provisions (San Francisco, California)
Tosca Café (San Francisco, California)

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* Serendipitously, a friend of mine had just finished reading Sheryl Sandberg’s book, “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,” and gave it to me. The writing was painfully elementary (I flipped through the entire thing in a day and a half), but her message was a good one: know your worth, and don’t settle for less. On this same subject, another friend made a strikingly simple but profound comment to me: “It’s not your dream job if it doesn’t pay you what you think you’re worth.”

** Michelin stars are counted according to the number of stars the restaurant had at the time I dined there.  So, for example, I dined at Saison a few times before it received its third Michelin star in November, and therefore counted it as a two Michelin-starred restaurant for this list.

PHOTOS: A lonely silhouette against the jagged Marin Headlands taking a photo of the great Golden Gate Bridge; San Francisco, California; looking towards H. Dana Bowers viewing platform from the Golden Gate Bridge; San Francisco, California; Paul Qui waving and Deana Saukam rushing by in an underground tunnel in Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong; Jon Bonné and Eric Asimov discuss wine at the Wine Writers Symposium at the Culinary Institute of America Greystone, St. Helena, California; a tornado of Sardines at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California; rowers revel under the cherry blossoms in Chidorigafuchi Park in Tokyo, Japan; the table setting at The Barn at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee; a view of Victoria Harbor from Victoria Peak in Hong Kong; night in Bergen, Norway; a night-time ping pong match in a park in Copenhagen, Denmark; a row of palms in Venice Beach, California; a lone cyclist crosses a bridge in Paris, France; in a light rain, they listen to Holly Williams play at Music To Your Mouth, Moreland Landing, Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina; chefs Gavin Kaysen, Stephanie Prida, Gerard Craft, Colby Garrelts, Jonathan Justus, and Ryan Sciara at this year’s Harvesters Chefs Classic at The American Restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri; and the royal palace in Stockholm, Sweden.

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Ten years.

This post marks a decade since I first started compiling a list of my 25 favorite dishes of the year.  What began simply as an annual bookmark to help me remember the good food I had has now become an anticipated tradition that attracts more clicks than any other post in the calendar year preceding. I don’t allow any advertising on this blog, so all the traffic is of very little value to me, other than alerting me to the fact that my year-end lists (including my posts about my 25 favorite desserts, and my 10 best meals, both of which shall appear anon) have also become a way to share and celebrate with all of you the chefs and restaurants that have delighted me the most.  So, even though I’m generally pretty cynical about lists, I’m happy that the 25 dishes that follow (and the 25 desserts and 10 restaurants listed in my next two posts) get the most eyeballs and mileage on this blog.  They deserve the attention.  I’ve had a lot of very good food this year, and to stand out in that wide and rich field is a feat be congratulated.*

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Every year, I’m hurled – half sprinting, half carried by my own inertia – towards the last hour, only to leave a short but thick streak as I come to a screeching halt at the edge of an enormous divide between the expiring and the aspiring.  Before mindlessly throwing myself into the new calendar, I force myself to pause and wade into the outgoing year’s jumbled memories and notes, mental and jotted, that I’ve left haphazardly thrown in a corner amidst a blur of flights, reservations, names, and emails.

Thankfully, I usually don’t have to look too hard. That old saying is true: the cream rises to the top.  If I give a it a good stir, the good ones surface quickly.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know that simplicity, quality, and flavor (the first cannot exist successfully without the latter two) are what I value most in food. And that’s what you’ll find in common among my 25 favorite dishes from 2014: a scallop roasted in its shell with a knob of butter; a strip of slip sole, naked but for a glistening veil of butter flecked with seaweed; and dry-aged beef served with little more than a spoonful of it’s own tallow and juices.  This is how I like to eat.

This year’s list is comprised of food from all corners of the world, some found in unexpected and unlikely places – a Belgian farmhouse; a crowded noodle shop in Hong Kong; a cobblestoned courtyard tucked among the labyrinthine streets of a medieval, walled city near the coast of France.  And of course, some from restaurants that have proven to be dependable founts of good eating: three of the restaurants you’ll find below have appeared before.

Not surprisingly, Japan produced some of the best food I ate this year. Dishes from that trip dominate the top ten spots and represent over a quarter of the entire list.  Among them, my love of rice is made apparent. Rice is not only a comforting reminder of my own, Asian-American childhood, it’s also a clean sounding board off of which other flavors can be showcased.  Although it’s a relatively inexpensive and simple food to cook, rarely is rice made as well as the versions you’ll read about below.

Great food – the type that truly inspires and endures – comes often as a pleasant, unexpected surprise. I love that this is so. Despite all of my international travel this year, the starry host I visited, and the mythical culinary “gods” I encountered, gifting the world with their Olympian ambrosia, a young American in a foreign land with no Michelin star (not yet, anyway) bested them all with an austere, but spectacular dish that he claims to have thrown together spontaneously: some roots, some fruit, a spot of warm oil.

You never know when or where good food will appear.  That’s why I’m always eating.

Out of thousands of dishes that I tasted at over 250 restaurants in a dozen U.S. state, eight countries spread across three continents, and representing over 75 Michelin stars (you’ll find a comprehensive list of them here), I give you my 25 favorite dishes of 2014.

Please note:

1. The title of each dish below is hyperlinked to a photo of that dish.
2. Please see the footnote about bread at the end.
3. A link at the bottom of this post takes you to ten more dishes from 2014 that I deem worth mentioning.

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25. WALNUT SHRIMP
(Great China; Berkeley, California)

Sirens and flashers lit up every street corner in Berkeley as my friends and I settled around a circus-sized lazy Susan at Great China, a Berkeley institution that recently reopened in a cavernous new space after a fire had destroyed the original. The wine list there is unbelievable (Beverage Director Mark Yatabe is an oenophile who maintains a shockingly well-stocked cellar), and the food was all very good (the Peking duck – presented in one service, not two – is notable).  But the walnut shrimp…  The fried batter was puffy and light, and the shrimp within were plump and tender, with just a bit of snap.  The walnuts were crisp and crunchy.  And all of it was glazed in a sugary slurry with a splash of orange. If protestors ever shut down I-80 again, I’ll happily wait them out at Great China over a plate of these shrimp. (Incidentally, it paired beautifully with a bottle of Weingut Dönnhoff Oberhauser Brücke Riesling Spätlese, 2013).

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24. CHINCHARD
Vinaigre fumé.
(le Baratin; Paris, France)

I love the way the French pronounce this fish: shin-shar.  Tiny, but feisty, Raquel Carina, the Argentine proprietress of this cozy bistro in Belleville (that’s in the far-flung 20eme), served us this blushing-pink strip of raw chinchard with little more than some oil, salt, and a splash of smoked vinegar.

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23. LIVE SCALLOP
Salted butter, white truffle, lemon.
(Providence; Los Angeles, California)

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22. BEEF CURRY NOODLES
Spicy curry with beef tendon and wide noodles.
(Kau Kee; Hong Kong)

We ducked into Kau Kee from the torrential downpour outside and crowded around a small table, all of us dripping wet from rain and sweat.  Hong Kong in the summer is miserable.  I didn’t have to look at the menu twice: beef curry noodles for me. It’s my favorite; and this popular noodle shop happens to make an exceptionally good version. The broth was dark and spicy and everything bathing in it – the noodles, the ropey strands of tender beef, and the nuggets of beef tendon – were stained yellow with curry. I happily disappeared into this hearty bowl as we waited out the rain.

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21. ARTICHAUT
Vinaigrette.
(Froggy’s Tavern; Montreuil-sur-Mer, France)

This giant globe artichoke was so large that I was only served half of it. It arrived hot and steaming, unceremoniously spliced down the middle, dripping with butter and crunchy with sea salt. The artichoke was served with a side of vinaigrette so emulsified it looked like crème fraîche (In fact, I asked chef Alexandre Gauthier if there was any dairy in the vinaigrette. No, it’s a simple vinaigrette, he replied.). There’s something hypnotizing about deleafing an artichoke, methodically working your way down to the tender core. The process takes so long, and yet the prize at the end is so fleeting. But it’s worth it, especially when it’s as simple and as delicious as this one.

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20. BRISKET
(Franklin Barbecue; Austin, Texas)

Texas brisket is everything Kansas City brisket is not.  It’s tender and juicy, and served with all of that marbled fat and connective tissue still melting into the rosy meat around it.  It’s sliced thick, so you get the satisfaction of sinking your teeth into it. And it’s flavorful.  Texas brisket is great. In spite of all of the hype surrounding the barbecue at Franklin Barbecue, Aaron Franklin‘s smoked brisket turned out to be everything I had hoped for, and more. Disclaimer: I didn’t have to stand in the restaurant’s famously long line for it, and neither did I pay for it. But, given how good it was, I’d happily go back and do it right. It was fantastic.

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19. BAMBOO RICE
Fried tofu, fried tofu soup, grilled fish, pickled vegetables.
(Ifuki; Kyoto, Japan)

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18. CUISSES DE GRENOUILLE MEUNIÈRE
Citron, croutons.
(La Grenouillère; la Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, France)

This dish, the restaurant’s namesake, is always offered à la carte in various preparations. However, I think one version of it is included on the tasting menu (chef Alexandre Gauthier may have added it on to my menu; I’m not sure).  Regardless, I’m very thankful that I got to try it. Lamentably, no worthwhile frog legs can be found in France, Gauthier told me. The best ones, he said, come from Romania.  That’s where he got these meaty thighs, which he served to me à la meunière, wearing a mantle of lemony froth in a bowl dotted with tiny croutons.  The meat was incredibly clean-tasting, and because Gauthier only buys fresh frog legs – never frozen ones – the texture was incredibly tender. I’ve never had frog legs this good.

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17. SEA URCHIN TOAST
(Saison; San Francisco, California)

Chef Joshua Skenes professes to use only the best ingredients he can get.  But this year, he started focusing much more on using the best ingredients he can get locally from the San Francisco Bay, and the nearby coastline that stretches north and south from it.  From the cold, coastal waters of Mendocino County he gets beautiful, fat sea urchin, which he served to me perched on a crusty rind of levain bread that had been soaked in a meaty sauce made from the toasted bread. The bread had only been set in the sauce long enough for it to soak halfway up the spongey mie, leaving the crust on top crunchy. I am partial to bread crust (almost to the exclusion of the fluffy stuff in between).  For me, this little bite was a magnificent meeting of textures and flavors.

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16. SAUTEED SQUID
White miso and creamy mussel sauce. Beach plants.
(Studio; Copenhagen, Denmark)

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15. HARE À LA ROYALE
White truffle, pasta, celeriac, and Brussels sprouts tops.
(Hedone; London, The United Kingdom)

I am dependent on late-autumn trips to Europe to have this seasonal, French classic. In the rare instance this dish appears in the United States – for example, at Daniel, where I last saw it – you won’t find hare blood being used for the civet sauce (our country’s unnatural fear of bacteria makes it impossible). But, far beyond the novelty of this dish, is the tremendous quality and flavor that Swedish chef Mikael Jonsson injected into his version at Hedone. Hare can be cranky. But unsurprisingly, Jonsson captured the best of it: a dark, rich meat accompanied by an equally moody sauce that is a complex, merry-go-round of flavors: coffee, red wine, liver, tobacco.  When I needed a moment from the dizzying ride, a fair Brussels sprout leaf, simply sauteed in a little oil, and a side of plainly dressed pasta, with but little more than some white truffle, made for a soft landing. It was clean and light, yet immensely soulful and satisfying.  It was exquisite.

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14. PERIGORD TRUFFLE “COOKIE”
Liver, feuille de bric, pecan milk, pecan honey.
(Saison; San Francisco, California)

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13. PIGEON
Pear, tarragon.
(Souvenir; Ieper, Belgium)

From a blog post I wrote earlier this year: “‘Pigeon,’ I said.  ‘Pear,’ [Icelandic chef Vilhjalmur] Sigurdarson replied, ‘The pigeon is just the garnish.’  He was joking, of course.  But that pear was amazing; slightly charred, slightly softened, and soaked with flavor.  Together with the pigeon, it was a showstopper.”

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12. MEISHAN-TON KATSU
Shaved cabbage, vinegar.
(Butagumi; Tokyo, Japan)

We tried three different varieties of pork at Butagumi. It really doesn’t matter which one was my favorite (the margin among them was razor-thin, so I picked the meishan-ton, a sirloin cut).  It was the breading – a lacey, golden-brown shell that was more of a halo than a crust, it was so light – that earned the pork katsu at Butagumi a place on this year’s list.

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11. WOOD PIGEON TOURTE
Sunchoke, date, coffee, bone juice.
(Saison; San Francisco, California)

In a puff pastry dome: grilled pigeon breast, confit of its legs, giblets, heart, liver, gizzards, and a farce (stuffing) made from all of these parts mixed with grilled mushrooms, like black trumpet, porcini, and shiitake (depending on the season). The pigeon tourte was baked in the wood-fire oven and served with a slowly grilled sunchoke, a dollop of date-coffee puree, and sauced with the roasting juices taken from the grilled bird bones. This was a slice of Old World craftsmanship and quality I rarely see anymore.

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10. RICE
Bottarga, salmon roe, nori, and baby anchovies.
(Matsukawa; Tokyo, Japan)

My little bowl of tender, short-grained rice came with a tray of condiments: a thick paste of bottarga, some glowing-red salmon roe, a tangle of baby anchovies, and super-crisp sheets of nori.  There was so much condiment, and so little rice.  Finding the right balance, and the self-control to make it so was every bit as important as the quality and simplicity of the ingredients.

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9. FLANNERY DRY-AGED CÔTE DE BOUEF
With its own tallow and jus.
(Christopher Kostow presenting at the Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

Dear Christopher Kostow: You shouldn’t serve things like Bryan Flannery’s dry-aged côte de boeuf family-style.  It causes petty jealousy and stabby behavior among sharing diners.  But thank you for serving it anyway. It was one of the best things I ate all year.

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8. WAGYU
Striploin and tongue with wasabi and salt.
Rump with miso.
Side of watercress dressed with buckwheat vinegar.
(Ifuki; Kyoto, Japan)

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7. TEN-BARA
Rice with scallop and shrimp fritter.
(Fukamachi; Tokyo, Japan)

For our rice course at Fukamachi, a Michelin-starred tempura house near Tokyo’s Kyobashi Station, we were offered three choices.  All three included rice, with bits of chopped fried tofu mixed in, and a tempura fritter of scallop and shrimp. The ten-don presented the whole fritter on top of the rice, with some soy-based sauce drizzled over it.  The ten-cha was the same as the ten-don, but with tea poured over it all.  Lastly, the ten-bara had the fritter chopped up and mixed into the rice.  We ordered the first and last versions, and the latter was my favorite. I loved that everything was pre-mixed, so that every bite contained a little crunchy, a little seafood, and a little rice.

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6. MUSSELS FROM DUNKERQUE
Kale, sour cream, white beer.
(In de Wulf; Dranouter, Belgium)

Flemish chef Kobe Desramaults impressed me with this comforting bowl of warm mussels that, with some torn curly kale, frothy whipped sour cream, and white beer, struck an incredible balance of salt and sour, anchored in a deep, satisfying umami.

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5. SAKURA EBI RICE
(Den; Tokyo, Japan)

I had a few versions of sakura ebi rice in Japan (sakura ebi is a tiny shrimp that is in season during the cherry blossom “sakura” festival). The version I had at Den was my favorite. Jimbocho Den, the restaurant’s sprightly chef with an almost childlike enthusiasm, presented us a giant clay pot of rice paved with these shrimp, which had been fried shell-on so they were crispy.  They were nicely seasoned too. Den mixed everything together, and then served us individual portions in bowls.  Seconds? Always. Thirds? Just this once.

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4. “MILLE CARESSES” GYUKATSU
A-5 Wagyu Sirloin Sandwich
(Mille Caresses; Osaka, Japan)

“We have to order the gyukatsu,” my friend Tomo insisted. “It was one of the best things I ate last year.” And so it was, as it was one of the best things I ate in 2014. I wouldn’t have guessed from the looks of Mille Caresses – a sleek wine bar focused on Bordeaux and Burgundy – that the food would be very good. But these finger sandwiches, with top-quality wagyu beef suffused to two slices of toasted white bread, were amazing. The rosy, buttery meat was so fatty and delicate, it almost melted away.

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3. STEAMED RICE
Fresh sea urchin, short-neck clam and wasabi buds, miso soup, pickled vegetables.
(Ishikawa; Tokyo, Japan)

 

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2. SLIP SOLE
(The Sportsman; Seasalter, The United Kingdom)

A single slip sole, no longer than my hand from front to end: Stephen Harris, chef of The Sportsman, served the entire fish, beautifully cooked, glazed in seaweed butter.  I gently flaked the delicate white meat off its spine, working my way slowly from one end to the other, and then flipped it over for a double helping.  From the moment I started until I stopped, I don’t think I looked up from my plate once.  This was just one example of the many, simple pleasures that finds me thinking so fondly of Harris’s corner on the coast of Kent year after year.

