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I took the lessons I learned in 2016 and applied them to 2017.

Staying close to familiar quarters, I continued to bet on sure winners.  They did not disappoint.

And, although many of my travel destinations in 2017 were not chosen with great food in mind, I found some great food anyway.

Let me tell you about some of my favorites.

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A dome of brains.  A paw of bear. An embarrassment of abalone the size of coins.

And birds.  There were a lot of birds.

My favorite dishes from 2017 included some of the rarer, and, admittedly, more outlandish ingredients I’ve had –  giant morels from the forests of Kashmir, for example.  Yet, they weren’t just memorable, they were delicious.

But there were incredibly ordinary things too, like poached eggs, soaking up the essence of springtime.  And a stew of fish, humble and wonderful.

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As in previous years, my favorite dishes of 2017 span a wide spectrum.  One was found in a food court in Bangkok, another in a strip mall in Houston. Unsurprisingly, many of them come from the starry hosts of the Michelin universe.  They cost as little as a fraction of a dollar, and as much as a nice meal for two.

A couple of this year’s dishes have appeared among my favorites before. It’s a testament, I think, to the consistency of those chefs, and to my preferences.

Nine of this year’s 25 entries came from just three restaurants.  You know them. And if you know where I like to eat, you won’t be surprised to find them here with such frequency.

But those are merely superficial similarities, skewed and self-fulfilling.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a few years, you’ll be able to identify the more significant threads and themes at play.

I favor simplicity.  (I’ve said so before.)

But I also favor flavor.  And this year, there was plenty of it among my favorite dishes.

I was in Southeast Asia, where heavy fermentation sought levity in acidity and herbs.

I was in Europe, swimming in butter and cream.  And in Mexico, I scraped for sauce.

You’ll find a celebration of curries and spices, and black pepper too.  But you’ll also find softer flavors, like a porridge of corn, warm and sweet; and a porridge of rice, warm and buttery.

After sifting through hundreds of dishes from hundreds of restaurants (you’ll find every meal I had in 2017 accounted in this prior post), every year, I marvel at the small but fine collection with which I’m left at the end.  For the thirteenth year, I share it with you now.

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The title of each dish below is hyperlinked to a photo of that dish.  In some cases, I’ve written about the dish in a previous blog post, which is hyperlinked from either the chef or restaurant name that appears below the title.

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25. SAMLOR KHMER
(Malis; Siem Reap, Cambodia)

To call the grainy, slush of river fish a “gravy” is probably inaccurate.  But that’s how it was described.  A national dish of Cambodia, this generous bowl of warm rice noodles and “gravy” was fragrant with lemongrass and green kroeung spices that stained all of it a vibrant shade of mustard-yellow.  It was a hearty breakfast.

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24. BLACK PEPPER CRAB
(Somboon Seafood at Central Embassy; Bangkok, Thailand)

Pepper crab was one of my favorite dishes in 2016. That one was at an iconic crab house in Singapore.  This one is from an iconic crab house in Bangkok.  That one was extremely buttery, and heavy on white pepper.  This one was battered, fried, and heavy on black pepper.  Both restaurants offered a sweeter, orange-sauced version for which they are better known (tomatoey in Singapore; curried in Bangkok).  But at both, I preferred the pepper crab.

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23. LARDED PIGEON
Preserved whole orange.
(The Grill; New York, New York)

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22. CHICKEN HARA MASALA
(Himalaya; Houston, Texas)

Despite the fact that it was making me lose all sense of feeling in my face, I couldn’t stop eating this spicy, chicken curry.  But it hurt so good.  In a losing battle to fight the heat, I ate my weight in the restaurant’s delicious naan.  It was a win-win situation.

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21. LIMPIN’ SUSAN
(Sean Brock for the Synergy Series;
Spoon & Stable; Minneapolis, Minnesota)

In 2017, I had three versions of Sean Brock’s Limpin’ Susan in three different restaurants.  My favorite version is the one he served when he cooked at the Synergy Series. What he refers to as the “mistress” of Hoppin’ John (a Lowcountry dish of peas and rice), Brock’s Limpin’ Susan (a Lowcountry dish of rice and okra) features Anson Mills Nostrale rice.  There’s a touch of butter, some koji made of Carolina gold rice, and of course okra. (The other two restaurants where I had Brock’s Limpin’ Susan were his restaurant McCrady’s in Charleston, South Carolina, and at the Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena, California.)

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20. PAE PLA SALID FOO NAM YUM
(Supanniga Eating Room; Bangkok, Thailand)

The Thai have a magical way of turning non-crispy things into impossibly crispy things.  Here, leaf fish had been transformed into a crunchy pile of crumbs that was served with fresh herbs, peanuts, and spicy sour mango dressing; a punchy salad wrapped in frilly leaves of lettuce.

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19. ROASTED CABBAGE
Black cod.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

I had this dish twice, and of it, I wrote: “It appears to be a wedge of roasted celeriac.  But it’s actually a wedge of cabbage that has been interleaved with buttery black cod – both whole pieces as well as a mousse of the fish with a little bit of scallop mixed in for structure.  The molded half-domes (basically a bombe) are steamed, cooled to set, cut into wedges, and then pan-fried to give it a bit of color.  The cabbage practically melts away, leaving only bit of its sweetness behind.  All of it is so tender that, where the cabbage ends and fish begins, you can’t really tell.  It’s fantastic.”

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18. “MOLE MADRE”
Day #1314
(Pujol; Mexico City, Mexico)

Enrique Olvera’s soulful sauce is now well-over a century of days-old, deepening and brooding with flavor.  It has been on the menu at Pujol for just as long.  This was one of my favorite dishes in 2013.  Not surprisingly, it returns again.

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17. A DANISH LUNCH
(Sortebro Kro; Odense, Denmark)

I’m not sure what to call the buffet of wonderful that John Kofod Petersen serves for lunch at his cozy inn on the Danish island of Fyn.  Technically, it’s not one dish. But this magnificent spread of traditional, Danish foods does arrive at your table artfully crowded on a tray.  For my latest visit, there were pickled herring, smoked herring, fried plaice, meatballs with sauerkraut and lingonberries, beef tartare with relish, summer crayfish, and small shrimp served with all the trimmings – mayonnaise, sour cream and smoked cheese with chives, diced green apples, curried egg salad, red onions, raw egg, and potato salad. And, of course, because it’s Denmark, it comes with stacks of sliced bread and copious butter.

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16. ABALONE HUSHPUPPIES
(Christopher Kostow for The Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

Jimmy Red corn from South Carolina (courtesy of Sean Brock), abalone from the waters of the Pacific – a delicious example of culinary cross-pollination at the Twelve Days of Christmas, here born to fruit by Christopher Kostow.

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15. QUAIL
House-cured lardo, carrot, garlic-quail sauce.
(Bistro Bohème; Copenhagen, Denmark)

I so enjoy the hearty, classical French cooking of Per Thøsteson, a veteran of Paul Bocuse’s kitchen at l’Auberge du Pont de Collanges. At its best, it’s simple, hot, and delicious, like this plate of juicy quail veiled in lardo and radiating with garlic.

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14. PALOMBE
Potato purée, parsnip.
(Chez l’Ami Jean; Paris, France)

Beware the shot, they always warn when you order the (wild) wood pigeon at Stéphane Jégo’s Chez l’Ami Jean.  Aged until the meat goes waxy, the roasted bird is presented halved or quartered, legs clawing the air.  Some might find its pungent flavor offensive.  I think it’s rather perfect.

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13. ASPARAGUS CREAM
Poached eggs.
(Boulette’s Larder; San Francisco, California)

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12. CRISPY PORK SALAD
Pig skin, peanuts, herbs, and betel leaves.
(Eathai at the Central Embassy; Bangkok, Thailand)

To the left, a basket of fried pork croquettes – smashed, they disintegrated into crunchy crumbs of pork floss.  To the right, a tangle of white strips of blanched pork skin.  The two were tossed together with fresh herbs, peanuts, and a pungent dressing. The flavorful salad was served with a stack of betel leaves, used as wrappers.  I’m assuming it’s a rather traditional Thai salad, and if you know what it is called, please message me; I’d love to know.

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11. ROCKFISH SOUP
(Blaine Wetzel; Lummi Island, Washington)

The claypot of rockfish and mussels simmered and steamed on the beach as dark clouds scraped across the horizon.  A cold gale chased away the daylight, leaving us in the glow of campfire. It was the perfect night for a comforting fish stew.

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10. BLACK BEAR
(Saison; San Francisco, California)

“Bear paws or fish, one cannot have the luxury of both,” my (Chinese) dad used to say.  I’ll admit, the spectacle of a knuckled paw, unnervingly similar to a human hand, is worthy of discussion. But is it worthy eating?  Joshua Skenes made it so.  The gelatinous pad – what is actually the palm of the paw –  was joined by cuts of both bear loin and rib and served with steamed rice, pickled mustard greens, cucumbers, a gorgeous torpedo of roasted yam, and Saison’s phenomenal biscuits.  How would you describe this strange ensemble?  Like most of the dishes that emerge from Skenes’s kitchen, the only way to describe it is: extraordinary.

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9.HOMARD DE L’ÎLE
Carotte, reine des prés.
(La Marine; Noirmoutier, France)

Pretty and precious: those are the kinds of dishes I expected to find at La Marine. Instead, Alexandre Couillon surprised me with immensely flavorful cooking as well.  Buttery and tender, this fat curl of lobster tail was ringed with a colorful carousel of carrots and chard, all of it blessedly fresh and hot out of a pan.

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8. KASHMIRI MORELS
Stuffed with mushrooms with spices, and Parmesan chip.
(Manish Mehrotra for The Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

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7. STUFFED QUAIL
Stuffed with foie gras and veal, with chanterelles.
(Kong Hans Kælder; Copenhagen, Denmark)

Mark Lundgaard Nielsen has a way with just about everything he cooks. His birds show particularly well.  This deboned quail was filled with a farce of foie gras and veal, and smothered with a velvety sauce of chanterelles.

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6. AGED BEEF
Black trumpet mushrooms, nori.
(Christopher Kostow for The Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

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5. CERVELLE DE VEAU
Ginger, scallions, dashi.
(Clown Bar; Paris, France)

The gentle sting of minced scallions and ginger.  The creamy fattiness of calf brains – two lobes intact, pristine and beautiful – gently poached and quivering in a spot of dashi.  Simple, delicate, lovely.

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4. ESCALOPINES DE BAR
Á l’émincé d’artichaut, golden caviar.
(l’Ambroisie; Paris, France)

Filets of sea bass in tuxedo on a field of caviar: if you’ve had it, you’d never forget it.  Bernard Pacaud’s iconic escalopines de bar was one of my favorite dishes of 2008.  I’ve been thinking of it ever since.  And in 2017, I found it just as I did before. Exquisite.

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3. LACQUERED QUAIL
Seaweed-poached duck liver, roasted quince.
(Saison; San Francisco, California)

I had the lacquered quail at Saison a couple of times in 2017.  My favorite version was the last one, when it arrived with a roasted plaque of duck liver that was as beautifully burnished as the bird.  There were wedges of quince too, roasted until meaty and sweet.

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2. SWEET CORN PORRIDGE
Australian black truffles, brown butter.
(Kong Hans Kælder; Copenhagen, Denmark)

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1. LITTLE ABALONES
(Saison; San Francisco, California)

One rarely sees a dozen abalone tumble out of a single ladle. Grilled with wild boar fat, then stewed with seaweeds, these tiny abalone were served with little more than a concentration of their own juices.  This was Joshua Skenes at his finest, and therefore cooking at its finest.

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Photos: Lacquered quail at Saison in San Francisco, California; the latest iteration of Enrique Olvera’s “Mole Madre” at Pujol in Mexico City, Mexico; rockfish stewing in a claypot on the beaches of Lummi Island, Washington; John Kofod Petersen’s amazing spread of traditional Danish food at Sortebro Kro in Odense, Denmark; a bowl of samlor Khmer at Malis in Siem Reap, Cambodia; pae pla salid foo nam yum at Supanniga Eating Room in Bangkok, Thailand; poached eggs with asparagus cream at Boulette’s Larder in San Francisco; bear paw and parts in a pot at Saison, San Francisco; Christopher Kostow’s aged beef with nori and black trumpet mushrooms on the pass at The Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena, California; Bernard Pacaud’s escalopines de bar at l’Ambroisie in Paris, France; sweet corn porridge blanketed with Australian black truffles at Kong Hans Kælder in Copenhagen, Denmark.

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Plums, ashen from the hearth, bleeding into gauzy muslin.

Figs, syrupy and charred, nestled in a flakey frame.

Saffron suspended in a milky cloud glinting with gold.

And apricots, fleshy and warm, hugged in a doughy crust, with ice cream beside; a slice of the great American songbook.

These are just a few of my sweetest moments in 2017.

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In past years, I’ve used this post as an opportunity to record my observations about pastryland at large.  This year, I find very little to add to what I’ve already written in the past. By and large, the desserts I saw in 2017 still seem to fall into one of three camps that I described last year.

Much of what I find in restaurants remains overwrought.  I favor simplicity – a running theme here.  And sadly for me, simplicity is not the focus of many pastry kitchens right now.  As a result, in 2016, I found fewer desserts that merited mention and trimmed my annual list of favorites down to ten.

A more targeted approach to eating in 2017, however, yielded better results.  This year, I include 15 of my favorite desserts. But before I get to them, there are a few other notes from the sweeter part of my year in eating that I’d like to record first.

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In 2017, I continued to spend an increasing amount of my time in coffee shops.  Not only do I rely on them as a workplace when traveling, but I also use them for a quick pulse of a neighborhood or city – a subject my friends and I explore in Drift Magazine.  And I like that.

I need to devote an entire blog post to coffee shops.  But, in keeping with the subject of this one, for now, I will focus on the pastries that I found in them. As in 2016, most of what I saw in 2017 was pretty mediocre.  For better or worse, food in coffee shops – especially in America – remain an afterthought.  But, I’ve found a few exceptions and exemplars that deserve to be mentioned.

In 2017,  I returned to many of the places where I’ve had great experiences before – like Fuglen in Oslo, where I had kanelboller, a giant knot of sweet bread laced with cinnamon; or Boot Café in Paris, for its dark scones; and the café at 108 in Copenhagen, where its tidy selection of viennoiserie included a beautifully burnished fist of sheeted dough stained deep-purple with a tart glaze of aronia berries. It was terrific.

In 2016, I shared my excitement for Taylor Petrehn’s baked goods at 1900 Barker in Lawrence, Kansas.  I do so again this year.  Everything in his case – croissants, danishes, cookies – continues to be consistently excellent.  Monarch, a new coffee shop in Kansas City, where I spend a lot of my time, has started to carry some of Petrehn’s goods as well.