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1. CROSNES
Dried first-of-the-season plums, warm almond oil.
(Amass; Copenhagen, Denmark)

The crosnes. The crisp crosnes gently warmed in almond oil with some sliced, dried plums and a dash of salt were, by far, the highlight of my dinner, I told Matthew Orlando when he asked. He smiled and told me that he literally threw that dish together at the last minute. Unsure whether they would take in the harsh, Danish clime, Orlando’s gardner had planted an experimental batch. They did grow, but the yield was small – enough for only 20-some portions, if that. To take advantage of its crispness, crosnes have to be used quickly. So I, and about two dozen others, were the lucky recipients of this spontaneous gift from the garden. The nutty comfort of the warm oil; the snap of the tiny, ivory roots; the meatiness of the sweet-tart plums; the crunchiness of the salt: was this the best dish that I had in 2014?  Was it my favorite one for flavor, for texture?  Maybe. Maybe not. These questions are subjective, dependent on mood and circumstance. But out of the thousands of dishes that I had last year, this one rises to the top the most often, and most quickly. It’s the one that carved the deepest impression. It’s the one that I can’t forget.**

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CLICK HERE to see ten more dishes from 2014 that I found exceptional and worth mentioning.

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A note on bread: In my opinion, the ongoing debate about bread service (whether to serve, or not to serve it; to charge, or not to charge for it) is easily resolvable: charge me for it if you must (although, why you’re not quietly building it into your food cost is a mystery to me), but don’t offer it unless it’s very, very good.  I don’t need it.  I also don’t need a half a dozen or more varieties of it either, because in almost every instance of such grandstanding, the majority is disappointing, if not inedible in total. The good news is that I found a lot of very good bread in restaurants in 2014, and overall, I do think that bread in restaurants is getting much, much better.  Bread isn’t the sort of thing that I would categorize as a dish for the purposes of the list above (although, some bread that I’ve had in restaurants is so good that I could justify making an entire meal out of it alone). So, I started appending a paragraph to the end of this annual list to dog-ear some of the restaurants that are serving noticeably good bread.  Last year, I mentioned Bar Tartine in San Francisco as serving exceptional bread. Along with Tartine Bakery, it very much deserves to be mentioned again as a standard bearer in American bread making (master baker Chad Robertson has dedicated a whole cookbook, entitled “Tartine Bread,” to the subject).  The Scandinavians are still shaming the world with their bread-baking abilities. In 2014, I had the opportunity to visit the original location of Nicolai Nørregaard’s restaurant Kadeau on the Danish island of Bornholm, and found the bread there just as terrific as the bread was at his restaurant’s second location in Copenhagen, about which I first reported last year.  In addition to regular white-crusted bread, Oaxen Krog in Stockholm serves a traditional Swedish brown bread in a skillet, made of beer and sweet syrup, that was pretty unforgettable. Reminiscent, in form, of the unsweetened skillet cornbread that I’ve had at Sean Brock’s Husk in Charleston, chef Magnus Ek’s bread is much darker and stickier, benefitting greatly from a scattering of large-format Maldon crystals across the surface.  Chef Christopher Haatuft was certainly playing to my preferences when he served me a whole loaf of his house-baked bread at Lysverket in Bergen, Norway, which he had instructed some poor cook to hollow out, leaving only a beautiful, caramelized tunnel of crust. All joking aside, he makes really great bread, including a dark, dense dill bread in nugget form. Following the baking tradition of his culinary forefathers to great effect is Daniel Burns. The bread he makes, served with soured butter, at his restaurant Luksus in Brooklyn, is phenomenal. It has that meteor-like crust that I love so much, and a moist, sturdy crumb with some elasticity. And just look at this half-loaf that Kobe Desramaults served us at his restaurant in de wulf with butter and whipped lard. How could you not like that?

* Although I created this annual post ten years ago with the title “best of…,” in the years since, I have come to dislike the misleading nature of it (for a more in-depth discussion why, read here). I do not claim, of course, that these are the 25 best dishes from the year 2014, for I have not eaten all of the food prepared in all of the restaurants around the world.  Even if I were, by some gastronomic miracle, to have done so, and survived, who am I to pronounce what is the “best?” Rather, these are the best dishes that I had in 2014, in my opinion.  That is why I have deliberately avoided using the word “best” to describe the food mentioned in this post, preferring, instead, to refer to them as “my favorite” dishes.  I realize this is a rather pedantic point of clarification, but one that is important to me.

** Orlando served a version of this dish at his dinner at the Twelve Days of Christmas. It was, principally, the same dish, except the crosnes had been swapped out for dried beets. Although still very good, I thought the leathery texture and sweetness of the beets overlapped too much with the dried plums. It was missing that crunch of the crosnes, with a more neutral, fresh flavor.

Photos: Tonkatsu at Butagumi in Tokyo, Japan; cuisses de grenouille at la Grenouillère; la Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, France; shaving white truffles over live scallop cooked in its shell at Providen in Los Angeles, California; the sea urchin toast at Saison in San Francisco, California; pigeon with pears and tarragon at Souvenir and Ieper, Belgium; rice with anchovies, roe, and nori at Matsukawa in Tokyo, Japan; and steamed rice with sea urchin, clams, and wasabi buds at Ishikawa in Tokyo, Japan; and the traditional Swedish brown bread at Oaxen Krog in Stockholm, Sweden.

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My parents, who immigrated to the United States over forty years ago, said that, when they first arrived on these shores, they had no concept of “dessert.”  In Taiwan, where they had spent most of their lives until that point, there were bakeries that sold sweet pastries, and confectioners who made candy. But most of those products were regarded as a luxury goods, and the result of the importation of foreign culture rather than a part of daily life.

Now that they have both spent the majority of their lives in America, they have, of course, acquired a higher tolerance for sugary things.  Even still, neither embraces sweets, or has much appetite for them. (My father described his first encounter with American fudge as “horrifying;” he still doesn’t like it.)  Finding themselves in a country that surrounds them with sugar – my fellow first-generation Asian-Americans might find this familiar – my parents signal their approval when they put down the spoon and say, with a smile, “Mmmm. Very good. Not too sweet.”

So, sweets weren’t really a part of my upbringing either.  We rarely had “dessert” at home.

But that didn’t prevent me from growing into a well-adjusted American who eats enough “dessert” to justify writing an entire review of my annual consumption of sugar.  I gave you my 25 favorite dishes from 2014.  Now, for the fourth year, I give you my 25 favorite desserts.*  But before I do, I want to share a few thoughts about pastryland that have collected in my mind over this past year.

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Have you noticed that it has suddenly become cool to not like sweets?

What remains a hallmark of the American diet (I say that half jokingly) has now suddenly become a pariah among self-proclaimed food enthusiasts.  It’s almost as if, by declaring at the table that you don’t like desserts, you are somehow morally superior. Don’t use that righteous tone with me.  Rarely are such protests believable – especially since many of these same people don’t seem protest too loudly when I offer them a bite of my dessert.  Is this a knee-jerk reaction to America’s loosing battle with obesity?  (If so, can we have this same kind of knee-jerk reaction among the dining elite to the alcoholism that is rampant within the restaurant community?) Or is this an insincere way of exerting self-control over a personal weakness?

If you’re trying to cut out unneeded calories or carbohydrates, I totally respect that. But that’s a very different thing from insisting – methinks, too much sometimes – that you don’t like sweets at all, and attaching some judge of character to it.  I believe there are people who are genuinely and generally disinterested in sweet things – my parents are examples.  What I don’t understand is this sudden wave of objections to ending meals with something sweet, or this blanket ban on dessert that seems to have become popular principle.

Am I being too sensitive?  Is it just me?  Maybe it’s just me.

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But far be it from me to be an apologist on the subject of sugar.  I don’t like it when sweet things are too sweet either.  And I can empathize with those whose main objection to desserts lie herein.

It’s true. Americans like sugar. We consume a lot of it.  And sometimes, we abuse it. [By “we,” I include all of the Americas.  It seems that the further south I go, the sweeter the sweets get. The desserts that I have had in Latin America are unbelievably sweet – much of it surpassed my tolerance level (I wrote about some of them in last year’s round-up of desserts).]

But surely there is acceptable middle ground. Who says dessert has to be sweet? Just like food that comes off the hot line, there is good pastry and bad pastry. There can be balance and a sophistication of flavor in desserts too (you’ll find exemplars among my favorites below).

As I’ve noted over the past few years, there has been a growing trend away from sweetness in restaurant desserts.  As I observed in last year’s post on this subject, more pastry chefs are offsetting sweetness by incorporating non-traditional ingredients into desserts (and, as I also noted, such enthusiasm is sometimes overshot, as I’m seeing stranger and stranger dishes being passed off as “dessert”).  That trend continues.

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But the thing I want to focus on this year is the gradual elimination of pastry chef positions at higher-end restaurants.  Here, I’m specifically referring to head pastry chefs, and not pastry cooks in general (someone still has to make them, even if no single mastermind is creating them).  I’ve noticed it happening.  And so have others.

In September of last year, chef Marco Canora of Hearth in New York City penned an insightful and thoughtful analysis of the realities – financial and otherwise – and weighed the worth of having a pastry chef. He considered a few alternatives, but concluded: “… necessity isn’t a benchmark for quality, and not every decision revolves around profit. I don’t need to go to the green market four days a week. And I don’t need to change the menu as much as I do. And I don’t need to buy $20/gallon cream from the Finger Lakes. I do these things because I want to create a culture in my restaurant where we act according to a belief system rather than fulfilling the basic demands of a demographic. I want to deliver a product that is consistently great and evolving, and in order to do that, my restaurant demands and requires a pastry chef.” [You can read all of what Canora had to say in his article, entitled “In Defense of Dessert.”]

To be clear, I am not advocating for or against pastry chefs here. But I am noticing that – especially as you near the top of the restaurant kingdom – there is a trend towards the “collective pastry chef:” that is, the lead chef, together with all of the cooks, collectively create the desserts, and one or two cooks, who may or may not be pastry cooks, are responsible for producing them.  So, instead of having a dedicated pastry chef, there is a rotating roster of cooks who help create and maintain the desserts.

Of course, this kind of model is friendlier to kitchens that only offer one tasting menu (or maybe two, with one being a shorter version of the other), and therefore is only required to produce two, maybe three different desserts at any one time, and possibly some petits fours. This also helps explain, in part, why this trend seems isolated to the higher-end of fine dining.  A restaurant like The Modern in New York City, for example, would have a much harder time maintaining its à la carte dessert menus for its bar room and its dining room, plus the dining room’s tasting menu, the private dining room menus, and all of the catered events it hosts, without a dedicated pastry chef who is given his/her own team of cooks.  Actually, it’d be impossible.

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I can name quite a few pastry chefs who consistently produce such amazing desserts, ones that also represent a unique voice, that I can’t help but believe that they are indispensable to whichever restaurant is lucky enough to have them.  Many of them have appeared on this list in past years; and you’ll find a couple of them included this year.

At the same time, it is not beyond my imagination that a restaurant – even a very, very good one – can get along just fine without a dedicated pastry chef.  In fact, if my information is correct, nearly half of the restaurants that produced the 25 desserts on my list of favorites this year did so with no head pastry chef.  In many of these cases, the desserts were created by the head chef, or were the product of the kitchen’s hive mind.

I think there can be a lot of benefits to the “collective pastry chef.”  Cooks who work on the “hot” side of food – who don’t have formal training in pastry – are unhindered by the parameters within which pastry traditionally fits.  Therefore, they may approach pastry making from less-expected angles, and often times, have a different understanding of flavor, and consider a wider range of them.  I venture that some, if not many of the desserts you’ll find below have benefited greatly from this kind of cross-kitchen thinking.  In fact – if I may be so bold – quite a few renowned chefs have impressed me far more with their work in the pastry department than on the hot side of the line, for which they are more well-known.

Of course, this untraditional, open-ended approach to pastry-making can also produce disastrous results.  Too many creative monkeys in the cage make for a circus.  I’ve had some of those kinds of desserts – verging on the clownish – as well, or have encountered menus where the desserts swing wildly from one to another, making for a schizophrenic ending to what would otherwise have been a sensible progression of plates.

Ultimately, whether or not a restaurant needs a head pastry chef, I think, is a highly situational matter (in Canora’s case, he realized that he does).  Some may, as a matter of practicality, want one.  Some may not, a decision warranted by a particularly high level of talent among the kitchen pool.  Regardless, I hope the rest of this post conveys my excitement for the tremendous amount of thought and care with which kitchens – of all stripes – are putting into desserts now.

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While restaurant desserts comprise the majority of the sweets I eat every year, restaurants aren’t the only places I indulge.

Throughout my extensive travels in 2014, I encountered a lot of great pastries outside of restaurants. And since, like last year, I did such a poor job of writing about them throughout the year, I’ll take a moment to tell you about some of them here.

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The subject of Parisian pastries is a well-marked map. So, I don’t want to re-tread what is already well-covered ground (both on this blog, and on the world-wide web).

But there are three places I visited this year that I’d like to mention.  Blé Sucre was recommended to me by many for its croissants (it’s in the 12eme, located a block from the Ledru-Rollin stop on Metro line 8). I now pass that recommendation on to you.  I found the bakeshop’s croissant and kouign amann both to be on the darker side (which I prefer), and very good. (n.b. You will be asked when you order whether you’d like to eat your pastries at the shop – this requires a surcharge; limited seating – or packaged to go.)

Pralus, a famous Parisian confectioner, is primarily known for chocolates.  However, the two Pralus boutiques in Paris also sell what I think is its best product: the “Pralulines Roses.”  This is a sweet briôche loaf studded with cracked pralines – a mix of hazelnuts and almonds coated in rose sugar. I don’t know what’s better – the intense butteriness of the bread, or the incredible flavor of the toasted nuts inside their hard, sugary shells.  The loaves are sold in two sizes (the one pictured above is the “petite,” which I purchased for €6 at the location on rue Rambuteau in the 4eme, about a block from the Rambuteau stop on Metro line 11). [Thanks to my friend Stéphanie at Cookcooning for this recommendation.]

And, if you’re anywhere near the Île St-Louis, the legendary ice creamery Maison Berthillon is a must. As you get closer to it, you’ll see many cafés and restaurants advertising “les glaces Berthillon.” Ignore these siren signs and head straight to the source. The interior is a page-turn to an earlier time. The flavors are seasonal and the texture is always right.  In winter, I’ve had prune and Armagnac ice cream. This past summer, I enjoyed fig sorbet, cocoa sorbet, and coconut ice cream (all under a tall turban of whipped cream).

[On the recommendation of others, I also swung by l’Éclairs de Génie – multiple locations. Although the selection of éclairs was plentiful and colorful, the overall operation seemed a bit commercial. The éclair I tried – a salted caramel one – wasn’t bad. But I’ve had better.]

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Japanese obsession with French confectionary and viennoiserie makes the subject of pastries in Tokyo as well-canvassed as it is in Paris, if not more so (if you’ll allow me to make a lighthearted, racist observation: the inborn inability of Asians to resist taking photos of food – I exhibit this racial, genetic trait strongly – means that the visual documentation is unparalleled).  On top of all the unique and wonderful things that Tokyo has to offer, you’ll also find a duplicate (and some argue better versions) of the pinnacle of Parisian offerings (both edible and otherwise).

Boutiques and counters selling the sweets of celebrated Parisian confectioners Pierre Hermé, Pierre Marcolini, and la Maison du Chocolat dot the city. [You’ll find a brief discussion of the confectionaries found in the underground food halls of Japanese department stores in this summary post about my trip to Japan.]

The Ladurée franchise is strong in Tokyo as well.  I’m not sure how many locations the city has, but I visited two of them with my friends Dr. TomoStyle and Jonathan Alphandery, who is the owner of the Australian Ladurée franchise (from whom I learned a tremendous amount about the company; currently, he owns two Ladurée shops in Sydney – one in the Central Business District, another in the suburb of Woollahra). You’ll find all the standard Ladurée favorites in the shops in Tokyo, with a larger menu at the flagship in Ginza, where the queue for one of its few, parlor tables can run hours long.

In the posh shopping district of Marunouchi, Joël Robuchon has a “Boutique,” where you can sit and enjoy a selection of pastries and sandwiches, or take them to go (a smaller, more pastry-focused counter is attached to the l’Atelier Joël Robuchon across town in Roppongi Hills). Nearby is a small retail space where the French butter-maker, Échiré, Maison du Beurre, sells a variety of golden-brown wonders made with its prized product. In one week, I visited thrice and sampled through the case stacked with flakey puff pastry: chausson au pomme, pain aux raisins et pistaches, and a number of different croissants (with varying percentages of butter, both salted and unsalted).  If you don’t want to wake up early to stand online for the assurance of getting a croissant (the viennoiserie sells out quickly and early), trays shingled with madeleines, financiers, and shortbread, as well as a small cold case of brown butter ice cream, are restocked throughout the day. If not for any of this, the amazing smell of butter alone – which nearly overwhelms upon first entering the store – is worth a visit.

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In my two and a half weeks traveling through Japan, my friend Tomo exposed me to a number of local confectioners and confections.

What the French made famous, the Japanese have perfected.  In the French-inspired quarter of Kagurazaka of Tokyo (public speakers strung up along the main thoroughfares serenade passersby with romantic, French tunes), she took me to a little café named Un Gâteau.  It specializes in chiffon. The light, spongey cake can be bought whole, or by the slice.  We tried one flecked with black olives and one with sakura (cherry blossoms).  Both were terrific.

In the same neighborhood, a tiny shop, curiously named Woodman’s Cake, sells financiers infused with tea.  They were moist and buttery, and the flavor of the tea was surprisingly strong. I loved them.