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I found new places worth noting as well.

I don’t know if it’s the best new bakery in America (this, according to one magazine), but I found the croissants at Arsicault in San Francisco’s Richmond district to be very good.  The kouign amann, in particular, was great.  If you’re in the neighborhood, it’s definitely worth a visit (although, given how long the lines have been, perhaps not).

Kansas Citians rejoiced at the opening of the new Messenger Coffee shop downtown late in the year.  The capacious, three-story production facility houses the roastery for Messenger Coffee and its sister business Ibis Bakery (formerly headquartered in Lenexa, Kansas – I mentioned it last year), with plenty of customer seating throughout.  Setting aside the impressive, industrial space and design for a moment (the interior was designed by the same firm that created Sightglass Coffee’s flagship on 7th Street in San Francisco), the bread and viennoiserie – everything from croissants and pain au chocolat to goat cheese bear claws, fruit danishes, and impossibly flakey turnovers – that Ibis Bakery makes and sells here is excellent.

I returned again, and again to The Bachelor Farmer Café in Minneapolis, which I have written about before.  But, in 2017, I was particularly excited to see the opening of Gavin Kaysen’s brasserie Bellecour in the suburb of Wayzata, where pastry chef Diane Yang is producing a stunning array of French goodies for the beautiful bakery and café up front: shortbreads, madeleines, frangipane, crêpe cakes, macarons, and a variety of sheeted dough and pâte á choux pastries, like éclairs and paris-brest.

David Beuhrer grew up in a predominantly Veitnamese neighborhood in Houston. He worked in the doughnut shops there, which were mostly owned and operated by immigrants. Having learned the craft, he now serves excellent doughnuts – along with a surprisingly robust menu of food – at his coffee shop Morningstar.  I’m not usually keen on doughnuts, but his dark chocolate-glazed old fashioned had me smiling.  If you’re in Houston, you’ve got to go.

And, in Paris, I finally made it to du Pain et des Idées.  I wrote about it in this, earlier post.

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I had excellent churros in 2017.

In Houston, I had Jalisco-style “churros gordos” at The Big Event, an annual fundraiser for the Big Brothers & Sisters of Texas (the couple who made these churros serve and sell them out of their food truck called “Churros Gordos“).  These giant, dough-based churros had a considerably gruffer appearance and texture than the ones I’m used to seeing. Akin to Chineseyoutiao, they were snipped into shorter strips and slathered with cajeta.

In Mexico City, my friends Adam Goldberg and Daniela Velasco and I visited El Morro Churrería for Drift Magazine (vol. 6). These long, thin strips of extruded dough, dusted with cinnamon sugar, were the kind of street churros with which I am more familiar. Delicate and light, they disintegrate if you look at them the wrong way.  We ordered them with hot chocolate.  El Morro Churrería also makes ice cream sandwiches, sold as “Conseulos,” using small rounds of tightly coiled churros that are fried stiffer. Even still, they’re not the easiest things to eat.

For an impromptu lunch at Pujol, Enrique Olvera asked for churros to be made for us. Like the churros at El Morro, his version was golden-brown on the outside, and hot and melty within; perfect with a cup of coffee.

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I never fail to mention pie in this annual post.  It’s one of my favorite food groups.

In 2017, I hit all my favorite spots.  Rye (which has since opened a second location in Kansas City on the Country Club Plaza) remains my go-to spot at home.  Megan Garrelts’s crusts are terrific.  If I could only convince her to keep the coconut cream pie on the menu year-round…

I also made it back to Duarte’s Tavern in sleepy Pescadero, California.  My friends and I hit the sweet spot: both apricot and ollalieberry were in season.  They are my two favorite pies I’ve had there.

In Kansas City, I love the icebox pies at Town Topic, which I’ve mentioned before.  Diner pie, like the ones served there, is its own, beloved creature.  At its best, it’s sloppy and good – and often oversized.  That’s the kind of dreamboat slices they serve at Dot Coffee in Houston, a 24-hour diner and ground zero of the Pappas empire of restaurants. Whether filled with ginormous, ruby-red strawberries or key lime custard, the enormous wedges arrive suffocating under a thick cloud of whipped cream.

I never fail to mention ice cream here either.

In Southeast Asia, I delighted in coconut ice cream, a personal favorite, on a daily basis. I found it at stands and stalls, and in restaurants.

On a sunny day in Oslo, I stopped at Gutten På Haugen for a cone of softis, or soft serve.  The vanilla twirl was rolled in lakris (licorice) powder, a Scandinavian favorite.

And on a stormy night in the San Juan Islands, Blaine Wetzel served me homemade black walnut ice cream. I loved it. I grew up eating black walnut ice cream in the Midwest, and it remains a nostalgic trigger for me as an adult.

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My favorite desserts from 2017 range from the exotic to the ordinary.  Most of them are extremely simple – rice pudding with granola, for example, or ice cream with caramel.  But for the excellent ingredients and craftsmanship employed, they would have been unremarkable.

You’ll find a lot of fruit on this year’s list. In fact, four of my five favorite desserts showcase fruit.

And you’ll find a lot of repetition (or, consistency?). Four of this year’s desserts have been among my favorites in previous years. A solid third of this year’s 15 desserts came out of the same kitchen – although by five different chefs.  And three entries in the top six are by one chef.  As I said in my post about my favorite dishes from 2017, if you know what and where I like to eat, you won’t be surprised by these recurrences.  They represent the sentiments and standards to which I gravitate.

But that is not to say I didn’t consider a wide field of desserts.  As in previous years, I still visited hundreds of restaurants around the world, both high and low.  And after years of eating at this rate, I’ve figured out what I like and will seek it unapologetically.  You’ll find 15 excellent examples of it below.

[The title of each dish below is hyperlinked to a photo of that dish.  In some cases, I’ve written about the dish in a previous blog post, which is hyperlinked from either the chef or restaurant name that appears below the title.]

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15. RIZ O’LAIT
“Confiture de lait” and housemade brittle
(Chez l’Ami Jean; Paris, France)

Stephane Jégo’s celebrated rice pudding returns to this list again this year.  It has been described and mentioned on this blog before.

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14. DURIAN AND STICKY RICE
(Nahm; Bangkok, Thailand)

You have to like durian to like this dessert. The pungent, creamy fruit was served with sticky rice and a sweetened cream infused with durian.  All of it was served warm, which only magnified the strong flavor and aroma.

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13. SUNCHOKE
Pear ice cream, cardamaro caramel.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

Christopher Kostow credits cook Ali Matteis with this smart dessert that played with the texture of pear and sunchoke, blurring the line between them.

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12. BEESWAX CUSTARD
Last summer’s stone fruits.
(Ben Sukle for The Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

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11. SET BUTTERMILK
Pineapple guava, strawberry eucalyptus.
(Jock Zonfrillo for The Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

The gelatin-set buttermilk had an almost fluffy, marshmallow texture. Its milkiness helped give the alluring fragrance of pineapple guava (juice) and Australian strawberry eucalyptus (oil) some body.

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10. ESPRESSO GRANITA
(Zuni Café; San Francisco, California)

I never take sugar with espresso. And I generally don’t like desserts that mix icy things with milky things.  But here, you have all of that in one, small cup.  And it’s perfect. I order this punchy pick-me-up of chipped espresso ice layered with velvety crème Chantilly every time I go to Zuni Café.