On our way to Kyoto, we picked up some snacks inside Tokyo’s main train station (there’s an entire section dedicated to sweets), including dorayaki – those miniature pancake-like pastries filled with red bean paste.  (Although entirely a different type of pancake, the American-style pancake was very much the rage when I was in Japan. We passed by restaurants – modeled cartoonishly after American pancake houses – that had lines stretching for blocks.  If they only knew that Aunt Jemima could offer them the same pleasures at a fraction of the price and the time.)

Kyoto’s famous Nishiki Market offered much to see and taste. Along that long, orderly row of purveyors that specializes in everything from rice to pickles, cutlery to pottery, we found one stall dedicated to the “golden sesame,” a particularly fragrant variety. We couldn’t resist ordering the sesame soft serve that came coated in toasted sesame seeds.  It showed off the seed’s rich aroma and flavor beautifully.

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Scandinavians have a strong baking tradition, one of which I have only a cursory understanding.

On one of my three trips to Bergen, Norway in 2014, I happened to catch the city’s annual food festival.  Along the city’s ancient Bryggen – the centuries-old Hanseatic wharf designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site – the “Bergen Mat Festival” set up a small market, where artisan food purveyors from the region were invited to show off their goods. There were pancakes – just like the big, fluffy, griddled discs familiar to this American – served with jars of jams, apple sauce, and sour cream.  My liberal application of a sampling of condiments earned me some confused looks; most Norwegians seemed monogamously wedded to one or another.  I discovered skillingsbollen, a type of sweet dough roll, dusted with more sugar than cinnamon.  And I was also introduced to a pastry called Hardanger kling, named after the city of Hardanger, from which the pastry is supposed to have originated.  Hardanger kling is made by layering large, thin, round sheets of sweet pastry dough generously with sweetened butter (if you’re imagining a mille-crêpe, you’re thinking in the wrong direction; the doughy discs looked and felt much more like giant, flour tortillas, and the layer of buttercream filling in between each sheet was about a quarter-inch thick).  If I recall correctly, they were stacked maybe four or five layers tall before they were sliced, either in wedges, or into small, finger sandwich-sized bites.  Mostly comprised of butter, they are pretty rich; a little goes a long way.  I’ll be returning to Bergen next week to learn more about the hardanger kling, and other Norwegian pastries, during the third installment of the Friends of Lysverket dinner series hosted by Christopher Haatuft at his restaurant Lysverket.  This time, we will focus on Norwegian baking. (I shall write about this dinner series as soon as I wrap up my year-end “best of” posts).  I hope to report back with a more in-depth understanding of this Norwegian pastry, and hopefully others, after my trip.

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Among the sweets I sampled at Xoko in Stockholm, Sweden was a wonderfully light prinsesstårta (“princess torte”).  Traditionally, this Swedish sponge cake is layered with pastry cream, topped with a whipped cream dome. All of it is encased in a thin layer of green marzipan, sometimes trimmed in pink.  Xoko took the liberty of adding a thin layer of raspberry jam to the filling, introducing a bright-red stain to this torte’s traditional pastel palette of colors.

While tracing the rim of the Danish island of Bornholm, my guide for the day, Pelle Magnus Berg Petersen, and I passed through the sleepy town of Svaneke. He mentioned that the town was known for producing well-known artisans, including a young confectioner named Johan Bülow, who had created a successful line of licorice-based candies. A couple of days later, as I was leaving Copenhagen, I noticed a beautiful, sleek kiosk (I suppose that is a thoroughly unhelpful description, as everything in Copenhagen’s airport is sleek and beautiful) selling Johan Bülow’s Lakrids.  I didn’t have time to linger, but I tasted a few of his candies – there’s quite a variety.  My favorite were the ones with almonds enrobed in milk chocolate and coated in black licorice dust.  For those who are shy on licorice, this may not be the candy for you. But if you like high-quality black licorice, I highly recommend them.  I’ll surely be picking up a few more canisters of these candies on my next trip to Denmark.

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Last year I devoted quite a few inches on this blog to talking about good-old American pie.  My enthusiasm for it has not diminished in the dozen months intervening.

In Austin, Texas I found Tiny Pies, a bakeshop that, as its name suggests, sells tiny pies.  They’re so tiny that I thought the crust – which I often like more than filling – was overrepresented.  But, Tiny Pies offers some creative fillings – strawberry-lemon chess, for example.  And, if portion control is a problem, they’ve got you covered.

Also in Austin is Cake and Spoon, which doesn’t have a retail space.  Rather, you’ll find its baked goods at the Austin Texas Farmer’s Market and in various restaurants about town.  Barbecue restaurants rarely offer dessert, and when they do, it’s usually not very good. So God bless Franklin Barbecue for selling Cake and Spoon pies. These mini pies (does Austin have a thing for small-format pies?) are sold in paper pouches.  I particularly liked the key lime and banana bourbon pies, both with graham cracker crusts.

Last year, I mentioned the peanut and rosemary pie I had at the Fremont Diner in Sonoma.  This year, I found a fairly good wedge of sweet potato-pecan pie there.  It’s exactly how you might imagine it – a creamy, mellow-sweet layer of sweet potato filling paved with a sticky-sweet crust of pecans.

And pie in ice cream form?  What could be better?  I’ve always loved the desserts at Mozza Pizzeria in Los Angeles (I think the pastry chef is still Dahlia Narvaez). On a recent visit: banana gelato pie (with hot fudge and candied hazelnuts).

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There are a few tables and a generous porch lined with stools at Emporium Pie. There are also a couple of picnic tables in the yard, if the weather’s nice, as it was on both of my visits to this bakeshop in late October.  It’s located on the ground floor of an adorable house in the burgeoning Bishop Arts District of Dallas, Texas.  I love the names that Emporium Pie give to its pies. My two favorites, from the half-dozen or so I tried, were the “Nannerz,” which was essentially a banana cream pie with maple caramel, and the “Smooth Operator,” which the shop girls likened to French silk, but with a pretzel crust.

Stephanie Prida, pastry chef of Manresa, said that I must, must, must, must have the pie at Duarte’s Tavern (that’s pronounced DOO-arts), just off a forlorn stretch of Highway 1 in Pescadero, California.  So, I swung by Santa Cruz, picked Prida up, and headed up the coast for dinner.  True to her word, the pies were great, although they had sold out of of Prida’s favorite – the pecan pie.  We tried four fruit pies, all of them double-crusted with the restaurant’s moist, but flakey pie dough that fell on the blonder to side of the spectrum. My first slice of ollalieberry pie ever was pretty amazing (I hope it will not be my last). But we agreed that the apricot pie was the dark horse; a pleasant surprise.  I’ll be back for the pecan.

I know I’ve mentioned Megan Garrelts’s pies at Rye on this blog before (they’re still some of the best pies I’ve had).  But have I ever talked about the icebox pies at Town Topic?  Town Topic is a greasy spoon institution that has been serving griddled goods in the heart of downtown Kansas City for seven decades.  It’s a small, counter diner that’s open 24-7. The pies they serve here are from Golden Boy Pies, a local, Kansas City commercial bakery.  Some of the fruit fillings – especially of the berry varieties – can be a bit too starched up and glossy. (Despite the fact that Golden Boy Pies proudly states on its website that its pies are made with “top quality all natural ingredients,” a quick survey of the ingredient list – disclosed on its website’s nutritional content section – will show otherwise. You’ll find everything from high fructose corn syrup to stabilizers and a myriad of hydrogenated fats.) But not the pineapple pie. I think owing to the fact that pineapple is meatier, with less water content, it holds up better without the aid of thickening agents.  I especially like the pineapple pie here heated up, served à la mode.  I must warn, however, that Town Topic has a pretty bare-boned operation.  The diner doesn’t have any ovens; not even a microwave. The only source of cooking heat comes from the well-seasoned griddle.  So, if you ask for your pie warmed (as I usually like it, when served with ice cream), the slice is put in an empty pie tin, set on the griddle, and covered with an upturned pie tin. A bit of water is poured around the tin to hasten the heating with steam (and to keep the pie moist). Resourceful and effective as this method may be, depending on what else is being cooked on the griddle at the time, your pie may or may not be infused with stray aromas from nearby patties and rashers. I actually didn’t realize that this is how Town Topic was heating my pies until, on a particularly busy day, when the griddle was crowded with sizzling meat, I noticed a particularly porcine flavor to my pie. When I expressed my surprised to my friend that these pies used lard in its crust – and shockingly flavorful lard at that – the waitress exclaimed, “Oh honey, that ain’t lard, that’s the sausage.”  She pointed to the griddle, where a row of links was browning next to another customer’s pie.  Regardless, I have to say, The Golden Boy pie crust is terrific, especially the ultra-flakey, crisp crust that is paired with its cream pies, like the coconut cream pie, which I also highly recommend.

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What else?

I found some pretty good donuts at Holtman’s Donuts in Cincinnati’s curiously named “Over the Rhine” neighborhood (or OTR, as locals call it). The apple fritter, in particular, was the stand-out. It was pocketed with large, meaty chunks of apples that provided a high, bright tartness that is so often missing from this otherwise too-sweet American pastime.

Lincoln Carson – formerly corporate pastry chef of the (Michael) Mina Group – is now at Superba Food + Bread in Venice Beach, California.  His pastry case there is filled with some ambitious-looking sweets.  Of the few I tried, my favorite was a really rich Valhrona chocolate delice, set on crisp walnut shortbread, that oozed a core of salted caramel. I also want to mention the “Everything Croissant” at Superba Food + Bread.  I don’t know whether this is a Carson creation (if it is, please speak up), but it’s fantastic. These buttery croissants are encrusted with that familiar grab-bag of bagel seasonings, and tunneled through – quite generously – with cream cheese.

On a steamy, rainy afternoon in Hong Kong, my friends and I huddled under the eaves outside of the famous Tai Cheong Bakery stuffing ourselves with the bakery’s famous Cantonese egg tartlets (dan ta).  The small, crowded shop (which has been there since the 1950s) only has a take-away counter. The business there is so brisk that the egg tartlets never have a chance to cool in the case – ours were served quite warm. [I’ll also borrow this opportunity to mention the fantastically decadent egg tartlets we had at Yan Toh Heen at the Inter-Continental in Tsim Sha Tsui, which were topped with glistening heaps of bird’s nest – that odd and rare delicacy of Cantonese cookery, which is the salivary cement that a certain species of swifts uses to construct their nests. They were perfect.]

And finally, I can’t leave this year’s round-up of sweets without mentioning my friends Dave and Jamie Beran’s amazing wedding “cake.”  Dave is the chef of Next in Chicago (where, by the way, I was served a giant “fortune cookie” last year during the restaurant’s “Modern Chinese” run).  For their matrimonial pleasure, he and Jamie asked the crew at Aviary (where they hosted their reception) to make foie gras “Snickers.”  This was an entire lobe of foie gras layered with caramel and nougat, and encased in a thin, chocolate shell.  It was glorious.

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This year’s list of my favorite desserts is a particularly good one, if I may say so.

Out of a sizable stack of candidates, it took little effort to choose the 25 you find below. With the exception of the top five, which broke away from the pack and almost lined themselves up, deciding where each dessert landed on the list proved to be the far more challenging task.  They were all very good.

That so many of them share specific flavors – even specific ingredients, as you will see – might seem uncanny. But, taken as a continuation of a trail of crumbs I’ve left through past years’ lists of my favorite desserts, they help form a pattern that reveals a lot about the way I like to end my meals.

The desserts I like most tend to be light, and lean on a good deal of acidity.  Over half of this year’s entries, for example, focused on fruit.  In many cases, the fruit was barely touched, served simply with a bit of sauce, as Nicolai Nørregaard did at no. 23, or some jelly, as Norio Yamamoto did at no. 13. In a few of the desserts, the fruit was gently cooked, and spooned, with little more than its own juices, over some ice cream, as I found it at Fabio Trabocci’s restaurant, listed at no. 18.

I like fragrant desserts, and am especially seduced by the expressiveness of yeast in this regard (I am amazed by how often yeast appears on this list, and thereby noticing that chefs are incorporating more of it into their cooking).  Sometimes it carries a bright, floral note, as it did in a shockingly simple but spectacular dessert by Shawn Gawle at no. 15, or in the Janus-faced wonder that Seiji Yamamoto presents at no. 8.  At other times, it can be dark and stormy, dropping octaves to carry the baritone part in a more dramatic role. Both Rasmus Kofoed’s dessert at no. 4, and Björn Frantzén’s dessert at no. 5 cast yeast in this moodier, more bitter part.

And then there are the more predictable favorites: coffee, dark chocolate, brown butter, honey. You’ll find all of these on this list as well.

Because pastry is such a highly technical field, I can understand why chefs showcase technique at the center of their desserts.  Technique is important, but I’m much more impressed when it works quietly in the background, letting imagination and emotion take the stage.  That’s what you’ll find at the top of this year’s list: two desserts that are the product of highly technical thinking and execution, yet wooed me with their imagination and beauty.

From the hundreds of desserts that I had in 2014 at restaurants all over the world, the following 25 distinguished themselves.  As with my previous posts in this series, the titles of each of the entries below is hyperlinked to a photo of that dessert.

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25. RHUBARB
Licorice.
(atera; New York, New York)

 

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24. ESPRESSO GRANITA
Whipped cream.
(Zuni Café; San Francisco, California)

It’s so simple. Yet, it’s so good. It’s low on sugar, high on bitter, with a light, milky middle to round it all out. And, if you need a jolt of energy, this will give you a good one.

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23. GARDEN BERRIES
Beach rose, fermented autumn honey, “koldskål.”
(Kadeau; Bornholm, Denmark)

Over this pretty patchwork of colorful berries, chef Nicolai Nørregard poured “koldskål,” a cold, buttermilk drink that Danes traditionally take in the warmer months.   It was a light and delicious way for us to celebrate the end of his restaurant’s seasonal, summer run on this beautiful Baltic island.

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22. PASSIONFRUIT SORBET
Japanese brandy (Suntory VSOP).
(Kichisen; Kyoto, Japan)

Given the way our meal had preceded, I was skeptical when this dessert arrived.  Was this just another flashy display of serviceware? In fact, it was an elegantly presented dessert that also happened to be a sophisticated pairing.  We each scooped out a little spoonful of the passionfruit sorbet that had been packed into empty passionfruit shells, making a little divot into which we poured a generous amount of Japanese brandy from a pretty little genie flask. We let the brandy soak in before stirring it all up into a boozy, adult-rated slushy.  Fruit seems to have a special affinity to brandy, and passionfruit seems especially so inclined.  It was a great pairing.

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21. DARK CHOCOLATE MOUSSE
Raspberry, dried plum, vanilla ice cream.
(Hedone; London; The United Kingdom)

The dark chocolate mousse part of this dessert – served warm – reminded me very much of the fluffy, almost marshmallowy dark chocolate mousse I first encountered a few years ago at Stephen Harris’s The Sportsman (which ranked 7th on my list of favorite desserts from 2011). Swedish chef Mikael Jonsson capped the mousse with a disk of dark chocolate, made velveteen with a dusting of tart, dried plums, and crowned it all with vanilla ice cream.  The bitter richness of the chocolate against the tartness of the fruit; the warmth of the mousse against the cold, creamy vanilla; the pillowy billowy lightness of it all, interrupted by the snap and crunch of the thin, chocolate shell – it was a masterfully composed set of flavors, textures, and temperatures.

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20. GRILLED RASPBERRIES
Rose hip tea, beeswax ice cream.
(Geranium; Copenhagen, Denmark)

I’m not sure how official this dessert was.  In fact, I’m not sure that this dessert, as it appears above, is actually correct.  The grilled raspberries arrived on my table, with a pour of rose hip tea.  But then Will King-Smith, Geranium’s second-in-command, arrived with a tiny bowl of beeswax ice cream, presented on a striking, honeycombed field.  He said that it was something with that the kitchen was tinkering. I gathered from his comment that I was getting a sneak peek, and that the ice cream had very little to do with the raspberries with which it arrived.  In any case, both halves of the dessert were terrific. But it is for the beeswax ice cream – how does one capture the flavor of it in ice cream? – that I recognize it here.

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19. “ØRSKOG SVELE“
Norwegian pancakes, hazelnut ice cream, toasted hazelnuts.
(Ylajali; Oslo, Norway)

Prepared at the table on a small griddle, these “Norwegian pancakes” were fluffy and light, imbued with a super-fragrant yeastiness that reminded me of sake.  Grounded in the woodsy, almost boozy aroma of toasted hazelnuts, this dessert created a great coupling of flavors.

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18. FRAGOLA
Roasted strawberries, opal basil ice cream.
(Fiola; Washington, D.C.)

After over a decade of chasing and missing chef Fabio Trabocci up and down the eastern seaboard – I couldn’t afford to eat at Maestro when I lived in D.C.; I failed to get to Fiamma in New York City before it closed, and his brief appearance at The Four Seasons in Midtown was so short that I missed him there too – I finally caught up with him at his first self-owned restaurant, Fiola, back in D.C. where the hunt began.  On an sunny, late-spring afternoon, I finished a nice, simple lunch with this light, simple dessert: the cool, breezy scent of basil hugged by roasted strawberries in their own, ruby-red syrup.