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9. BLACKBERRY-LIME CLAFOUTIS
Egg ice cream.
(The Charter Oak; St. Helena, California)

How could something so eggy, so custardy, also taste so juicy?  Not unlike Stephen Harris’s green apple soufflé, which topped my list of favorite desserts in 2014, this beautiful clafoutis, studded with giant blackberries, was bursting with crisp acidity.  Served with a soft turn of egg ice cream, it was a perfect, summer dessert.

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8. TARTE FINE SABLÉE
La glace à l vanille Bourbon.
(l’Ambroisie; Paris, France)

Perhaps the most expensive dessert I’ve ever had (it was the equivalent of $50 when I first had it in 2008, when the USD was particularly low), I happily paid the price of admission to have it again in 2017. There have been entire threads on the internet dedicated to figuring out how to replicate Bernard Pacaud’s famous tarte. The dark chocolate filling is impossibly light – like a warm mousse – and the shell impossibly thin. Beside the dark and moody wedge, a quenelle of ice cream nearly brown with vanilla seeds.  As our server said, it really is the only dessert you should be ordering at l’Ambroisie.

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7. MAKHAN MALAI SAFFRON MILK
(Manish Mehrortra for The Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

Indian chef Manish Mehrortra served his version of a traditional dessert of his hometown of Dehli.  In the past, Dehliites would let milk cream sit outside overnight to collect the morning dew.  The cream would be whipped into a cloud light enough to “vanish as soon as you put it in your mouth.”  In Mehrotra’s version, the  cream was infused with saffron and dressed with jaggery (palm sugar) brittle and gold leaf.

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6. MILK ICE CREAM
Smoked caramel; smoked cocao nibs;
candied pecans, pine nuts, and peanuts.
(Saison; San Francisco, California)

Making an appearance among my favorite desserts for a third year in a row, Joshua Skenes’s simple, smoked “sundae” remains a highlight.  [This dessert was among my favorite desserts in both 2015, when it topped the list, and in 2016.]

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5. PLUMS
Pulque.
(Pujol; Mexico City, Mexico)

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4. STRAWBERRY FOOL
Rhubarb, crème Chantilly.
(Boulette’s Larder; San Francisco, California)

Strawberries and cream: What more do you need?  Of course, leave it up to Amaryll Schwertner at Boulette’s Larder to make a particularly great version of it.

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3. PLUM
(Saison; San Francisco, California)

Joshua Skenes served this fleshy fruit three ways: macerated, grilled, and fresh.

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2. “CHRISTMAS PRESENT”
Caviar ice cream, white truffles, and olive oil.
(Yoshiaki Takazawa for The Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

I know. It sounds horrible.

Japanese chef Yoshiaki Takazawa swirled caviar into sweet cream ice cream, and served it with olive oil and shaved white truffles. I think everyone at this dinner was surprised by just how magical this dessert turned out to be; an unexpected crossroads of meaty, milky, sweet, and grassy.

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1.PINEAPPLE
Smoked ice cream, pineapple juice.
(Saison; San Francisco, California)

This beautifully burnished pineapple, roasted and glazed on the hearth, arrived whole.  The caramelized meat was carved off, sliced, and then served with milk ice cream and a syrupy reduction of pineapple juice.  The international symbol of hospitality, at Saison, the pineapple becomes a masterpiece of refinement.

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Photos: Plums, ashen, from the hearth at Saison in San Francisco, California; churros at El Morro Churrería in Mexico City, Mexico; aronia berry-glazed pastry at 108 in Copenhagen, Denmark; a chocolate-swirl croissant at the Bakery at the Plaza Athenée in Bangkok, Thailand; a “fall turnover” and a cortado on the counter in the morning sun at Messenger Coffee in Kansas City, Missouri; dark chocolate-glazed old fashioned doughnut at Morningstar in Houston, Texas; Churros Gordos at the Big Event in Houston, Texas; a large coil of churros at Pujol in Mexico City, Mexico; black walnut ice cream on Lummi Island, Washington; slices of pie at Duarte’s Tavern in Pescadero, California; durian with sticky rice at Nahm in Bangkok, Thailand; “Sunchoke,” a dessert at The Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena, California; the tarte fine sable at l’Ambroisie in Paris, France; espresso granita at Zuni Café in San Francisco, California; plums and pulque at Pujol in Mexico City, Mexico; pineapples roasting on the hearth at Saison in San Francisco, California.

It’s no secret that I have been an unamused critic of restaurant lists and ratings.  Much of food media has succumbed to the pressures of collecting clicks, sponsorships, and advertisement.  And sensationalism sells.  So, to reach the widest audience, they cast the widest net.  As a result, lists and ratings rarely reward craftsmanship, originality, quality of cooking, or professionalism.  No, that’s boring. Instead, they reward diversity – geographic and demographic. They reward those with a large social media presence.  And they reward the ones who will play along.

For years, I have been calling for chefs to reject and resist these influences, not only to preserve their own careers, but the craft to which they have dedicated their lives.  Of course, this is a risky move, and a long-game approach, which is why, understandably, few have done so openly.  But the collective inaction is finally coming home to roost.

Earlier this week, the Michelin Guide released its 2018 ratings for Scandinavia, a region that now encompasses the northern European countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.  In this guide, Frantzén, located in Stockholm, Sweden, was elevated to three stars.  This now means that Denmark, Norway, and Sweden each have one three-starred restaurant.

I have eaten at Björn Frantzén’s restaurant once – in 2014 – before he moved it to its current location last year.  My meal was very good – excellent technique, and generally delicious.  Björn Frantzén is clearly a very talented chef. That is why I find it especially bizarre that, since his restaurant reopened, there have been widespread whispers and snickers among the restaurant industry – cooks, chefs, and others afraid to openly say what everyone is thinking – that dishes coming out of the new Frantzén kitchen looked suspiciously like copies of well-known dishes from other top-rated restaurants from around the world.

I didn’t believe these rumors until I saw photographs of some of the dishes myself. Here’s one example posted by Frantzén’s current executive chef Marcus Jernmark (who was chef at Aquavit in New York City when I last visited the restaurant in 2013): a “Rubiks cube” of confections that has an uncanny resemblance to the more well-known version by French pastry chef Cedric Grolet (of le Meurice).  There were many other examples, some of which I know well from having eaten and photographed the original versions, especially dishes at Saison in San Francisco.

I’ve eaten around the block enough to know that the restaurant industry – ever-shrinking and globalized by social media – is full of recycled ideas and inspirations.  But there’s a difference  between being inspired and plagiarizing.  I use the word “plagiarize” here deliberately.  Making a tribute to an icon is one thing – Marco Pierre White attributed his famous stuffed glove of trotter to his mentor Pierre Koffman, naming him on his menu along with the dish: “Pigs Trotter ‘Pierre Koffman.'”  Plagiarism is taking another’s idea and passing it off as one’s own.  Without a further explanation, that is what appears to be happening at Frantzén.

I have a hard time believing that Frantzén is doing this maliciously, or to purposely to defraud its customers.  If it is, then I ask of those chefs: for whom are you cooking?  The 99% who are unlikely to know what you are doing, or the 1% who cares enough to know?  In my own craft, I have never aimed to be well-liked or popular (clearly). Rather, as a craftsman, my aim has always been to earn the respect of those whom I respect. If I were a chef, I would be cooking for that 1% who cares enough to know.

Perhaps that kitchen believes it’s own variations on these iconic dishes sufficiently differentiate them from the originals.  If so, they have a lot of explaining to do to overcome the great weight of evidence against them. Whatever the case may be, if the folks at Frantzén can sleep with themselves at night, then I’m not going to prosecute them further.  Simply put, the 1% won’t take the restaurant seriously. And based on my meal in 2014, I know that the 99% will not be disappointed.  [Frantzén would certainly not be the first Michelin-starred restaurant where I have found copies without attribution.]

My primary complaint here is with the Michelin Guide.  Its inspectors are supposed to be the 1%.  They have the most reference points for eating.  They should know better.

Michelin claims that it is only concerned with the quality of cooking on the plate, and nothing else.  I don’t know why the guide continues to assert this lie, as it is plainly untrue – service and decor certainly factor into the ratings.  And, if you ask me, based on their ratings in the United States – especially in the San Francisco and Chicago guides – one wonders if the food on the plate factors into the evaluation at all.

Let’s assume it’s true. If Michelin is only in the business of rating what’s on the plate and nothing else, then why should it be expected to referee culinary provenance?  Shouldn’t it only be concerned with the quality of the cooking that is set down before its inspectors?

Would you apply that logic to a professor who catches a student plagiarizing?  If the student gives a brilliant response to an exam question, should the professor care whether or not the student came up with the answer herself?  If you are in the business of evaluating, scoring, and rating others, of course you should care about origination.  It’s not fair to the other students who put forth original effort to be displaced by someone with lesser scruples. It debases the value of the score, and insults the intelligence and efforts of those who are undermined because of it.

If I were a chef in Scandinavia right now, I’d be looking at the Michelin Guide with wary eyes.  By awarding Frantzén three Michelin stars, the Michelin Guide has devalued the worth of its stars in that region.  Why should any chef aspire to the top rating if it merely means that a chef can replicate precisely what others have accomplished already?

The guide’s criteria for awarding three stars is “exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey.”  Perhaps Michelin justifies this award to Frantzén because, with this one special journey to Stockholm, one can eat a collection of Michelin three-starred plates from around the world.  But in so doing, Michelin is putting its most-coveted stamp of approval on a collection of very good, but very obvious forgeries.

No thanks.

Michelin earns a vote of no confidence from me.

[Editor’s Postscript]  At the risk of being Trumpian here, I note that in the week since I published this post I have received many messages and emails, the vast majority of which thank me for saying aloud what so many are unwilling or, for professional reasons, unable.  Surprisingly, few have questioned or disagreed with my allegations and reasoning.  Those who have dissented have done so civilly and articulately. They raise a point that I would like to acknowledge and address in this postscript. They are right: cooking and the evaluation of food are highly subjective fields. And that makes attribution difficult, if not impossible to determine.  In the realm of artistry, imitation – even if unintended – is unavoidable (wasn’t it Salvador Dalí who famously quipped “those who do not want to imitate anything produce nothing”?). They questioned why I singled out Frantzén among the many chefs who serve dishes that are widely reproduced with no credit to origination.  For the most part, I found their examples weak, if not absurd – dishes or concepts so old, their provenances so obscured by time that they’ve become accepted as a part of the culinary vernacular of a culture.  Unfortunately for those who first created the xiao long bao, for example, they will never get credit for their idea.  Therefore, Corey Lee, chef of benu in San Francisco, has no one to cite on his menu for his version of this iconic, Shanghainese dumpling.  Analogizing Lee’s xiao long bao to any one of Frantzén’s copies of dishes served by his contemporaries is absurd.  More compelling were more-traceable examples, like “sea urchin toast,” recently made recognizable by Joshua Skenes at Saison. Of course, before Skenes, there was Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who served sea urchin on black bread with jalapeño and yuzu, which I had at his flagship restaurant in New York as early as 2005 (although it certainly predates my first encounter). But other than sea urchin and bread, the similarities between the Skenes and Vongerichten versions are very few.  I won’t bother explaining or describing  them. To anyone who has had both, I think the differences in flavor, aesthetic, purpose, and spirit are quite clear.*  These are important factors in determining whether attribution is due.  Again, this is admittedly subjective territory.  I won’t deny that there exists a grey area in between plagiarism and inspiration. In the last month alone, I’ve had two versions of what can best be described as sea urchin on a tater tot (one at Aubergine in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California and another at Canlis in Seattle, Washington), and have seen a third version of it (served at Manresa in Los Gatos, California). At a quick glance, they look awfully like a miniature version of Skenes’s sea urchin toast.  But upon further inspection, the flavor and texture are colorably different.  Whether or not these versions of sea urchin served on something golden-brown and crunchy were inspired by Skenes’s sea urchin toast, and who actually originated this tater tot version – which seems to have been replicated with uncanny similarity at three different restaurants on the West Coast (and possibly others) – is surely debatable. Ultimately, I am not interested in rummaging around in these grey areas anyway, although these examples certainly don’t endear me to the social media-driven culinary scene either.  But the clean and the grey shouldn’t detract from the fact that plagiarism is being committed and rewarded at the very highest levels of the restaurant industry.  And with regard to it, I ascribe to Stewart Potter’s simple and instinctual test.  Faced with defining something that is far more observable than quantifiable – in his case, establishing a threshold test for obscenity, or pornography (Jacobellis v. Ohio) – the former Supreme Court justice famously said: “I know it when I see it.”  When it comes to plagiarism, I find the similarities between Frantzén’s dishes and those of his contemporaries to run afoul under the Potter test.  You are, of course, free to see it differently.

* While a student at the French Culinary Institute, Skenes worked briefly for Jean-Georges Vongerichten at Vong in New York City.

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In 2017, my most exciting destinations had little to do with food.

That’s not to say that I didn’t have any good food.  Rather, finding good food wasn’t my priority.  So, there are no dark horses for me to champion this year; no surprises to report.  You’ll find no exciting news here.

On the bright side, the tried remained true.  I continued to eat very well where I have eaten well before.  And that consistency and reliability is rewarding.

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I realize that finding the same handful of restaurants being celebrated in this annual post, year after year, may be boring. (You’d probably be able to guess my favorite meals based on my favorite dishes and desserts of 2017 anyway.) But since I make this annual commemoration more for myself than you (the fact that I’m publishing it at all – especially now, two months into the new year – is a sign of my personal commitment to the exercise), I, quite simply, don’t care.  You’re free to skip it altogether.  I wouldn’t blame you.

However, before I get on with the quick and brief list of my favorite restaurant meals of 2017, I want to make note of one particularly bad meal I had last year.

Those who have read this blog for years know that I do not make a habit of maligning  restaurants unnecessarily or maliciously.  And, while I wish to avoid doing so, the absurdities of our present, culinary industry make honest criticism not only unavoidable for me, but imperative.  Keep in mind that most of what I offer here is opinion.  And, as much as I am able, I try to share what I believe to be well-informed and well-reasoned opinions.

With that in mind, I eagerly go on record here to say that my dinner at Gaggan (located in Bangkok, Thailand) in September of 2017 was one of the worst meals I’ve ever had, and certainly the worst meal I’ve had in the last half decade.

I take full responsibility for foolishly walking into the restaurant not knowing anything about it.  This is one instance where my desire to experience restaurants with as little prejudice as possible completely backfired. Had I an inkling of how horrifying the experience would be, I would not have gone.  I’m too old and have suffered through too many bad meals for that.