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17. SORBET OF PICKLED BEETS
Sweet cicely.
(Maaemo; Oslo, Norway)

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16. PEAR IN POMACE
Acorn, rosemary.
(Christopher Kostow presenting at the Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

As I described it in my recap of that dinner: “Those pears turned out beautifully too.  The ‘white coats’ (as the cooks are called) accompanied the servers to the tables to help them crack open the sugary shells, purple with pomace (grape must), and scoop out the steaming pears within. This was a particularly fragrant dessert, with the grape must infused into the sugar, and the woodsy scent of rosemary throughout.” What started as a figment of chef Christopher Kostow’s ambition just days before, turned out to be one of the best desserts I had in 2014.

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15. KRUG SORBET

(Saison; San Francisco, California)

Even if this was just a high-class parlor trick, it was a very, very good one. I was lucky to have been served this sorbet a couple of times at Saison in 2014.  Former pastry chef Shawn Gawle (now chef at nearby Les Clos) enhanced the fragrance of the Champagne with a hint of grapefruit, using the fruit’s sweetness to also help round out the bitterness in both. The sorbet was topped up with a splash of Krug at the table.

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14. PICKLED STRAWBERRIES
Ume granita, ginger sorbet.
(Providence; Los Angeles)

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13. FRUIT IN HONEY JELLY
(Ifuki; Kyoto, Japan)

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12. BROWN BUTTER ICE CREAM
Hazelnut crumble, molasses.
(Maaemo; Oslo, Norway)

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11. TRI-STAR STRAWBERRIES
Lavender ice cream.
(Contra; New York, New York)

A run of scarlet on a creamy field of white.  Those strawberries tasted like a million strawberries.  That lavender – a fragrance that can sometimes have me crawling back through my grandmother’s medicine cabinet – was mellowed in the cold, milkiness of the cream. Two spoonfuls was hardly enough.

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10. “MILK & HONEY“
Honey, beeswax, almond, orange blossom “crème anglais.”
(Mourad; San Francisco, California)

While walking by some big-picture windows in an alleyway, I looked in to discover a magnificent new kitchen. I know just about every restaurant in San Francisco that would have a kitchen like this one. But this one was unfamiliar. What restaurant is this, I mouthed through the window to the cook, who looked up when she noticed my shadow darkening her station. “It’s new.” “What’s the name?” She repeated the name a couple of times, but her response was unintelligible to me. Just then, Mourad Lahlou, chef of Aziza, walked by and caught me through the window. He waved me around to meet him at the front door.  As it turns out, this was his new, eponymous restaurant Mourad, about which he had randomly emailed me a few weeks before (Mourad should be opening by the end of this month of January, 2015). As it also turns out, my lip-reading exchange was with Melissa Chou, Lahlou’s pastry chef at Aziza, whose “Chamomile Cream” appeared on my list of favorite desserts last year. I had admired her work, but we had never met. Lahlou invited me to return the next day as a guinea pig for a trial run of his tasting menu [disclosure].  At the end of what I thought was a pretty strong run of dishes was Chou’s “Milk & Honey,” a mind-bending combination of textures and flavors that captured the warmth of the Moroccan sun.

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9. POÊLÉES DES MIRABELLES
Glace vanille.
(Froggy’s Tavern; Montreuil-sur-Mer, France)

This dessert, I will admit, wasn’t much to look at.  It was a muddled bowl of browns and yellows, the roasted plums wrinkly and deflated, the whipped cream inelegantly banked to one side.  But, my gosh, the flavor. On that waning day of summer, this simple delight seemed to capture the timelessness of the quiet little courtyard inside the medieval gates of an ancient city where I quietly made it disappear.

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8. SAKE SOFT SERVE & SOUFFLÉ
(Ryugin; Tokyo, Japan)

I issued a temporary reprieve for the preceding string of disappointments at Ryugin when this dessert arrived.  As I’ve mentioned, I love the fragrance of yeast. And nowhere is it more prettily painted than in sake. Here, it was infused into the creamy and cold, and the creamy and hot. In its simplicity was its cleverness.  The question that remains unanswered: why was this dessert only being served to the non-Asian faces in the dining room?  We, a table of Asians, had to specifically ask for it (although there is only “one” tasting menu at Ryugin, we noticed that Asians in the dining room were getting a different progression of plates than non-Asian guests).

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7. STRAWBERRIES & SETOKA TANGERINE
Sherry-flavored mousse topped with genko citrus sherbet.
(Ishikawa; Tokyo, Japan)

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6. APPLE FRITELLE
(Del Posto; New York, New York)

“I had the McDonald’s apple pie in mind when I made this dessert,” pastry chef Brooks Headley said, one foot planted in sarcasm, the other in total sincerity. But Headley was being way too modest. His apple fritelle was far better than that fast food chain’s hand pies.  His had the crispy crunch of the “frittle.”  His had that steely, thin high note, that cider-like sparkle that helped to pull this dessert away from apple pie in the direction of sophistication.  I had the pleasure of having this dessert once at Del Posto last year, and then again when Headley served it at the annual Friends of James Beard Foundation dinner that I helped co-host at The American Restaurant in Kansas City.

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5. YEAST ICE CREAM
Whipped ale with salted meringue.
Grated, smoked, and dried egg yolks; warm raisin syrup.
(Frantzén; Stockholm, Sweden)

A wisp of smoke escaped, revealing a stack of shiny cured egg yolks.  From one corner, alighted a bowl of yeast ice cream, foamy with whipped ale, jagged with salted meringue. From another corner, a gloved hand appeared with a microplane zester, and showered the dessert with a golden blanket of shaved cured yolks.  And finally, from on high, a thin, dark line of warm raisin syrup.  The beautiful choreography of the presentation at Björn Frantzén’s Michelin-starred restaurant aside, the flavors were incredible, generating a weighty conversation among serious flavors. This was a dessert with gravitas.

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4. “NAKED TREE“
Prune and frozen dark beer.
(Geranium; Copenhagen, Denmark)

Like a lot of the dishes at Geranium, this dessert looked far too manipulated to actually be good. But, like most of the food served at Rasmus Kofoed’s 2 Michelin-starred restaurant in Copenhagen, it actually was very good — with surprisingly fine-tuned flavors. This dessert appealed to the darker side of my tastes, coupling wintry prune with dark, toasty beer to put a powerful, punchy period at the end of my meal.

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3. BEETROOT
Yogurt, wild berries.
(Kobe Desramaults presenting at the Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

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2. “BULLE DU MARAIS“
Mint ice cream, sorrel pana cotta, and chamomile. Sugar glass ball.
(Le Grenouillère; La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, France)

Chef Alexandre Gauthier said that he wanted to make a dessert that conveyed the flavors and scents of the low-lying marshes that surround his restaurant near the northern coast of France. This is why the dessert appeared, translated into English, on the menu at the Twelve Days of Christmas, where I was lucky enough to have a second time last year, as “Marsh Bubble.”  I’m skeptical when I see too much sugar work on dessert plates — it’s pretty, but rarely adds anything to the experience, except maybe a cuts in my mouth.  And so, when he first presented this glassy bubble, a verdant terrarium of herbs, I was hesitant. But, with a light tap of my spoon, the sugar shattered to reveal a light, creamy cloud perfumed with the grassy, sweet scent of the meadows of northern France.

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1. BRAMLEY APPLE SOUFFLÉ
Caramel ice cream.
(The Sportsman; Seasalter, The United Kingdom)

Before Stephen Harris explained how he made this otherwise plain-looking dessert, my mind was tied up in knots over it.  I am not a food scientist.  But I have made soufflés before.  And I simply could not figure out how a soufflé could be made to taste so crisp, so tangy, so juicy with green apple tartness, and yet maintain its otherwise airy, creamy frame.  HOW?  At my request, on a recent trip I took with Harris to Norway, he explained it to me: he replaced some of the sugar and liquid content of the batter with green apple pulp, boosted with some added malic acid, and then naturally dyed the batter a light-green tint with some neutral-tasting leaf (he uses spinach; although less-neutral in taste, parsley will also work). [I’m positive that I’ve botched up that recipe, and therefore maintain that Stephen Harris needs to write a cookbook, as I have so lobbied him for years.]  As if that wasn’t enough, he showed me — he tried to recreate this dessert at the second Friends of Lysverket dinner I helped co-host with Christopher Haatuft.  I say “tried,” because it didn’t turn out exactly like the original I had at The Sportsman.  But, allowing for the fact that he was in a foreign kitchen in a foreign land without some of the same ingredients he uses in his kitchen (like the specifically British Bramley apple), it was still a fantastic facsimile, one I would happily have again.  I have always celebrated Stephen Harris, for his incredible ability to convey flavor, which are always true and unquestionable.  That they were in his green apple soufflé made it my favorite dessert from 2014.

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* I explained, in a footnote in my previous post, “best dishes of 2014…,” why I avoided using the word “best,” instead preferring “favorite,” to describe the dishes listed therein.  I follow the same reasoning in this post.

Photos: The smoked egg yolks for the yeast ice cream dessert at Frantzén in Stockholm, Sweden; a coupe triple of ice cream and sorbets at Maison Berthillon in Paris, France; Dave Beran presenting a giant fortune cookie at Next: Modern Chinese in Chicago, Illinois; Kobe Desramaults plating his “Beetroot” dessert at the Twelve Days of Christmas at the Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena, California; Matthew Lightner, chef of atera, plating “strawberry cake” for my friend’s birthday, New York, New York; the “Pralulines” briôche from Pralus in Paris, France; assorted viennoiserie and croissants from Échiré, Maison du Beurre in Tokyo, Japan; coating golden sesame soft serve with toasted golden sesames at the Nishiki Market in Kyoto, Japan; a little Norwegian girl reaches for jam at a Bergen Mat Festival pancake stand in Bergen, Norway; Johan Bülow Lakrids that I purchased at the Copenhagen Airport in Denmark; Cake and Spoon pies purchased at Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Texas; ain’t no party like a pie party, at Emporium Pie in Dallas, Texas; the egg tartlets with birds nest, among other desserts at Yan Toh Heen at the Inter-Continental in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong; passionfruit sorbet with a flask of brandy at Kichisen in Kyoto, Japan; the “Garden Berries” dessert at kadeau on the Danish island of Bornholm, Denmark; “Fragola” at Fiola in Washington, D.C.; Krug sorbet at Saison in San Francisco, California; the “Sake Soft Serve and Soufflé” at Ryugin in Tokyo, Japan; the “Naked Tree” at Geranium in Copenhagen, Denmark.

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The sheer splendor with which my year in dining unfolded made the task of identifying my ten favorite restaurant meals from 2014 an especially difficult one.

However, forcing myself to narrow that “wide and rich field” (as I described it in an earlier post) – a process that at moments seemed merciless, requiring me to eliminate extraordinarily good meals that in any other year might have taken the crown – pushed me into a deeper examination of the restaurant experience and my own preferences and perspective with regard to it.  Doing so has brought me closer to understanding the borders of my own heart, and codifying my opinions.

This is a good thing.

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But before I proceed further, I want to take a moment to acknowledge my unique position in the dining community. Lest you think that my sense of reality beyond the starched linens of the world’s top tables is distorted, I am well-aware that the vast majority of diners – even the most well-traveled ones – do not eat like I do. Even those who have the wherewithal to travel and eat with as much breadth may not desire it.  And even if they do, they may not enjoy the level of access to chefs and restaurants with which I have been privileged.  I do not say all of this boastfully.  For, from my catbird seat, I survey and remind myself on a daily basis the graces that God has extended.  I am blessed with adventures, opportunities, and experiences that I know I neither earned nor deserve.  So, when I say here that I “struggle” annually to quantify something that is so unquantifiable as the dining experience, I do so mindfully as a member of the first world, one who is thankful for having the luxury of doting on such trivialities and the opportunity to “write,” with such leisure, “about lettuce” (as a published food critic friend of mine likes to quip in moments that call for sincere humility).

For the past three years, this annual list of my favorite meals has received well over three times as many views as any other blogpost published in the twelve months preceding.  So, given the enormous quantity of new visitors these words will surely reach, I feel compelled to point out – to regular readers and strangers alike – that, as with almost everything I write on this blog, this post should be filed under opinion. Although I work very hard to segregate feelings from fact, I am not immune to bias. Therefore, I do not claim to write from any position of authority, or from any reality other than my own (a reality that, in 2014, happens to have included meals at over 250 restaurants holding over 75 Michelin stars, and spread across eight countries on three continents).  Nor do I claim to possess any credibility beyond the record that I have established here.

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Important to understanding the following list of my favorite meals from 2014 is this distinction:  These are my favorite meals from last year.  They do not constitute a list of my favorite restaurants.  Nor does this list purport to establish a hierarchy of any sort. This list reflects a snapshot of chefs and restaurants at particular moments, and therefore does not represent my estimation of the worth, the abilities, or the potential of the chefs or restaurants listed, or – perhaps more importantly – those that are not listed.  Forgive me for these laborsome disclaimers, but I prefer to err on the side of clarity.

This year, I’m making quick work of the overwrought issue of methodology. Faced with splitting hairs, it came down to this simple question: given the chance, which meals from 2014 would I most want to repeat?

While this may seem like a rather obvious method for determining my annual list of favorite meals, I never felt that this method was the best method.  Why?  In past years, reasons more compelling than the degree to which I desired to return to a restaurant (based on one meal) guided me.

However, this year, that which I have relied upon in the past for guidance was rendered particularly impotent against the sheer wall of talent and quality I faced. In the past, there were distinguishable gradations of quality among my best meals – ingredients, cooking, precision, philosophy, the overall experience, etc. – that provided footholds, however small, that helped me parse the course. This year, the plane was unusually clean, the cracks and ledges so few that progress seemed impossible without resorting to a more straightforward, alternative method of selection.

Indeed, evaluating my meals from 2014 through this simpler lens provided tremendous clarity.  It also means that my personal preferences were magnified in the results. As I hinted in the introductory section of this post, pushing myself through this process of elimination revealed a lot about my values, and the way I like to eat.

Let’s get down to specifics.

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Despite casting a relatively wide and star-baited net across Scandinavia last year, not one of those meals appears on my list of favorites below. Since I wrote very little about those meals last year, I feel obligated to explain my reasoning for these omissions, which, without more, may seem like a gross miscalculation. (I warn you that the following is a lengthy and detailed dissection of my thoughts on dining in Scandinavia. Those of you who are uninterested should skip ahead to the list of my favorite meals from 2014 at the bottom.)

In 2014, I ate at some of the best restaurants in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.  Together with Finland, these three countries comprise an area of the world that has become highly celebrated for its quick rise to the summit of global cuisine.  In my three trips to the region last year, I made a concerted effort to avoid revisiting restaurants in Sweden and Denmark that I had already visited. So, to the extent that I only revisited Geranium in Copenhagen (at the invitation of the chef), I succeeded in hitting a good portion of the remaining Scandinavian stars that I had left untouched (I note that the following discussion pertains only to these high-end, mostly Michelin-starred restaurants.)

I found what I expected: very high ingredient quality, bold flavors, unimpeachable technique, painstaking attention to detail, and enviable precision (I would go so far as to say that I noticed more precision and consistency at the high end of cooking in Scandinavia than I did in Japan). Across the board, these were, undoubtedly, among the most technically flawless meals I had ever had.

But peeling back the superficial layers that differentiated these meals from one another on the surface revealed a sameness beneath that bored me. Overall, I felt like I was having similar conversations, only with different faces in different places.

Devoted to spreading the “New Nordic” gospel of cooking, the Scandinavian chefs I encountered proved to be enthusiastic and able evangelists of their good news: the renaissance of an ancient and indigenous foodway rooted in lore and tradition.  But it is, at least from what I have observed, a relatively narrow foodway, one with a rather slim selection of ingredients.  And, perhaps because of this, the region’s food culture — admitted to me by local chefs and my Scandinavian friends alike — seems to have rather shallow, if not also undeveloped roots. Does this explain why many of these chefs’ messages seemed to overlap (short of accusing anyone of plagiarism, I remarked on the uncanny similarities among a few Scandinavian dishes in this earlier blog post).  Does this also explain the remarkable precision that characterizes Scandinavian cooking at the high-end — a skill set developed to compensate for the lack of a mature fine dining culture (theirs having sprung to life only in the last decade)?

If this is so, what then? Are the Scandinavians to be handicapped for their naturally harsh climate, one that supports a limited range of resources, and therefore, a limited number of storylines?  How far can the imaginative mind be expected to stretch these traditions, yet remain faithful to the cause and message?  And how much tolerance should we afford these evangelicals at the extreme end (eating your Christmas tree?), before we allow them to drag us into culinary martyrdom with them?

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But these are big-picture issues belonging to a more philosophical realm, one that, admittedly, is beyond the practical concerns of those who do not dine regularly at these kinds of restaurants, and are therefore unlikely to notice or care about such patterns.  Yet, however remote these issues may seem, I do believe they provide context to my chief complaint about the “New Nordic” style of cooking (1), one that does have a more practical impact on dining in Scandinavia, and one that resulted in the omission of my meals there, in toto, from this year’s list of my favorites: the Scandinavian cooking I experienced at the high-end leaned too heavily on rich, earthy flavors – the flavors of game, mushroom, smoke, ash, charring, aging, curing, fermentation, and the dark caramels of Maillard – to the exclusion of all others. These super-saturated flavors appeared not only in high concentration, but also with cloying frequency.  This problem wasn’t isolated to meals I had in the cold, winter months, when food is expected to take on additional layers for comfort.  I encountered this same lopsidedness throughout all seasons, having eaten in Scandinavia in the winter, spring, and late summer.