What unfolded was a gimmicky, 25-course “emoji menu” (it’s what you think it is – every course based on an emoji symbol), most of which I would describe as bad, some of it inedible.  If you’re going to make me lick my plate – inspired by the KISS song “Lick It Up,” which the restaurant played during this course, it was served to us without utensils – at least make the food worth licking. The dung-colored mushroom purée was cold.

Most of the courses, like the oversized wasabi-yuzu “Minion” popsicles (yes, based on the jaundiced, goggle-eyed creatures from the Despicable Me series, which has since spawned their own franchise) were so bad they weren’t even cute or fun.   At every turn, cleverness was chosen over flavor and quality of cooking.  This is fundamentally repugnant to me and, needless to say, this is not the way I like to eat.  At best, it’s childish dinner theater, perhaps more-appropriate for a themed birthday party for ten year-olds.

Gaggan is currently ranked number one on the “Asia 50 Best Restaurants” list.  That’s a damning indictment against the voters in that system. Notwithstanding the millennia of culinary history of the Asian people, this is the height and hope of their culinary achievement today?  If this isn’t deeply insulting to chefs all over Asia, at the very least, it’s insulting to me as an Asian-American, who was raised by proud immigrants with deep, culinary traditions. Lest you misunderstand me, I’m not saying that recognition in Asia should be narrowly limited to restaurants serving traditional, Asian food.  I’m saying that (1) the very premise of assigning the title of “best” to any restaurant is absurd (this is hardly a new complaint from me); and shame on the media for perpetuating this insulting claim – please stop referring to Gaggan as the “Best Restaurant in Asia” as if that were fact, or even a universally held opinion (capitalizing the “B”(est) and “R”(estaurant) doesn’t make it better); and more to the point, (2) even if I were to accept that premise, Gaggan is far from the “best” of anything, in Asia or elsewhere.

I believe that restaurant critics should, above all, be consumer advocates.  To what end do they critique if not to acknowledge and reward the good and warn and dissuade from the bad?  I am not a restaurant critic in the formal, journalistic sense of that term.  But to the extent that I have eaten at more restaurants than most professional critics, and generally use my little podium here on the interwebs to advocate for the places I think consumers should be consuming, I will step out of my cheerleader outfit for a moment to insert this caveat emptor: Regarding Gaggan – which the chef Gaggan Anand has announced will be closing in 2020 (he’s relocating to Fukuoka, Japan) – you have been warned.

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As in 2015, this year I’ve chosen to recognize five restaurants that gave me the most pleasure in eating. I have been to all five restaurants more than once in my life, and in 2017 alone, I visited two of them multiple times.

Like last year, I make my disclaimer brief and simple: I paid for meals at three of the five restaurants below.  The remaining meals were either gifted to me, or included in photographic work that I did for the restaurant. As well, my long-standing friendship with a few of these chefs is well-documented and disclosed on this blog.  This kind of transparency is important.

For the tenth year, I record here my favorite meals of the (preceding) year, listed alphabetically by the name of the restaurants.  [Here is a list of all of the restaurants that I visited in 2017.  Clicking on the names of the restaurants listed below will take you to an album of photos from that meal.]

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L’AMBROISIE
(Paris, France)

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There are few places like l’Ambroisie, and fewer chefs like Bernard Pacaud left in our world. I wrote about my dinner here in 2017 in this earlier post about my trip to Paris.  If you can, go.

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THE CHARTER OAK
(St. Helena, California)

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I ate at The Charter Oak five, maybe six times in 2017 (the restaurant opened in June of that year).  I relied on it so many times for a convenient weekend dinner during the Twelve Days of Christmas that I lost count.  It’s not fancy, but it’s very good.  In the summertime, there were juicy slabs of tomatoes on thick slices of housemade bread paved with butter; sweet corn grilled on the hearth; and a terrific blackberry-lime clafoutis.  In the wintertime (which might as well have been summer to this Midwesterner), I had giant spiny lobster served with garlicky “babka,” and a shameless number of the restaurant’s double-decker burgers.  To the extent that a restaurant can earn my favor through consistently high-quality cooking, The Charter Oak, under chef Katiana Hong, did so effortlessly.  Napa desperately needed a restaurant like this.

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THE CLOWN BAR
(Paris, France)

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What will become of The Clown Bar now that chef Sota Atsumi has left?  I’m thankful to have had one more meal there with him in the kitchen (you can read about my lunch there in October in this prior post about my latest trip to Paris).  I look forward to experiencing his cooking when and where he reappears.

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KONG HANS KÆLDER
(Copenhagen, Denmark)

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There’s nothing I can say about this very special restaurant that I haven’t already said before.  Under Mark Lundgaard Nielsen, Kong Hans Kælder is a renaissance of cooking.

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SAISON
(San Francisco, California)

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I had five dinners at Saison in 2017, and the least of them bested the best elsewhere. For the eighth year in a row, Joshua Skenes’s restaurant remains among the very best of what I get to experience in dining.

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I bring forward a few items from previous years on my annual bucket list.  And to them, I add a few new entries.

BUCKET LIST

I traveled to five new countries last year: Cambodia, South Africa, Thailand, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, bringing the total number of countries I’ve visited to 47.  In 2018, I’d like to bring the total up to 50.  I’m taking a serious look at the three Baltic states (Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania) – if you have recommendations, please send them.  As well, I bring forward a number of destinations I’ve mentioned before:  Russia (St. Petersburg), India, Colombia, Peru, and Scotland; to which I add New Zealand, Vietnam, South Korea., and the Faroe Islands, a Danish protectorate in the North Atlantic.  I’ve not been to any of them.

By all indices, the American economy is going gangbusters.  And there doesn’t seem to be an end to the boom in sight. Paradoxically, this means the U.S. Dollar is sliding abroad.  If this continues, our gentle giant to the north – Canada – where the American Greenback is still holding strong, will be a more attractive destination in 2018.  It’s been a few years since my last trip there.

Out of the 50 United States, Alaska, alone, still remains unvisited.  I am eager for any worthwhile destinations and restaurants there.

In France, I still have yet to visit Olivier Rollinger’s les Maisons de Bricourt in Cancale; and Régis Marcon’s self-named Régis & Jacques Marcon in Saint-Bonnet-le-Froid.  Also, I’m seriously considering a trip to La Maison Troisgros in Roanne.

At the southern tip of Sweden, Daniel Berlin Krog in Skåne-Tranås remains unvisited.

On the north coast of Spain, Elkano, which has eluded me on two trips, remains a priority.

Italy has always intimidated me with its tangle of culinary hyper-regionality.  I’ve been many times, but have barely scratched the surface.  Perhaps its time I finally dive in and explore.  I know I’ll love it.

Here at home, I feel like I’ve exhausted my options.  Few destinations in the United States entice.  What’s new and good?  Recommendations are welcomed.

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Photos: A sprawl of table under the awning at The Clown Bar in Paris, France; the hearth at The Charter Oak in St. Helena, California; wine service at Kong Hans Kælder in Copenhagen, Denmark; carving antelope table side at Saison in San Francisco, California; lobster with a sauce of anise at l’Ambroisie in Paris, France; a giant, spiny lobster at The Charter Oak in St. Helena, California; calf brains in dashi at The Clown Bar in Paris, France; a glazed donut and chocolate, petits fours at Kong Hans Kælder in Copenhagen, Denmark; monkfish at Saison in San Francisco, California.