I’ve always thought of myself as being particularly needy in the flavor department. Rarely do I find an occasion to complain that there’s too much of it. However, balance of flavor has always been far more important to me than intensity of flavor. (Here, I must point out that there is a difference between intensity of flavor and the heaviness of the food; those two are often mistakenly conflated.)  So, whether in the indulgences of classic French cookery or in the austerity of Japanese simplicity, I can find pleasure alike, so long as there is balance.

This kind of balance was missing in most of the Scandinavian meals I had in 2014.  They lacked simple counterweights – like acidity – to help offset the heaviness of the flavors, or to lend complexity or subtlety to the ingredients involved.

At the risk of generalizing beyond my due, the Scandinavian culture seems to be one of extremes. Even its placement on our globe is extreme, subjecting it to a harsh climate and moody light (which, as a photographer, I notice in the heavily saturated colors and high contrast of works by Scandinavian photographers). What’s to say that this same, severe aesthetic doesn’t also apply to the way Scandinavians like to eat?  While this is an intriguing thought (at least it is to me), I am skeptical that the imbalance of flavors I found at the high end of Scandinavian cooking is endemic to local culture.  My meals at the more casual end of traditional Scandinavian dining – like the food I had at Rolf’s Kök or Bakfickan in Stockholm, or Schønnemann in Copenhagen – struck great balance, using traditional Scandinavian ingredients, like fresh herbs (bright, grassy dill, for example), soured dairy, pickling juices, the bitterness of raw onions, and the sharpness of freshly grated horseradish, to help cut the intense flavors of meats, mushrooms, salt-cured fish, etc., that make Scandinavian cuisine an otherwise husky and hearty one (admittedly, these restaurants also used lemons, which grow nowhere near this region. (2)).  So, piggy-backing on my comment earlier about precision becoming the hallmark of Scandinavian chefs, I can’t help but also wonder if the overuse of richness at the high-end of Scandinavian cooking is not also a superficial way of compensating for what these chefs might lack – whether perceived or actual – in the way of a deep-rooted culinary culture; patching a shallow hole with a thick sauce.

My skepticism also stems from the fact that I found these same Scandinavian chefs to excel at balancing flavors in the pastry kitchen.  You’ll notice that the Scandinavians showed up in force on my list of favorite desserts from 2014.  Why are they so adept at creating subtlety and dimension in desserts, but seem to struggle with it beyond?  Might this be attributable to the fact that most (if not all) of the high-end Scandinavian restaurants I visited in 2014 employed the “collective pastry chef” approach to making desserts?  That, by drawing from a pool anchored deeply in the savory ensures that their pastries moor nearby as well, safely away from the sea of sweetness that is the ruin of desserts for me?  Perhaps.

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If intensity of flavor was one issue, the repetition of it was another.  The Scandinavian tasting menus I’ve had tended to run long, with lots of smaller bites rather than fewer courses of more substantial size.  I happen to prefer this way of eating, as it allows for more exploration of flavor and texture, through valleys and mountains of intensity.  But, the Scandinavian tasting menus provided very little contour, presenting instead a monotonous, upward climb, piling flavor upon flavor without relief, wearing out my sense of taste and, by the end of the meal, my general interest in the food too. (This may also explain the notable pleasure I took in Scandinavian desserts, which offered a much-needed break from the relentless march that preceded them.)

As delicious and flawlessly presented as the food was in its individual parts and courses, considered in whole, it was often overwhelming. At times, it seemed as if these chefs were just showing off.  Unable to resist flexing their culinary muscles, they packed these tasting menus with as much flavor and technique as possible. This prompts the cynic in me to question whether these meals were really about proclaiming the “New Nordic” gospel, or whether they were more about the canonization of the “New Nordic” culinary gods, who used these menus to indulge their egos.

More isn’t always better.  Sometimes, it’s just more.

Perhaps this is why I preferred my much shorter meal at kadeau in Copenhagen in 2013, which made a brief but powerful impact (and, incidentally, was not only the shortest, but also the highest placing Scandinavian meal on my 2013 list), to the much longer meal I had at the restaurant’s original location on the Danish island of Bornholm in 2014.  You’ll also notice that three of the four European meals that did make this year’s list of my favorite meals were shorter, owing as much of their success to brevity as to a more well-rounded use of flavor.  But let me be clear: I am not criticizing the amount of food served at these Scandinavian restaurants. Though they fell on the generous side, Scandinavian portion sizes were well within reason. I repeat what I wrote above: intensity of flavor should not be confused with heaviness (or an excess) of food. Rather, my complaint is narrowly tailored to the lack of subtlety and balance in flavor. Here, too, let me dismiss any notion that I am tiring of long tasting menus (for that seems to be à la mode among gastronauts these days).  To the contrary, I enjoy them just as much now as I ever did (and you’ll see that reflected in this year’s list of my favorite meals).  But to earn such length and patience from me demands balance and restraint, that which the Japanese — who dominate this year’s list — have mastered so well (in addition to also possessing impeccable technique and skill). (3)

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My tastes are undoubtedly calibrated very differently from those of the average Scandinavian (and quite possibly, yours as well — as always, I welcome thoughtful commentary, civil disagreement, and especially corrections, if supported).(4)  So, again, I remind you that what I’ve expressed here is merely my opinion. And, a lot of it has been an innocent attempt to openly work through some issues that I’ve been unable to resolve internally. (In that spirit, I also wonder aloud if the Michelin inspectors, who have yet to drop a third star in Scandinavia, struggle with similar differences of taste. For, if not, then I cannot imagine what else about these otherwise flawless restaurants is the cause of such stinginess — especially when compared with many of the three-starred restaurants I’ve visited elsewhere — including ones in Japan — which I have found to be far less impressive.)

As I said earlier, and now redouble with emphasis: the meals I had in Scandinavia remain among the very best meals I had in 2014, if not also among the most impressive meals I’ve had since I started writing this blog ten years ago.  I wouldn’t have spent so much time justifying why none of them appear below if they weren’t (instead, they fall in a tight cluster just outside of this year’s top ten, along with meals that I had at La Grenouillère in France; in de wulf in Belgium; and a handful of memorable meals in the United States that I will describe further down).  Despite being “breathtakingly expensive,” as an American chef described one of these restaurants with unexaggerated accuracy (his comment really applies to most of the high-end restaurants in Scandinavia, especially if you’re trading in U.S. dollars), I highly recommend them, and look forward to revisiting some of them in the near future.  I especially commend Björn Frantzén’s eponymous Frantzén in Stockholm; Rasmus Kofoed’s Geranium in Copenhagen; and Claus Meyer’s Studio inside of his beautifully restored, Art Deco-era “The Standard,” also in Copenhagen (where Tørsten Vildgaard is the chef) for striking a better balance of flavors than the rest. Studio, though perhaps weakest from a service standpoint, surprised me the most with its high-level of cooking and deliciousness.  I’ll also add that, although the food at Geranium seems to receive a lot of criticism for being being too manipulated, both times I’ve eaten there, I’ve been surprised by how delicious the food is. While I admit that the cooking is awfully contrived, it’s hard to argue that Kofoed has sacrificed too much of the flavor in favor of the form.

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Only one American restaurant earned a place among my ten favorite meals of 2014 (it also happens to be the restaurant that gave me my best meal in 2013; note the disclaimers of my involvement with the chef and restaurant).  Despite this lone representative from the United States, I think the level of cooking and the quality of ingredients here at home is better than ever. However, originality remains our restaurant industry’s biggest challenge, we a nation that seems especially susceptible to trends and spectacle.(5)  (That topic is well-covered on this blog, so I’ll leave you to read what I had to say about it here, here, and here.)  Along those lines, worrisome too is the lack of purpose with which chefs seem to be cooking these days. I wonder if many of them ought not to pursue a career in food styling rather than cooking, as they seem much more concerned about the way their food looks rather than how it tastes – or, perhaps this is a reflection of what the consumers want (I’ve written about this before too).

I’d be remiss, however, if I didn’t acknowledge a few of the best meals I had in the United States last year, which, together with the meals I had in Europe mentioned above, flock closely behind the list of meals you find below.  I had a string of highly impressive dinners at Christopher Kostow’s Restaurant at Meadowood during the Twelve Days of Christmas at Meadowood Napa Valley. Among my favorites were the nights that Blaine Wetzel and Corey Lee collaborated with Kostow as guest chefs. But, the most compelling of the twelve nights was (as it was last year) the last night, when Kostow cooked.

I had a memorable meal at L.2O in Chicago.  Chef Matthew Kirkley’s highly technical cooking there was not only stunningly beautiful, but also surprisingly flavorful.  Sadly, Lettuce Entertain You (LEYE; the restaurant group that owns L.2O) decided late last year to close the two Michelin-starred restaurant (which LEYE’s founder Rich Melman said “had never been a money maker…“).  It will reopen as Intro, a series of pop-ups, where a revolving door of guest chefs will be featured every few months.

And, to the extent that huddling over a stretch of greasy butcher paper eating barbecue with my hands counted as a meal, then my brisket lunch from Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Texas surely deserves to be mentioned here as well.

The rest of the meals I had in 2014, including a string of very good meals I had in Japan and in Hong Kong, are recorded and itemized in this previous post.  May I be so blessed as to eat half as splendidly in 2015.

Clicking on the names of the restaurants listed below will take you to an album of photos from that meal.

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10. KWAN KEE
(Kowloon, Hong Kong)

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A bowl of shrimp wanton filling sat abandoned and unwrapped in one corner of this rather plain-looking noodle shop in Sham Sui Po as we squatted nearby on pedestal stools slurping at our steaming bowls of “bamboo noodles.”  These jook-sing noodles are so named because the eggy dough is rolled out with bamboo logs, giving them a particularly elastic texture. Our table crowded with bowls of noodle soup stained with the soy-braised gelatin of ham hocks, and ones swimming with plump shrimp wantons.  I delighted in a simple plate of jook-sing with ginger and scallion, lubed up with some chile oil, and a tall, sweaty glass of ice milked tea on the side to cool me down. Even the oppressive humidity of Hong Kong’s summer couldn’t dampen our appetites for such a soulful fare. What was certainly one of the most unembellished meals I had in 2014, this noodle lunch was a simple pleasure shared among good friends. Sometimes, as it is here, those kinds of meals can be among the very best.

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9. SOUVENIR
(Ieper, Belgium)

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I wrote fondly of this Belgian newcomer earlier this year: “Souvenir is one of those restaurants that every food writer longs to find: new, unsung, far-flung, and – most-importantly – good. Actually, I would say that my lunch there was great – unexpectedly so for a restaurant that was so new, and so scantly staffed.  [Icelandic chef Vilhjalmur] Sigurdarson had only one other in the kitchen – a young, Flemish cook named Aster Welleman. And Sigurdarson’s wife Joke, eight-months pregnant at the time, tended the front of the house with only one other server.”  And yet, they turned out six tidy, delicious, and exciting dishes that, together, turned out to be one of my favorite meals from 2014.

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8. THE SPORTSMAN
(Seasalter, The United Kingdom)

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Stephen Harris, chef of The Sportsman, is one of the few repeat players on this annual list (meals at this restaurant have consistently been ranked among my favorites – the restaurant appeared at no. 1 in 2008 and at no. 5 in 2011).  And, deservedly so.  Deeper conversations with Harris have revealed a mind churning with curiosity, guided by principle, and devoted to his craft of cooking.  Added to all of this is a great sense of humor and a humility, both handsomely framed by sparkling wit. And his food is as thoughtful and charming as he is, if not also as honest.  You will rarely find so dependable a friend as The Sportsman, where my meals have always been simple, but incredible. Here are captured the flavors of that dramatic meeting of sea and land that you’ll find outside of his door on the windswept coast of Kent.  On my latest visit in November of 2014, they were just as true as I remembered them to be.

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7. HEDONE
(London, The United Kingdom)

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If this meal had one flaw, it was the over-generosity of Swedish chef Mikael Jonsson, who kept me spellbound at his counter for longer than I expected, but whose wizardry warranted every minute of it.  Jonsson’s understanding of ingredients is perhaps surpassed only by the sharpness of his palate (I have eaten with him a few times, and his impressions are keen, his analysis accurate). He is incredibly fussy, but not without cause. His ingredients are of impeccable provenance, quality, and care: alabaster sea scallops the size of a small fist, lobster so candy-sweet that he served it raw in its grilled shell, brill shimmering with opalescence, a menagerie of game fowl aged just so, and enormous white truffles unblemished from rind to core. The bread, which he bakes in-house, is also very good (celebrated by many as the best in London). His plates are as clean and pure as the flavors you’ll find on them. Hedone is on Chiswick High Road in London. Go.

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6. FUKAMACHI
(Tokyo, Japan)

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The idea of an entire meal of deep-fried food might seem repulsive anywhere outside of one of Japan’s best tempura houses.  At Fukamachi, a Michelin-starred restaurant near Tokyo’s Kyobashi Station, fish of all shapes and sizes, shrimp (and every part of them), sea urchin wrapped in shiso, and vegetables of different textures and colors were all perfectly cooked, bound in an ultra-light cloud of fried tempura batter. Despite the seemingly endless parade of food straight out of the fryer, it never felt heavy or greasy.  I never tired of it.  It was magnificent.

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5. FROGGY’S TAVERN
(Montreuil-sur-Mer, France)

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Despite its cheeky name, the cooking at Froggy’s Tavern is anything but a joke. [Chef Alexandre Gauthier cleverly turned the centuries-old English slur of calling Frenchmen “frogs” around on the Brits, who now cross the Channel to flood his seaside town and eat at his restaurant every summer.] From a chalkboard, prix-fixe menu I ordered artichoke with vinaigrette, a “fatty” pork chop (which, like all of the main courses on the prix-fixe menu, was served with roasted potatoes, a tartly dressed salad of greens, and a jar of mustard), and roasted mirabelle plums with vanilla ice cream. I couldn’t resist adding a wedge of Camembert in between, which arrived with some bread and a slab of butter.  Time seemed to slow as I was left alone and uninterrupted to enjoy this simple, yet spectacular spread of humble riches under a cloudless, late-summer sky in an ancient, walled city in the north of France.  It was perfect.

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4. SAISON
(San Francisco, California)

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Unfettered and unafraid, in 2014, Joshua Skenes and his restaurant Saison continued to pioneer the frontier of quality and flavor in the United States. Although Skenes’s food can be as mercurial as his mood, the level of cooking at Saison remains consistently excellent.  In 2011 I wrote: “Good chefs tell stories. They convey a sense of time and space. Great chefs tell fairytales. They create time and place.”  I group Skenes with the latter (and last year, Michelin finally agreed, awarding him and his restaurant the coveted syzygy in its constellation).  Of the four meals I had last year at Saison, the first one, in February, was my favorite. And it ranks here among the very best.

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3. ISHIKAWA
(Tokyo, Japan)

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The kappo-style kaiseki dinner that I had at Hedeki Ishikawa’s counter was not as lyrical as the one you’ll find at no. 2.  Nor did it offer the alluring aroma of smoke that perfumed the food you’ll find at no. 1.  But, lovely in its subtlety, admirable for its confidence, Ishikawa’s cooking was steady and sure, offering a more traditional, familiar style of comfort.  It was a beautiful experience.

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2. MATSUKAWA
(Tokyo, Japan)

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Tadayoshi Matsukawa’s self-named kaiseki restaurant in Tokyo’s Akasaka neighborhood remains largely shrouded in mystery. That’s because the six seats at the restaurant’s counter go only, with few exception, to those who have been recommended to the restaurant by regulars. Of the many kaiseki meals I experienced during my three weeks in Japan last year, Matsukawa’s kappo-style meal was, perhaps, the most poetic. The textures, colors, and flavors composed a worthy tribute to spring in Tokyo: a tea of cherry blossoms; blushing blood clams the color of sunset; silky amedei bathing in a velvety vegetable broth thickened with kudzu; and tender bamboo shoots, simply grilled. As our journey tapered, we enjoyed the last moments in silence watching Matsukwa and his assistant assemble our sweet ending with pairs of chopsticks, coating a pinch of red bean paste with a fluffy layer of milled, sweet rice.

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1. IFUKI
(Kyoto, Japan)

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It was perhaps prescient that, of all the meals I had in 2014, my dinner at Norio Yamamoto’s Ifuki last March was the only one for which I found the time to dedicate a blog post. Delphic I am not, but, as it turns out, the smoked-kissed kaiseki dinner that I had in this hushed corner of Kyoto’s Gion district was my best meal last year.  In my remembrance of it, I wrote: “Luxury is not found simply in plushness or pleasantries.  Without confidence and consistency, these are merely platitudes, deployed to distract and deflect. To me, luxury in dining is the ability to trust, and ultimately give yourself over to the chef and the experience without worry or want.  It is the thoughtfulness of Japanese chefs, like Yamamoto – their obsession over quality, detail, and consistency – that makes dining at their hands luxurious, despite the austerity, and sometimes, asceticism of the setting.  And the incredible humility and softness with which it is delivered makes it all the more wonderful.”  If you have a chance to pass his way, stop and submit yourself to Norio Yamamoto for a taste of true luxury.

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Every year, I update an ongoing bucket list of restaurants I’d like to visit.  Here is my tally and balance:

BUCKET LIST

I covered a lot of ground in 2014.  I checked off over 20 restaurants on last year’s bucket list, including all of the restaurants I named in Atlanta, New York, Denmark, and Belgium, and the vast majority that I listed for California, as well as restaurants in Chicago, Austin, The United Kingdom, Sweden, and France.

And, I finally made it to Japan.

So, moving up on my list this year are Singapore, Taiwan, and Australia (for which I repeat my wishlist from last year: Tetsuya’s, attica, and Brae.  But I am unforgivably behind in this part of the world. So Aussies – you who represent my largest readership outside of the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom: speak up!)

In France, I’d most like to visit Sa.Qua.Na in Honfleur, and Alexandre Couillon’s La Marine in Noirmoutier.

The romantic side of me, the one particularly enamored of Old World dining, bids me to Kong Hans Kaelder, that centuries-old cellar in Copenhagen (and the first Danish restaurant to receive a Michelin star – 1983) that has recently been refreshed with a new chef (Mark Lundgaard) and team (headed by Peter Pepke).

In neighboring Sweden, I bring forward Matthias Dahlgren and Gastrologik (both in Stockholm), and Fäviken in Järpen. To these I add Daniel Berlin, located near Malmö.

In London, I would like to visit Kitchen Table and Dinner by Heston Blumenthal.

And to the south, in Spain, Azurmendi.

In South America, Peru remains highest on my list, with Colombia, Bolivia and Brazil not too far behind.

Although I’ve done a pretty good job of whittling down my bucket list in the United States, there still remains a lot of eating to be done at home:

I skipped Charleston in 2014 (for the first time since 2011). So, this year, I hope to get to FIG, The Ordinary, and macintosh.

In Houston: oxheart.  In New Orleans: Donald Link’s Pêche Seafood Grill and Justin Devillier’s Petite Grocery.

If I can time it correctly, I’d like to make that journey to Chilhowie, Virginia once more, and visit John and Karen Shields at Riverstead Inn.  When I do, perhaps I’ll use Washington, D.C. as my gateway so I can swing by The Dabney and see how Jeremiah Langhorne is doing. I’d also like to see if I can get a table at Rose’s Luxury too.

In New York, I need to visit Enrique Olvera’s new restaurant Cosme. And now that momofuku ko has moved to a new space, and David Chang has lifted his ban on photography there, I officially end my embargo and add it to my bucket list; I’ve never been before.

In Providence, Rhode Island: Ben Suckle’s Birch; in Philadelphia: Eli Kulp’s Fork.

Looking west: my friend Viet Pham is opening his own restaurant in Salt Lake City soon. When ember + ash opens, I’d like to go.

I had a promising preview of Mourad Lahlou’s self-named Mourad in San Francisco. Once it officially opens later this month, I’d like to have the full experience.

And I need to get to both Portlands, in Maine and in Oregon.

My globe trotting has left me regrettably behind on the restaurant scene in my own Midwest region.  In Minneapolis, I need to get to The Bachelor Farmer, piccolo, and Gavin Kaysen’s Spoon & Stable, a restaurant that I photographed last year before it opened.  In Omaha, I still need to eat at The Boiler Room and The Grey Plume.

And, of course, I’m always circling back to restaurants I’ve visited before.

In the United States, I’d most like a second look Lachlan MacKinnon-Patterson’s Frasca Food + Wine in Boulder (my last and only meal there was in December of 2008).  Scott Anderson’s elements in Princeton, New Jersey and David Kinch’s Manresa in Los Gatos, California have closed and reopened since I last saw them, so I’d like to revisit both.  I don’t feel like I got an adequate sense of Joseph Lenn’s cooking at the Barn at Blackberry Farm when I ate there in 2014 as a part of a conference I attended, so I’d like to return to Walland, Tennessee for a dinner there.  Since his dinner at the Twelve Days of Christmas last year impressed me so much, I’m also hoping to get back to Corey Lee’s Benu in San Francisco in 2015.  And, I didn’t make it to Blaine Wetzel’s Willows Inn in 2014, so I add that here as well.  Lastly, Joshua Skenes’s Saison in San Francisco, and Christopher Kostow’s The Restaurant at Meadowood in Napa have earned a permanent place among my the restaurants I’d most like to revisit, as does Sean Brock’s Husk in Charletson, South Carolina.

Abroad, I’d most like to revisit Asador Extebarri in Axpe in the Basque mountains; Studio in Copenhagen; and Maaemo in Oslo.  And, of course, who wouldn’t want to have a second date with Louis XV on that marble terrace at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte-Carlo?

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1. As a result of the great, Nordic diaspora, I include the many denominations of “New Nordic” cooking that is now practiced globally by its disciples.

2. Although my gross ignorance about Scandinavian horticulture makes it especially perilous for me to venture too far into this foreign territory, I’ve questioned whether the lack of acidity at the higher end of Scandinavian cooking is due to a dearth in acidic flora.  Even still, with very low (or no?) amounts of citrus growing in the area, the Scandinavians have access to a myriad of naturally occurring forms of acid – malic from apples; succcinic from rowan berries; as well as a wide range of acids that are byproducts of fermentation, i.e. vinegar.

3. In response to the many emails I’ve received over the past few weeks inquiring whether I will be attending René Redzepi’s noma “pop-up” in Tokyo, my reply was: No.  I have very little interest in what chefs do on their culinary peregrinations. I am far more interested in what they learned abroad, and how they incorporate it into their sense of place at home, which, if I understand it correctly, is the crux of the “New Nordic” message.  If, as Redzepi has said, he is using his time in Japan as a learning experience, I will be very interested to see how, if at all, his time in Asia affects his cooking as a Scandinavian chef. Will he merely bring back Japanese ingredients and products and inject them into his cooking, which seems the extent to which most chefs “learn” from their time abroad (which is why I have no interest in what chefs are doing when they travel). Or, will he return with a deeper understanding of a different philosophy and perspective that will affect the way he approaches his own indigenous culture and ingredients?  The latter is far more compelling to me than the former.

4. In an earlier post, I noted that the salt seasoning in Norwegian cooking seemed noticeably heavier.

5. Have you seen this “Hipster Business Name Generator?”  As I wrote in this year-end round up of “Dining Grievances” on Eater, “Can we please stop naming restaurants after old-timey general stores? And what’s with all the ampersands. It’s getting a bit silly.”

Photos: A single flower at Ishikawa in Tokyo, Japan; the cobblestoned courtyard leading to Froggy’s Tavern in Montreuil-sous-Mer, France; jook-sing noodles and shrimp wantons at Kau Kee in Sham Sui Po in Kowloon, Hong Kong; Tadayoshi Matsukawa presenting a course at his kappo-style kaiseki counter at Matsukawa in Tokyo, Japan; a wine steward rushes by in service at Maaemo in Oslo, Norway; “King Crab” at Frantzén in Stockholm, Sweden; “Scallop in Söl Aroma” at Geranium in Copenhagen, Denmark; the beautifully tiled open kitchen and counter at Studio in Copenhagen, Denmark; shaved corn cobs drying on the hearth at Saison in San Francisco, California; unwrapped shrimp wanton filling at Kwan Kee in Sham Sui Po in Kowloon, Hong Kong; the steamy window at Souvenir in Ieper, Belgium; The Sportsman at night, Seasalter, The United Kingdom; pigeon at Hedone in London, The United Kingdom; making uni and shiso tempura at Fukamachi in Tokyo, Japan; the “Côte de Porc Fermier Gras” at Froggy’s Tavern in Montreuil-sur-Mer, France;

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Bente Getz has returned to her family’s farm, situated high on a steep rake that rises almost vertically from the fjords of Samnanger, Norway.  She left her homeland as a young woman to travel the world, a hippie who hopped around the globe, starting in the United States, then to Spain, and finally settling on a kibbutz in Israel, where she started and raised a family for more than a decade.

It took her two years to rehabilitate her family’s abandoned property.  But now that it’s back in shape, Getz raises cattle and sheep and farms her land according to simple organic practices.  She produces cheese from her animals and sells them, along with dairy, at a small co-op in Samnanger. Bente Getz is just one of the many, interesting, generous, and talented people that I’ve had the great fortune of meeting through Friends of Lysverket, a collaborative dinner series and cross-cultural conversation hosted by Christopher Haatuft, the Norwegian chef of Lysverket in Bergen, Norway.

I’m late in telling about this great project, which we started in 2014.  I’d like to do so now.

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Last summer, Haatuft, whom I had met earlier in the year, called me. Inspired by that amazing tour that he had organized for me that March (which I wrote about in detail here) and the cross-cultural exchange it had spurred between the two of us, he wanted to expand our conversation to include a wider range of voices and talents.  He found some sponsorship and proposed hosting a collaborative dinner series at his restaurant Lysverket in which we would invite a chef every two months to partake in a tour of the region, similar to the one Haatuft and I took, visiting artisans, craftsman, and other “friends” who contribute in some way to Lysverket. I would not only help by finding the guest chefs and facilitate a dialogue among them, but Haatuft also proposed hiring me to photograph the weekend-long events. I agreed to give it a go.

Feeling our way through our first few conversations, we decided that, for each dinner, we would pick a general topic or area of interest we want to explore. Using that as a loose guide, Haatuft and his staff would build a two-day tour of their region and I would start brainstorming for chefs who I think would bring a unique perspective to the occasion.

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Norway’s seemingly infinite network of fjords, which stretches extensively inland, makes the country’s coastline one of its most striking features.  Home to a mind-bogglingly vast ecosystem, the waters that surround Norway seemed like  of infinite inspiration and possibilities.  So, for the first dinner, Haatuft decided to focus on the water’s edge.  I immediately thought of Justin Cogley, the chef of Aubergine at l’Auberge Carmel, who, for the past two years, has hosted an event that I’ve photographed called “Rediscovering Coastal Cuisine.”  Since Cogley spends so much of his time cooking from the shoreline, and, more importantly, working with local entities — like the Monterey Bay Abalone Co. and the Monterey Bay Aquarium — to promote a sustainable, coastal ecosystem, Haatuft agreed that he’d be a natural fit for our inaugural dinner. So, Cogley came with me to Bergen in September of last year.

We spent the first two days meeting with local artisans and food producers.  We grazed our way through the Bergen Food Festival, which happened to coincide with that first Friends of Lysverket weekend.  Among the many food stalls we visited, Haatuft introduced us to Knut Garshol, who specializes in making high-quality salt cod. Garshol showed us how he filets the dried carcasses, stripping off the leathery, dry skin in one, long tug.

We met a woman who makes that caramel-like brunost, or “brown cheese” (a family to which geitost belongs), which is specific to Nordic culture.

And, we encountered a number of unique, local baked goods – like skillingsbollen (think cinnamon rolls) and Hadanger kling (which I will talk about later).  We discovered that Norwegians eat pancakes too.  But perhaps more importantly, we learned that, although Norwegians may offer many condiments alongside their pancakes, it’s only socially acceptable to choose one (I mentioned this cultural maxim in my year-end round-up of desserts earlier this week).

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During that weekend, we also met with Arne Duinker (a marine biologist who I had met on my trip last March) and diver Knut Magnus Persson off the coast of Askøy, a nearby island, where Haatuft and Cogley donned wetsuits and snorkels and skimmed the surface for seaweed and other shallow aquatic life. Persson, being a pro, had far more lung power and was able to go much deeper.  He disappeared for a disturbingly long period of time and surfaced hauling a bag sagging with treasures: scallops, cockles, a rainbow of seaweed, and crabs.

Haatuft and I wanted to return to Øystese to introduce Cogley to Geir Henning Spilde, the apple grower who had delighted me with his amazing rainbow of single-varietal apple juices earlier in the year. We found him in the middle of pressing a batch of apples.  The smell was incredible, a mix of perfumey fragrance and the acidity of cider.

And we met Knut Finne, a farmer who grows an amazing variety of plants – herbs, vegetables, and fruits – on a sprawling field that tumbles towards the sea near Voss.

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We ended our tour at the Voss Bryggeri, where Jeanette Lillås and her husband Dag Jørgensen hosted us all for a tour of their small brewery, and let us participate in brewing a batch of beer.  An enormous cauldron hung, boiling hops and steaming in the cool night, as Lillås walked us through their brewing process.  Afterwards, we fell on a hearty stew that Lillås had prepared for us, with lots of beer on tap for all.

Having spent two days collecting ideas and ingredients, and cultivating relationships along the way, on the third day, Cogley and Haatuft cooked a dinner at Lysverket based on their dialogue and discoveries.  They used the seafood that they, and Persson had found in Askøy, and paired a couple of the courses with beer from the Voss Bragger.

At this dinner, Haatuft included the many voices and personalities that had made the dinner and the restaurant possible. Duinker and Persson came to the dinner, for example.  Haatuft also invited Constance Kristiansen and Tonje Sandberg, two designers who had left a large ceramic design firm to open their own, Odd Standard.  Haatuft had worked with these two before, and wanted to include them in this event.  Based in Stavanger, a city south of Bergen, Kristiansen and Sandberg were asked to create special service pieces just for this dinner. Their contribution turned out to be one of the most dynamic aspects of that weekend for me.

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Among the most memorable pieces by Odd Standard was a ceramic cone.  Because it could not be set down without spilling its contents (Haatuft filled it with salt cod brandade), it forced an especially personal interaction between the servers and the guests, as the cone had to be handed from one person to another.  Its shape also required diners to hold the cone while eating out of it.  The designers were especially thoughtful in making the cones slightly oval.  Not only did this fit the human grip more comfortably, but it also prevented the cones from rolling around when they were set down on a flat surface.

As novel as these cones were, the highlight, for me, were the disposable plates that Kristiansen and Sandberg made for dessert. These plates were made from six, ultra-thin sheets of silk, which were laminated together with an edible glue made from powdered sugar.  They were pressed to look like actual plates, with a wide ledge around the circumference.  Because they were so thin, and because the sugary laminate was simply pressed and dried, any moisture put on the plate would not only begin to soften the silk, but also draw out the sugar in the laminate.

Since, like most of the service pieces that Odd Standard created for this dinner, these plates had never been tested before, they posed two interesting issues: 1) If anything moist were to be served on these plates, then the dishes had to be quickly dispatched, before they wilted beyond use; and 2) since the plates would inevitably leach some sugar once food made contact, this required additional consideration in calibrating the sweetness of the food. It turns out that the plates held up surprisingly well to Cogley’s dessert: poached pears with brunost caramel, and Bente Getz’s dairy ice cream.  They were sturdier than expected, and the amount of sugar they gave off was minimal.

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We largely followed the same format for our second dinner in November, which focused on the land and the deep sea.  I invited one of my favorite chefs, Stephen Harris of The Sportsman, a 17th-century pub located in the sleepy village of Seasalter on the coast of Kent in England.  Harris is one of the most articulate and intelligent chefs I’ve ever met.  He is especially keen on quality and thoughtful about flavor. (I’ve written about him and his restaurant on this blog before. Read here, here, and here)

At The Sportsman, Harris serves really great lamb – he uses sheep that are grazed on nearby salt marshes. I’ve also had really nice game fowl and beef there too. But because the ocean practically laps at the restaurant’s door, Harris seems particularly keen on the flavors of the sea. Like Cogley, Harris walks the coastline, foraging what washes ashore.  He also works with fisherman who bring their catch from deeper waters – bream, cod, ray (or skate), and sole, for example.

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Although Haatuft had planned a trip to go deep-sea fishing with Harris, inclement weather made that journey impossible.  Sadly, we had to cancel it.  So, in the spirit of Friends of Lysverket, Haatuft called up his friend Robin Oen, who runs the Dale Oen Experience, a non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging the young to explore the great outdoors.  This organization is dedicated to the memory of Robin’s brother, Alexander Dale Oen, a champion Norwegian swimmer who died unexpectedly of a latent heart condition in 2012.

Robin, who is an avid outdoorsmen himself, welcomed us to their sporting center, which is located on the water near the town of Øygarden.  From his generous dock, we launched kayaks and motorboats into the cold Norwegian waters.  Robin had baited some traps, and we hauled up the cages, with crabs clinging to the sides.  As well, Haatuft and a few of his cooks put on wet suits and joined Robin in the water, diving for sea urchins in the shallow waters, which are especially clear and crisp.

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It was pitch-black when we pulled through Bente Getz’s gates in the late afternoon, after having been lost for a while in the maze of unmarked roads of the mountainous fjord lands.  It was cold and rainy, which was not uncommon in this region, especially in November.  Getz told us that it rains almost two-thirds of the year where she is, and due to the already shortened daylight hours during the colder months, the sun is an especially scarce friend in winter.

Despite this gloomy backdrop, Getz’s bright, cheery face welcomed us with tea and skillingsbollen (those cinnamony rolls that Cogley and I had first encountered at the food festival in September).  After we warmed up a bit, Getz took us to her barn, where she introduced us to her herd of sheep, naming them one by one, and then offered us the opportunity to milk her two cows.  Then, she showed us her cheese-making process and gave us a taste of her cheeses.  The most interesting of them was her version of gammelost, or “old cheese,” which is traditionally made from skim milk. Because it’s so lean, the cheese is extremely dry and crumbly – the thick rind was almost like sawdust – accounting for why she served the cheese with a hearty slathering of butter, which it sorely needed.  She also makes a pretty indulgent cheesecake, which she sells in little pint containers lined on the bottom with a graham cracker “crust.”

Moving the party to her kitchen, we gathered around a large table and finished the night with a round of warm quiches that Getz had baked for us, which we washed down with her homemade beer.