It’s not enough to land the fly in the right spot.  The fly has to alight convincingly.  At the slightest hint of mischief or deceit, the fish won’t bite.  The art of fly fishing – from the craft of “tying” flies and lures, to deploying them successfully – is a sophisticated game of hide-and-seek.

Be it fisher or hunter, success is determined by how well prey is fooled.  And because of this, since time immemorial, the survival of man has hinged on convincing artifice.

In restaurant vernacular, the word “soulless” is commonly used to describe a restaurant, or more specifically, the food at the restaurant. Even though most understand what it means, in this usage, the word is abstract. Attempts to explain or define this word in this context have been unsatisfying.  Approximations like “uninteresting” and “emotionless” are equally abstract and inadequate.

For more than a decade, I have struggled to quantify this concept of “soullessness.”  What are the specific and enumerable aspects of food and cooking that make it “soulless”?

A recent meal sparked a renewed consideration of this issue.

By any measure, this multi-course dinner was flawless.  The technique was sophisticated. The cooking was precise. The food was not only flavorful, but the flavors were complex as well.  And all of it was beautifully presented.  On paper (or described here), it merited all of the accolades the chef and restaurant have received.  And yet, it was forgettable, uninteresting… soulless.

Scrutinizing the menu the next day, I realized something that was plainly obvious – about that dinner, and countless other “soulless” meals – that I hadn’t isolated about food before.  Nearly all of the dishes had been plated in such a way to ensure that I’d get a taste of everything in each bite.  There was a uniformity to the way the food was arranged, with an even distribution of ingredients, sauce, and garnishes throughout.  Herbs were tweezered to cover every inch of the plate at even intervals, vegetables were shingled with perfect symmetry.  No matter how you cut or spooned it, you’d get equal proportions of everything.

That is not how humans naturally experience food.

Normally, flavors and textures are experienced in mosaic. No two slices of pizza are likely to have all of the toppings in the same proportion. Even within a slice, the distribution is patchy.  One twirl of pasta may have more sauce, more tang; the next may have more meat, more cheese.  Salads present endless patterns.

This uneven journey through a dish is not only how humans normally experience food, but it keeps us motivated to continue the journey until we’ve collected as many pieces of the puzzle as possible.

When this isn’t the case, we get bored (at least I do).  If the second bite is no different from the first or third, why continue?  I’m not learning anything new. This repetition not only makes the food “uninteresting,” but it’s a manipulative attempt to control the way we experience food.  It’s not a genuine, human experience.  I think that’s why “soullessness” is often used interchangeably with “emotionless.”

Trout and deer aren’t the only animals sensitive to artifice. Humans are too.  As animals, we’re instinctually adept at seeing and sensing it.  Manmade objects, however small, stick out on an otherwise beautiful landscape – an electric pole, a fence, a candy wrapper in the distance.  No matter how clever the camouflage, plumbing and vents in aquariums are hard to hide. Inevitably, they become a distraction in an otherwise, magical diorama of the underwater world.

I’ll allow that some are more bothered by artifice than others.  And I’ll also concede that this kind of artifice may not entirely encompass the meaning of “soullessness” when it comes to food and cooking (for example, knowing that something is copied from a prior pioneer may yield a similar verdict).  But it gets me a lot closer to articulating what I mean when I use the term.

Perhaps I’m more animalistic or primal than most when it comes to eating.  To those who know me, it’ll come as no surprise that I have a low tolerance for artifice in cooking; a thin quantum of soulless.  It’s not that modernist cooking can’t be flavorful, or that modernist plating doesn’t represent a legitimate form of craftsmanship and artistry, with highly sophisticated techniques.  Rather, much of my distaste for modernist cooking and plating comes down to the artifice that is common to it.

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According to the year-end travel summaries and stats issued annually by my airline of choice, San Francisco has been my most-frequent destination for the past four years.  And yet, I rarely mention the city on this blog.

I’ve written about eating in cities like New York, Copenhagen, Paris, Kansas City (where I get my mail), Tokyo, San Sebastian, among many other far-flung destinations around the globe, like the Laplands of Sweden, the Auvergne of France, and the ever-exotic and alluring Bentonville, Arkansas.  But I’ve never dedicated a post to the city where I have spent the majority of my time recently.  And, just off the heels of editing the latest  issues of Drift Magazine (vol. 7) and Ambrosia Magazine (vol. 5), in which we explore the coffee and food cultures, respectively, of the San Francisco Bay Area, I think it’s time I do.

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Is anyone else getting panicky about the restaurant scene in San Francisco?

From personal observations mixed with conversations I’ve had with chefs, cooks, and restaurateurs, it seems the market is oversaturated.  In the last half decade, San Francisco has seen a spike in restaurant openings, especially in the mid-tier.  The city now crowds with so many options that I can’t help but wonder whether the talent pool can keep apace.

The problem isn’t attracting cooks to kitchens in the city.  The eagerness and mobility among the rising generation of young cooks may be the industry’s one saving grace. And if there’s a culinary beacon in America to which they should flock right now, it’s San Francisco.

Rather, the issue is whether these restaurants can afford to pay cooks enough to live in San Francisco, which has now displaced New York as the city with the highest cost of living in the country.  To a Midwesterner, who is accustomed to sprawling lawns, multiple-car garages, and square footage to spare, San Francisco is breathtakingly expensive.  I can’t imagine living there on a respectable salary, let along on a cook’s wages.

And yet, restaurants keep opening.  It doesn’t help that the Michelin Guide has started doling out stars like it’s the Oprah Winfrey Christmas giveaway. Who wouldn’t want a part of the action?  (Even the State of Utah has been awarded three stars by the once-prestigious guide.)  One hundred seventy years ago, it was the great California Gold Rush, now, it’s the great restaurant rush.

As you can probably guess, I think a lot of it is senseless noise.

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Before going further, let me disabuse you of a myth. While it’s true that I photograph for Saison, and have a handful of meals there every year – which, I am well-aware, amounts to more times than the average person will eat at Saison in their lifetime – Saison is not an everyday experience for me.  Neither is Saison the only restaurant in the San Francisco Bay Area with which I work and have worked.  There are many, stretching from Aubergine down in Carmel-by-the-Sea all the way up to The Restaurant at Meadowood in Napa Valley.

In my relatively narrow field of work (as a photographer), proximity often translates to frequency.  So, it may appear that I prefer to spend my time at the handful of restaurants with which I am professionally associated – or worse: that I actively promote them for financial benefit.  The latter I flatly deny and find insulting.

Of course, there is no way for me to completely dispel the skepticism that, understandably, arises from the blurred lines of professional coziness.  And even if I could, I’m not sure I would.  As someone who advocates for mindful consumption, I hope my followers continue to question my motives and integrity.

As to the former – the perception that I prefer to spend my time and resources with the chefs for whom I photograph (and their restaurants) – I not only admit it, but do so enthusiastically. Proximity and frequency are, undoubtedly, the best perquisites of choosing to work with those who I believe to be the very best at what they do. And I am so very lucky to have the opportunity to do so.

That being said, social media is a distortion of reality.  And while I don’t deny preferring certain restaurants over others, the few to which I find myself increasingly attached professionally hardly represent the much wider range of restaurants that I not only visit, but like very much.