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Beyond the people whom we met on our tour (Getz arrived at the dinner with fresh milk from her farm, which Harris used to make caramel ice cream for his dessert, a green apple soufflé), Haatuft also invited Eirik O. Skogen to the Harris dinner.  Skogen works at Theodor Olsen, Norway’s oldest jewelry company, located just a few meters from Lysverket.  He brought with him a stunning, sterling Viking ship, which collided Norse and Greek mythology by depicting the vessel borne on the riding waves of Poseidon’s posse. Stine Vikne, a local florist, used this silver ship as a vase and centerpiece for the dinner table, filling the hull with branches. Skogen also brought with him culinary curios, like imaginatively forged serviceware (there was a fish spatula in the shape of a ray, for example) and a jaw-dropping trove of vintage, gold-plated flatware, which were used at this dinner.

Contributing to this dinner, also, was Tara Garnell, a bartender and cocktail stylist from London. She was invited to the dinner by her former colleague Elias Vega (they worked for the same group of cocktail bars in London), who is now a bartender at Lysverket.  Garnell worked with Haatuft and Harris to design a few cocktail pairings for some of the dishes.  For example, she paired a sea lettuce-infused sake cocktail (which included a touch of dry vermouth) with a warm dashi broth that Harris poured into a small “rockpool” of mussels, oysters, and fish.

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The Friends of Lysverket dinner series, as you can see, is a largely unscripted affair, the result of spontaneous discussion and, sometimes, experimentation, rather than anything deeper, or more deliberate. The purpose of these dinners is not for press or publicity – this blogpost is really the extent to which this dinner series has been openly discussed, especially outside of Bergen. And it’s not targeted for public consumption either, as there are only twelve seats available to the public at each dinner [the cost of dinner for these paying guests is 3,500NOK (approximately $460) per person], which is always held on a night when the restaurant is otherwise closed, adding to the familial feel of it all.

Rather, having helped plan two of these dinners (with two more on the calendar), I can tell you that the Friends of Lysverket dinner series is, at its most basic level, a cross-cultural exchange between chefs, and on a broader (and my opinion, more significant) plane, it is a conversation among artists across a wide spectrum of crafts and industries (another, recurring contributor, for example, is Anti & Grandpeople, one of Norway’s leading design firms).  These dinners are like one-off exhibitions, wherein a diverse group of moving parts (their mutual friendship with Lysverket being their one sure and shared link) are thrown together for a weekend to explore and figure out where and how they fit together.  At the communal dinner table – which seats about twenty in total – these different voices are encouraged to share their stories and the parts they played in bringing these dinners together.

I love this: I love the sense of adventure and community it fosters.  I love the intimacy it creates.  And I love the honesty of it.

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I am writing this post from Bergen, where it is currently 16.00, and the Lysverket kitchen is serving up some ribs and pork neck for family meal, with a variety of barbecue sauces I brought from Kansas City.  Brooks Headley, the pastry chef at Del Posto in New York City, is in the kitchen busy brainstorming for the third Friends of Lysverket dinner that he’ll be cooking with Christopher Haatuft on Monday, January 19.

Tomorrow, Sunday, we are all heading to Hardanger to meet the Grøtt family at their bakery, Eikjetunet, where we will learn how to make traditional Norwegian breads, like lefse and krotakake. Nearby, we’ll also stop by Lars Kjetil Holdhus’s cabin where he salt-cures and hangs ham. Holdhus lives in Bergen, and he has been kind enough to offer to share his ham-making process with us.

On Monday night, the Grøtts and Holdhus will attend this third Friends of Lysverket dinner, along with Gaahl, who was one of the leading artists of the second wave of Black Metal music and founding member of the Norwegian Black Metal band Golgoroth.  Gaahl is a wine connoisseur and regular at Lysverket, and, given his musical background, Haatuft and his business partner Fredrik Saroea, lead vocalist and guitarist for the Norwegian electronic rock band Datarock, thought he’d be the perfect person to pair with Brooks Headley, who himself is a drummer and has toured with a number of punk and indie rock bands.

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I look forward to reporting more from this amazing, dynamic, and rainy corner of our world, as I watch the Friends of Lysverket circle grow.  I will be returning in early March for the fourth Friends of Lysverket dinner, which will take place on Monday, March 9.  We will be joined then by chef Fergus Henderson of St. John and St. John Bread & Wine in London, as well as Roderick Sloan, the Scottish diver who has become well-known among Scandinavian chefs (and the culinary cognoscenti) for the amazing seafood he finds in the Arctic Circle.

You’ll find an album of photos from the first Friends of Lysverket dinner with Justin Cogley here.

You’ll find an album of photos from the second Friends of Lysverket dinner with Stephen Harris here.

Follow this album of photos over the next few days for photos from this third Friends of Lysverket dinner with Brooks Headley.

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Photos: A lone set of headlights pierce the otherwise pitch-black night at Bente Getz’s farm in Samnanger, Norway; Knut Magnus Persson’s haul from the waters of Askøy, Norway; Justin Cogley and Christopher Haatuft suited up for a snorkel off the coast of Askøy, Norway; Knut Finne shows us his garden, with Justin Cogley, near Voss, Norway; a cauldron steams with brewing hops at the Voss Braggeri in Voss, Norway; Constance Kristiansen and Tonje Sandberg put finishing touches on their serviceware for the first Friends of Lysverket dinner in September of 2014 at Lysverket in Bergen, Norway; Stephen Harris dresses a monkfish tail at Lysverket in Bergen, Norway; a lone sea urchins sits on the dock, while Christopher Haatuft surfaces from the waters at the Dale Oen Experience near Øygarden, Norway; Stein Berge Berntsen; whimsical service ware from Theodor Olsen in Bergen, Norway; the Lysverket team after the second Friends of Lysverket dinner with Stephen Harris in Bergen, Norway; Christopher Haatuft and Brooks Headley discuss the menu for the third Friends of Lysverket dinner at Lysverket in Bergen, Norway; Christopher Haatuft grills lobsters on the Big Green Egg at Lysverket in Bergen, Norway.

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This is my fifth year serving on the planning committee for the Chefs Classic, a charity dinner hosted annually at The American Restaurant that raises money for Harvesters, a food bank that serves the greater Kansas City area.  Because I obsess over documenting and recording things, I asked Harvesters to send me a complete roster of all of the chefs who have cooked at this event.  By our accounting, this will be the eighteenth annual Chefs Classic, which has brought nearly one hundred chefs from around the country to Kansas City.  I have included the complete list of past guest chefs at the bottom of this post.

This year’s Chefs Classic will take place at The American Restaurant on Sunday, June 28, 2015.  Please save the date.

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As in recent years, this year’s Chefs Classic will feature three, local Kansas City chefs (including hosting chef Michael Corvino of The American Restaurant) and three, out-of-town chefs.  I am pleased to announce them here, together with this year’s honorary chair.

Honorary Chair
MARK LARRABEE
(President and CEO of Arvest Bank)

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JOHN BROGAN
(Passed Hors d’Oeuvres)
(Rye; Leawood, Kansas)

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NICOLAS BLOUIN
(Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek; Dallas, Texas)

MICHAEL CORVINO
(The American Restaurant; Kansas City, Missouri)

JOSH EANS
(Happy Gillis Café & Hangout; Kansas City, Missouri)

NICHOLAS ELMI
(Laurel; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

HOWARD HANNA
(The Rieger Hotel Grill & Exchange; Kansas City, Missouri)

BENJAMIN SUKLE
(Birch; Providence, Rhode Island)

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Please check the Harvesters website for ticketing information.

You’ll find photos of last year’s dinner here.

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The following is a complete list of all of the chefs who have cooked at the Chefs Classic at The American Restaurant.  Please note that the chefs are listed with the restaurants at which they were working at the time they cooked at the Chefs Classic.

2014

Honorary Chair: Kent Sunderland of Ash Grove Cement Company

Ryan Brazeal (Novel; Kansas City, Missouri)
Gerard Craft (niche; St. Louis, Missouri)
Colby Garrelts (bluestem; Kansas City, Missouri)
Debbie Gold (Kansas City; Missouri)
Jonathan Justus (Justus Drugstore; Smithville, Missouri)
Gavin Kaysen (Café Boulud; New York, New York)
Stephanie Prida (Manresa; Los Gatos, California)

2013

Honorary Chair: Carla and Danny O’Neill, Owners of the Roasterie

Michael Beard (715 Mass; Lawrence, Kansas)
Vinny Dotolo (Animal Restaurant; Los Angeles, California)
Kelly English (Iris; Memphis; Tennessee)
Nancy Olson (Grammercy Tavern, New York, New York)
Patrick Ryan (Port Fonda, Kansas City, Missouri)
Todd Schulte (Genessee Royale & Happy Gillis, Kansas City, Missouri)

2012

Honorary Chair: Joe and Carol Suhor

William Bradley (Addison at The Grand Del Mar; San Diego, California)
Howard Hanna (The Rieger Hotel Grill & Exchange, Kansas City, Missouri)
Susur Lee (Lee in Toronto, Canada and Shang in New York City, New York)
Matthias Merges (Yusho; Chicago, Illinois)
Danica Pollard (Lidias; Kansas City, Missouri)
Carl Thorne-Thomsen (Story; Prairie Village, Kansas)

2011

Honorary Chair: Clark Hunt, Chairman of the Kansas City Chiefs

Sean Brock (McCrady’s; Charleston, South Carolina)
Charles D’Ablaing (Chaz at the Raphael; Kansas City, Missouri)
Curtis Duffy (Avenues at the Peninsula; Chicago, Illinois)
Josh Eans (Blanc Burgers + Bottles; Kansas City, Missouri)
Michael Foust (The Farmhouse; Kansas City, Missouri)
Sean Gawle (Corton; New York, New York)
Debbie Gold (The American Restaurant; Kansas City, Missouri)

2010

Trey Foshee (George’s at the Cove; La Jolla, California)
Debbie Gold (The American Restaurant; Kansas City, Missouri)
Carmen Gonzalez (New York, New York)
Andrew Kneessy (Kansas City Country Club; Kansas City, Missouri)
Michael Laiskonis (Le Bernardin; New York, New York)
John McClure (Starker’s Restaurant; Kansas City, Missouri)
Alex Pope (R Bar; Kansas City, Missouri)
Nick Wesemann (The American Restaurant; Kansas City, Missouri)

2009

Graham Elliot Bowles (graham elliot; Chicago, Illinois)
Linda Deurr (JJ’s; Kansas City, Missouri)
Colby and Megan Garrelts (Bluestem; Kansas City, Missouri)
Ted Habiger (Room 39; Kansas City, Missouri)
Dan Swinney (Lidia’s; Kansas City, Missouri)
Albert Tash (Ameristar Casino & Hotel; Kansas City, Missouri)
Bill Telepan (Telepan’s; New York, New York)

2008

Eddie Allen, Ameristar Casino & Hotel;
Roberto Donna (Bebo Trattoria; Washington, D.C.)
Joe Hafner (Gracie’s; Providence, Rhode Island)
Howard Hannah (The River Club; Kansas City, Missouri)
Mike Lata (FIG; Charleston, South Carolina)
Keith Luce (The Herb Farm; Woodinville, Washington)
Jonathan Justus (Justus Drugstore; Smithville, Missouri)
Dan Swinney (Lidia’s; Kansas City, Missouri)
Nick Wesemann (The American Restaurant; Kansas City, Missouri)

2007

Ashley Archer (Ameristar Casino; Kansas City, Missouri)
Jennifer Maloney (Café Sebastienne; Kansas City, Missouri)
Michael Peterson (Trezo Mare; Kansas City, Missouri)
Giani Respinto (Gianmarco’s; Birmingham, Alabama)
Celina Tio (The American Restaurant; Kansas City, Missouri)
Lorin Watada (Roy’s Restaurant; Las Vegas, Nevada)
Patrick Williams (Pierpont’s; Kansas City, Missouri)

2006

[No event.]

2005

Honorary Chair: Mayor Kay Barnes

Edward Allen (Bugatti’s Ristorante & Café at Ameristar Casino; Kansas City, Missouri)
Nathan Feldmiller and Jonathan Phillips (Circe; Kansas City, Missouri)
Ted Habiger and Andy Sloan (Room 39; Kansas City, Missouri)
Michael Morris (Two Sisters at the Hyatt Regency; Coral Gables, Florida)
Robert Merrifield (Polo Grill; Tulsa, Oklahoma)
Kirk Parks (Rathbun’s; Atlanta, Georgia)
Dan Swinney (Lidia’s; Kansas City, Missouri)

2004

Honorary Chairs: Harvesters Founders

Mark Ayers (Highland Park Hyatt; Carmel, California)
Ray Comiskey (The Capital Grille; Kansas City, Missouri)
Michael Cressotti (Sushi Samba; New York, New York)
Tim Doolittle (City Tavern; Kansas City, Missouri)
Christopher Elbow (Elbow Chocolates; Kansas City, Missouri)
Colby Garrelts (Bluestem; Kansas City, Missouri)
Elissa Narow (Blackbird; Chicago, Illinois)

2003

Honorary Chairs: Charles and Jacqueline Sullivan

Stephen Gontram (Harvest; St. Louis, Missouri)
Tim Johnson (The Webster House; Kansas City, Missouri)
Frederick Ortega (Lacroix at the Rittenhouse; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Patrick Quillec (Hannah Bistro; Leawood, Kansas)
John State (California Grill; Lake Buena Vista, Florida)
Marc Valiani (Grand Street Cafe; Kansas City, Missouri)

2002

Honorary Chairs: Harvesters Founders

Patrick Coston (Ilo; New York, New York)
Emanuel Langlade (Aixois; Kansas City, Missouri)
Tim Kelley (Zoe; New York, New York)
John Korycki (Milano; Kansas City, Missouri)
Susan & Miguel Sanchez (Honeymom’s Cafe; Kansas City, Missouri)
Troy Thompson (Jer-Ne at the Ritz-Carlton; Marina Del Ray, California)

2001

Honorary Chairs: Bert and Joan Berkley

Suzanne Goin (Lucques; Los Angeles, California)
Dominique Macquet (Dominique’s; New Orleans, Louisiana)
Jennifer Maloney (Café Sebastienne; Kansas City, Missouri)
Monica Pope (Boulevard Bistrot; Houston, Texas)
Mano Rafael (Le Fou Frog; Kansas City, Missouri)
Shelly Pierre Rash (Zin; Kansas City, Missouri)

2000

Honorary Chairs: Fred and Virginia Merrill

Steve Cole (Café Allegro; Kansas City, Missouri)
Susan Goss (Zinfandel; Chicago, Illinois)
Udo Nechutnys (Jordan Winery; Healdsburg, California)
Michael Peterson (Grand Street Café; Kansas City, Missouri)
Susan Spicer (Bayona; New Orleans, Louisiana)
Rafael Torano (The American Restaurant; Kansas City, Missouri)
Michael Turner (Classic Cup; Kansas City, Missouri)

1999

Honorary Chair: Mrs. Hymie Sosland

John Hogan (Savarin; Chicago, Illinois)
Steve Cole (Café Allegro; Kansas City, Missouri)
Cody Hogan (Lidia’s; Kansas City, Missouri)
Jennifer Maloney (Café Sebastienne; Kansas City, Missouri)
Patrick Weber (The Stolen Grill; Kansas City, Missouri)
Takashi Yagihashi (Tribute; Detroit, Michigan)

1998

Honorary Chairs: Don and Adele Hall

Lidia Bastianich (Lidia’s; Kansas City, Missouri; and Felidia, New York, New York)
Bill Cardwell (Cardwell’s at the Plaza; St. Louis, Missouri)
Steve Cole (Café Allegro; Kansas City, Missouri)
Doug Flick (Ritz-Carlton; Kansas City)
Jean-Louis Palladin (Las Vegas, Nevada)

1997

Honorary Chair: Morton Sosland

Lidia Bastianich (Felidia, Becco and Frico; New York, New York)
Steve Cole (Café Allegro; Kansas City, Missouri)
Doug Flick (Ritz-Carlton; Kansas City)

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Photos: Gavin Kaysen, Stephanie Prida, Gerard Craft, Colby Garrelts, Jonathan Justus, and Ryan Sciara at the 2014 Harvesters Chefs Classic at The American Restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri; and Gavin Kaysen, Colby Garrelts, and Debbie Gold at the 2014 Harvesters Chefs Classic at The American Restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri.

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A leading voice in the international black metal movement.

A high-end furniture designer from Copenhagen.

A Scotsman who dives for a living off the North Sea coast above the Arctic Circle.

An American hardcore punk drummer-turned pastry chef.

A group of Norwegian women preserving the craft of bread making in a remote village in the fjords.

And an Asian-American lawyer who left the firm to travel the world with his camera.

What do these diverse people have in common?  We are all friends of Lysverket.

Since I last wrote about the Friends of Lysverket collaborative series, chef Christopher Haatuft has hosted two more of these dinners at his restaurant in Bergen, Norway.  And, together, we have plan three more of these dinners this year.  I’d like to give you an update on this dinner series now.

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In January, we hosted our third Friends of Lysverket dinner.  Anticipating extreme weather of one stripe or another, Haatuft and I decided it would be wise to focus our weekend’s itinerary on indoor activities.

“Indoor” is a loose term to Norwegians.  Hardened by the harsh weather, Norwegians have a surprisingly high tolerance for the cold.  Ingbjørg Grøtt, for example, runs a small bakery collective out of a log cabin near the village of Herand on the far side of the Handanger fjord.  Although there is a modern kitchen attached to the cabin, with a sheeter and electric amenities, the ladies rely on a wood-fired oven for warmth.  But that oven, used primarily for baking bread, barely gives off enough heat to ward off the cold air that streams through the cracks between the walls.

Grøtt calls her bakery collective “Eikjetunet,” which, loosely translated, refers to an oak tree in the yard.  Here, she and a few of her fellow villagers preserve a vanishing tradition of regional baking. They were kind of enough to spend an afternoon teaching us how to make two traditional, Norwegian flatbreads.  They showed us how to roll the dough out, and, using paddles and dowels, how to move the thin sheets of dough from the rolling board to the cooking surface.

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The krotakake (“krota cake”) is made from a grain-based flour dough. This dough is elastic and surprisingly resilient, which gave it a higher survival rate in our inexperienced hands (still the casualties were many, and not pretty).  Krotakake is named after the wooden rolling pin used to flatten the dough.  The pin is scored with crosshatches, making its surface a grid of “teeth” that docks the dough as it rolls.  The dimples created by the krota prevent the dough from puffing (like a pita) when baked in the wood-fired oven.  The krotakake are baked until completely dry.  They become crisp as they cool, resulting in something akin to a round sheet of matzoh. The krotakake are stacked and kept up to six months (we were told that, traditionally, villages would fire up its communal oven twice a year, and everyone would bake their bread together).  Although the krotakake could be eaten as a cracker, it is usually rehydrated.  Traditionally, it is quickly dipped in water and let to sit until it softens.  Treated similarly to a tortilla or crêpe, krotakake is usually filled and either folded, layered, or rolled.

The potatkake (“potato cake”), made from boiled potatoes, was a wetter dough that required more finesse.  Like the krotakake, the potatkake is flattened with a krota. But, instead of being baked in the wood-fired oven, these were finished on an open-top griddle, much like the type used in a crêperie.  The potatkake are larger than the krotakake, and are more dense and heavy.  They also have a distinct potato flavor to them.

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At Eikjetunet, the Grøtts generously opened their home to us.  There wasn’t enough space in the baking cabin for the entire Friends of Lysverket crew (usually, the restaurant’s entire staff – both front and back of the house – participate in these weekend excursions), so their home – which was just a few steps away from the bakery – served as both spillover space, as well as a warm refuge from the cold.  They kept a roaring furnace, around which we huddled to thaw out between baking sessions.  They also put out platters of krotakake and potatkake for us, served with a gratifyingly stiff, dark coffee.  

The krotakake were filled with sweet butter and served with some of the most amazing strawberry jam I’ve ever tasted. The flavor of the strawberries was so intense and pure, and the color was so vibrantly red that I suspected it might be artificial.  Of course, when I asked them where they got the jam, I was met with a confused look: they made it from berries they picked nearby; just strawberries and a bit of sugar (of course).  The Grøtts’s jam prompted me to start lobbying Haatuft for a dinner based on Norwegian fruits.

The Grøtts also served us krotakake rolled with smoked salmon and potatkake layered with thin shavings of brunost, the famous Norwegian “brown cheese” with a peculiar caramel-like sweetness. (This cheese is, perhaps, more familiar to Americans as gjetost, a version of brown cheese that is made with goat milk)

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With us on our trip to Eikjetunet in January was guest chef Brooks Headley, pastry chef of Del Posto in New York City.  I thought he’d be a good match for this dinner, not only because his work in pastry might find an interesting overlap with our baking expedition, but I thought that his musical background might also dovetail nicely with Lysverket as well.  Headley used to be the drummer for a number of hardcore punk bands. And he remains active on the music circuit today, playing with his band when he finds time to step away from the kitchen

Frederik Saroea, one of the co-owners of Lysverket, is the lead singer of one of Norway’s biggest bands – Datarock.  Every night, Saroea invites a disc jockey to close out the evening at Lysverket with music.  I have to admit, it makes for an unorthodox ending to a “fine dining” meal.  But even I, a Midwesterner who favors calmer dining environs, am astonished by how well it works, and especially by how gradually the dining room is transformed from a restaurant into a cocktail lounge as dinner service tapers.

When Saroea, gregarious and colorful, heard that Headley would be joining us as guest chef, he roped in another musician for this Friends of Lysverket event.  He invited Kristian Eivind Espedal to pair the wines for the dinner.  Better known as “Gaahl,” he is formerly the principal of the Norwegian black metal group Gorgoroth.  He now produces “shamanistic” music with God Seed and Wardruna.  Having known nothing about him (and very little about black metal music) when we met, I was quite frankly startled by the difference between the soft-spoken, extremely thoughtful man with whom I shared a drink for two hours, and his dramatic onstage persona, which I later discovered when I looked him up online. In retrospect, the time I spent getting to know Gaahl embodied the very best of what Friends of Lysverket offers: an opportunity for people who wouldn’t normally find each other in life to cross paths at the dinner table.

There we were, Asian-American and Norwegian, Christian and (self-proclaimed) pagan, photographer and musician sitting at the bar at Lysverket talking about art, religion, music, and his obsession with natural wines.  Afterwards, he took Headley and me to Apollon, a record bar with beer on tap and bins upon bins of vinyl records.  They had everything from George Strait to, well… Norwegian black metal.

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In stark contrast to the dark and enigmatic Gaahl was Silje Heggren, a bubbly and energetic (even by American standards) artist, whose works hang on the walls at Lysverket. She was also invited to be a part of this third Friends of Lysverket dinner.

Heggren’s personality comes across on canvas.  Her paintings are bright and colorful, and, like her, the subject matter is just a touch quirky. Although most of her work focuses on youth in society, the paintings that I’ve seen at Lysverket, and the ones she brought to share with the guests at dinner were a part of an imaginative series depicting what she calls “infinity machines.”

With Heggren’s infinity machines as a backdrop, and with Gaahl’s selection of natural wines to pair, Haatuft and Headley served a multi-course dinner at Lysverket.  Headley, who has a side interest making “veggie burgers,” served a canapé of small veggie burgers wrapped in krotakake.  The result was something akin to falafels in pita.  He also served potato gnocchi glazed in a slightly sweet carrot sauce spiced with berbere and garnished with crunchy potato skins.  I so enjoyed watching the faces of my fellow diners light up as they experienced their first taste of berbere, a spice largely unfamiliar to Norwegians.  It was delicious.

Haatuft served baked pumpkin and king crab wrapped in mini melkekake – another type of Norwegian flatbread made with milk.  Perhaps my favorite dish of Haatuft’s, was a rich spelt “ragú” served with langoustines and grilled porcini.

I have always loved Headley’s apple fritelle dessert (which he lovingly attributes to the McDonald’s apple pie).  I’m drawn to its cider-like quality.  He uses the tartness of the apple to draw a sharp line through the sweetness and creaminess of the ice cream.  For this dinner, Headley made a variation with bananas and cloudberries, using the latter to thin out the the former in a similar way.  It was terrific.

You can see all of the photos from this third Friends of Lysverket dinner here.

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Our fourth Friends of Lysverket dinner, held in early March, brought together another dynamic group of people.

From the cold, Arctic waters near Bødo in the extreme north of Norway, came Roddie Sloan.  A Scotsman, who, a decade and a half ago intended to hop on the Trans-Siberian Railway to seek a new life and fortune in China, Sloan, instead, fell in love in Norway.  And there he has remained since, raising a family with his Norwegian wife and making a living as a diver.  You might know his name from the many, high-end Nordic chefs he supplies with seafood, including Haatuft.

From Copenhagen came Kim Dolva, the furniture designer who outfitted the interior of Lysverket.  Tall and thin, with a surfer’s spray of wavy blond hair, Dolva started his career as a guitar maker.  It was only a few years ago that he stumbled across an affordable warehouse space in an underdeveloped neighborhood of Copenhagen and founded the København Møbelsnekeri (translated as the “Copenhagen Joinery”) with his business partners.  Now, he designs interiors for everyone from the privately wealthy to restaurants and retail businesses around the world.  On my recent trip to Copenhagen (about which I hope to write), Dolva gave me a tour of his workshop and showroom, as well as a couple of local businesses for which he designed.

And, for this fourth dinner, Haatuft invited chef Thorsten Schmidt from Aarhus in Denmark. Schmidt had just closed his restaurant Malling & Schmidt for a year (Malling is his wife, who was the sommelier at their restaurant) and was on a sabbatical of sorts.

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All of us spent a cold, rainy day together off the coast of Sotra, one of the many satellite islands that surrounds the Bergen metropolis.  Our guides were Arne Duinker, a marine biologist who has been a recurring and integral contributor to the Friends of Lysverket series, and Knut Magnus Persson, who, with Duinker, had taken us diving during our first Friends of Lysverket weekend.

Using a yacht that one of Persson’s friends had moored off of a small, rocky island as a warm and dry base camp, we split up into a few boats.  Duinker took some snorkeling, while the rest of us motored from buoy to buoy, checking on traps and nets that Persson had set.   We kept some of what we pulled up, like a beautiful cod that relies on its orange, coral-like pattern for camouflage among the red seaweed, as well as a few, sizable crabs.  But most of it, we threw back: starfish, sea urchins, and undersized fish and crustacea.

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Mid-day, we met up with Knut Jørstad, a shrimper who led us into deeper waters.  Jørstad has been mapping the sea bed in his area for years.  The next day, at the dinner, I landed next to him and asked what he plans to do with all of the information he’s gathering.  He doesn’t know, he said.  But he’s sure that it’s useful.  This kind of academic curiosity – in some ways, an obsession – impressed me.  And, as it turned out, that quiet, stoic shrimper, who I watched methodically reel in his traps the day before, had been a researcher who spent years speaking about aquaculture at conferences around the world.  I noticed a touch of wistfulness in his voice as we talked about travel.  He missed it, I could tell.

Jørstad had stopped his boat in the middle of open water.   He leaned over the side and, using a long hook, snagged a large, orange buoy bobbing in the water.  Attached to the buoy was a cable, which Jørstad pulled over a mechanized pulley on his boat and began the long process of reeling in a series of cages that he had laid.  The water where we had stopped was about 200 meters deep, far out of the reach of divers without highly specialized equipment (even then, a dive that deep would be an extremely dangerous proposition). He noted that the sea bed there was very soft – mostly sand.  He usually leaves his cages out for a week or more.  These had only been out for a couple of days, so he wasn’t expecting to find much in them.

As he predicted, the cages were largely empty.  Even still, we were able to collect a few dozen small shrimp.  They had luminescent eyes (even in broad daylight, they glowed intensely).  And their shells were so soft that we ate them whole.  They were very tender, and very sweet.

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We went diving.  The chefs went in with Sloan and Persson.  But the undercurrents were so violent that they surfaced shortly after jumping in.  Plus, it was getting dark.

I got a much better deal.  I returned to Persson’s the next day with Henrik Storland, a friend of Dolva’s who had tagged along on this trip.  (Storland is opening a cycling-cum-coffee shop in Copenhagen soon. I’ll tell you about it when I write about Copenhagen in a later post.)  When we arrived at Persson’s place, he had our dry suits (7mm) laid out for us.  We got dressed in the warmth of his house and headed to the dock, where we strapped on our flippers, SCUBA vests, and tanks.  It was a far more comfortable and relaxed proposition than changing in the cold rain on a rocking boat, as the others did the day before.

The three of us had a leisurely, 30-minute dive in the cold, clear waters off of Persson’s dock.  Because all of us were getting on planes within the next 24 hours, we couldn’t venture too deep.  But, even at 11 meters down we found the sandy floor littered with scallops, crabs, sea urchins, and other bottom-dwelling curiosities.  Persson found a beautiful stenbider (translates as “stone biter”), a round, prehistoric-looking fish with a high, ridge top and rows of spikes.  It is named for the huge suction cup on its underside that helps the fish anchor to rocks in rough currents.  In Scandinavia, this fish is prized for its roe, which is often called “Danish caviar.”  More commonly, English speakers will have seen it on Scandinavian menus as “lumpfish roe.”

When we returned to the Lysverket kitchen with the stenbider, I watched Schmidt cut it open and filet it.  Inside, there was a large, creamy liver, blushing a pretty shade of pink. But the liver was dwarfed by a roe sack bursting with orange eggs.  Like most prehistoric fish, the stenbider was extremely gelatinous.  In fact, the meat – if you can call it that – was jiggly and opaque.  Schmidt reassured me that it was edible – best smoked, he said.

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The dinner ended up being a collaboration among three chefs.

Sloan jumped in and presented a beautifully salt-baked cod, which he invited one of the guests to hammer open.  He had also brought some softshell clams that he had handpicked in the Arctic waters near his home. They looked like miniature geoducks, and had a very similar texture and flavor, but were slightly less sweet.  Using a pair of small kitchen shears, he showed us how to trim them, and how to eat them.  Taking an empty shell in his hand, he also showed how easily it could be crushed – hence, its name.

Schmidt served a terrific, cold crab salad with pickled lime.  He also served a warm, comforting mushroom and seaweed broth poured over a juniper-smoked egg yolk.  Both of those dishes were extremely well-balanced in flavor.  There were both highlights.

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Haatuft opened the dinner with those live shrimp that Jørstad had pulled from the deep waters near Sotra the day before.  He served them on ice in little jars.

He also served us what he called  “old goat.”  The meat, Haatuft warned, would be tough (and it was).  But what I remember most about it was how rosy and juicy and flavorful it was.  It was terrific.

In between, he let one of his cooks present a dish.  Alex Torres, a young Mexican cook from Benito Molina’s kitchen at Restaurant Manzanilla in Ensenada, sent out pan-seared scallops with capers, a Mexican chile sauce, and spiced chapulines (grasshoppers).  I loved the acidity, and especially the nicely pitched heat, a slow, blooming spiciness that glowed more than it peaked.  It was delicious.

Inspired by all of the seaweed we had found during our day on the water, Sung-Min Trommel, Lyverket’s Korean-born Dutch pastry chef, closed out the night with seaweed ice cream served with almond cake and lemon curd.  I’ll admit, it sounds gross.  But, it was actually really, really good.  The seaweed flavor was very subtle, and blended in nicely with the milky sweetness of the cream.

Paired with all of the courses were sake wines that John Miller, the restaurant’s American beverage director, selected for the dinner.  They ranged from dry and mineral-driven, to sweet and effervescent.

You can see all of the photos from this fourth Friends of Lysverket dinner here.

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Christopher Haatuft has an unnatural, patriotic allegiance to the Norwegian hot dog.  When I say “the Norwegian hot dog,” I specifically mean the ones that are topped with mayonnaisey shrimp salad that you’ll find at gas stations, convenient stores, and concession stands (and I’ve had them at all three of those glamorous venues).  No Friends of Lysverket weekend is complete without one.

In January, we had them on the ferry crossing the Hardanger fjord on our way to Eikjetunet.  In March, Christopher rallied the troops after the Friends of Lysverket dinner and we descended, en masse, upon Tre Kroneren, a small sausage stand in Bergen that’s open very, very late.  In the dead of night, in a light, misting rain, in the jaundice glow of street lamps humming with fluorescence, we stood on the sidewalk laughing at each other with foot-longs hanging out of our mouths.  But, as silly and trite as this midnight vignette may seem, in many ways, like my encounter with Gaahl that I mentioned above, it captures the soul of the Friends of Lysverket series: an unlikely meeting of nationalities, languages, talents, and perspectives made not-so-unlikely by a common love of food and drink.

Thank you Christopher Haatuft, the team at Lyvserket, and the beautiful and generous country of Norway for bringing us all together.

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I am happy to report that the Friends of Lysverket series will continue, once every two months, for the rest of this year.

In early June, we will welcome chef Paul Qui of Qui in Austin, Texas to Bergen.  His visit will coincide with the annual Festspillene i Bergen, a highly regarded international classical music festival, and the city’s biggest event.

In August, Danish chef Esben Holmboe Bang of the two Michelin-starred restaurant Maaemo in Oslo will be our sixth Friends of Lysverket guest chef.

And in mid-October, I am especially excited to travel to Bergen with my fellow Kansas Citians, and fellow co-authors, chefs Colby and Megan Garrelts.  It will be their first trip to Europe, and I am thrilled for the opportunity to introduce them to a whole, new world.

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Photos: The plunging landscape of snowy Hardanger, Norway; two women rolling krotakake at Eikjetunet near Herald, Norway; the Jondal ferry crossing the Hardanger fjord, Norway; krotakake and potatkake served with strawberry jam at Eikjetunet near Herald, Norway; Brooks Headley at Apollon, a record bar in Bergen, Norway; some of Silje Heggren’s artwork at Lysverket in Bergen, Norway; Arne Duinker talks seaweed with Thorsten Schmidt and Roddie Sloan; Knut Magnus Persson shows us how big the crabs can get aboard his boat near Sotra, Norway; shrimper Knut Jørstad surveys the sea from his boat on the waters near Sotra, Norway; Knut Magnus Persson holds the stenbider he caught on our dive off the coast of Sotra, Norway; Christopher Haatuft and Kim Dolva look on as Roddie Sloan shows us the soft-shell clam at Lysverket in Bergen, Norway; the live shrimp served at the Friends of Lysverket dinner in March at Lyverkset in Bergen, Norway; Henrik Storland and his midnight hot dog at Tre Kroneren in Bergen, Norway; the team of Lysverket after the fourth Friends of Lysverket dinner in March in Bergen, Norway.