So, I leave aside the multi-starred restaurants with which I’m often associated (rightfully or not) for a moment to focus on the the middle market, where I spend most of my time eating.  There are a lot of options in this tier right now.  Unfortunately, there’s a lot of overlap nowadays too; restaurants and the food they serve are so similar – in tenor, theme, and quality – that they’ve begun to blur together.  That’s not to say they’re worthless. To the contrary, San Franciscans have more and better dining options now than ever before, and arguably better dining options than any other city in the U.S.  However, very few restaurants, in my experience, merit serious discussion.  Most of them have been mentioned on this blog before, scattered throughout countless posts. And many of them you’re likely to know already.  This post gathers some of my favorites together; a particularly useful link for the stream of inquiries I receive from those wanting recommendations.

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My best mornings are spent at Boulette’s Larder in the Ferry Terminal Building (Embarcadero).  Amaryll Schwertner is one of the unsung chefs of San Francisco.  She is as fastidious in her cooking as she is in her demand for quality.  Once, after a longish wait for my breakfast, a server informed me that, unfortunately, I’d have to wait a little longer. Schwertner wasn’t happy with the way my eggs turned out. As I turned to the open kitchen, I saw her scrape my failed plate of eggs into the trash bin.  Calmly, she set a new pan on the stove and started anew.

I first started going to Boulette’s Larder years ago for the canelé.  Schwertner bakes two dozen of these caramelized cakes every day, and I’d swing by for one (or three) of them, still warm, at the end of my morning run along the Embarcadero.  They really are some of the best canelés I’ve ever had.

It wasn’t long before I started staying for breakfast.

While the weekly breakfast menu is short, the Sunday brunch menu offers a more robust selection of egg and meat dishes.  Schwertner cooks seasonally. This is unsurprising, given that farmers from all over the San Francisco Bay Area bring a spectacular rainbow of produce to sell at the Ferry Terminal Market right outside her restaurant at least twice a week. But what I particularly like about her cooking is that it’s far from the mainstream Americana you’ll likely find everywhere else.  And yet it’s not weird food either.  Her menu often traces the rim of the Mediterranean, using spices and flavors of North Africa and the Middle East.  Sometimes, there are noticeable Asian influences – I once had steak-fried rice with my scrambled eggs (hot sauce, of course); I’ve also had beignets dusted with matcha sugar.  And at other times, she can be blissfully traditional – a strawberry and rhubarb fool, for example, under a cloud of whipped cream.

You’ll pay for the quality at Boulette’s Larder. I understand that most Americans aren’t accustomed to seeing breakfast and brunch prices like these.  But Schwertner is one of the few chefs who I trust implicitly.  She is as confident as she is capable and I never doubt the quality or value of what she offers.  And I gladly pay for it.  [While Boulette’s Larder is only open for breakfast and brunch, its sister restaurant next door, Bouli Bar, is open for lunch.]

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Here’s an important question I wish people would ask more often these days: is the food well-made and delicious?  That’s the threshold criterion for me. And it’s the simple and straightforward common denominator among the restaurants that I frequent.

Respected as a doyenne of home cookery for years (among her many other talents), Pim Techamuanvivit turned her passion for cooking into Kin Khao, a Thai restaurant that she opened in 2014 in an oddly shaped, back-corner space of the Parc 55 Hotel (wedged between the Tenderloin and Union Square neighborhoods).

I know woefully little about Thai cuisine, so I won’t venture into the tangled territory of authenticity (if you want to know Pim’s thoughts about it, I’m sure they’re floating about on the internet; surely someone has posed the question to her). And I can’t keep track of who is appropriating what from whom anymore (Pim is Thai, by the way).  What I can tell you is that a great deal of research goes into the food at Kin Khao, and that Pim – who isn’t the day-to-day chef, rather more of a restaurateur – doesn’t coddle her guests with cultural platitudes.  She serves Thai food the way she thinks it should be served rather than what guests might want or expect.  And it’s terrific.

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Increasingly, accessibility also determines where and how I eat.  My years of effort and enthusiasm have passed, tempered by age and boredom.  I’ve eaten just about everywhere I care to eat. And quite frankly, the past few years haven’t been terribly encouraging – as I suggested above, there is a lot of shiny and new without much substance.  So, in cities to which I am regular, like San Francisco, I tend to gravitate towards the tried and true.

Cotogna (Jackson Square) is always high on my list, for lunch or dinner.  It’s best to have a reservation, but I often go alone, and rarely have to wait for a seat at the counter.  So terrific are chef Michael Tusk’s pastas, I fear that the rest of his menu gets overlooked.  I hope not, because the salads and pizzas are equally terrific, as are the roast meats, which the restaurant also serves in large-format, family-style at the “chefs table” (must be reserved ahead).

You’ll find me just as often at Zuni Café on Market Street in Hayes Valley.  When Judy Rodgers, who became chef of this iconic San Francisco restaurant in 1987, died in 2013, the New York Times called her a “Chef of Refined Simplicity.”  In that obituary, chef and author Joyce Goldstein said of Rodgers, “She didn’t have a huge menu, she didn’t need to be fashionable, she didn’t feel she had to invent new things; she just worked on every dish until it was perfect.”  In the years since Rodgers’s death, Zuni Café has held true to her ethos.

The Cæsar salad, roast chicken (for two), and the espresso granita are de rigueur. But, on the rare occasion that I veer off script, I’m never disappointed. As Goldstein observed, the menu is short and the cooking is good.

I’ve never had a problem getting into Zuni Café at lunchtime, although dinner reservations require some forethought, especially for the weekend tables. But if you go alone, or in a small party, the wait is usually pretty short for the tables in the bar area, which are reserved for walk-ins. I prefer sitting in the bar area anyway. The warren of rooms upstairs can get too cozy, and sometimes loud.

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It has been more than a decade since I ate in the dining room (downstairs) at Chez Panisse in Berkeley.  But I’ve returned to the café upstairs many times since. Open lunch and dinner, it’s one of my favorite places to eat in the East Bay.  Like Zuni Café, this pioneer in the California cuisine movement offers a concise and dependable fare. The ingredients are always fresh and the cooking is simple and straightforward. It’s the type of place (along with Boulette’s Larder and Zuni Café) that offers fruit on its dessert menu –  whatever’s in season, ripe and perfect.  Some think it’s lazy, or ridiculous.  I have a hard time arguing against ripe and perfect.

Also in Berkeley is Great China, which is now in its second generation of ownership by the Yu family.  I was first introduced to this restaurant by my friends Marty and Alex – both wine professionals.  They were attracted by the restaurant’s incredible wine list, about which the San Francisco Chronicle has written. But the food here is pretty great too. This is a lazy Susan kind of place, where all the dishes are meant to be shared.  And the quality of cooking is fairly impressive for the size of the menu.  I’ve mentioned my favorite dish here before – a phenomenal version of the very Chinese-American honey walnut shrimp. But the roast duck (Peking-style, with the skin and meat carved and served with wrappers, scallions, and hoisin), and other Chinese-inspired dishes are terrific too.

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I know there are a lot of great Asian restaurants in San Francisco, especially down-bay, towards San Jose (in vol. 5 of Ambrosia, we mini-dive into the Vietnamese community and restaurants in San Jose).  Sadly, I haven’t explored nearly as much as I’d like. And most of the Asian restaurants I have visited have been disappointing; the rest, I haven’t visited enough times to feel confident recommending (Izakaya Rintaro is a good example; it’s been years since I’ve eaten there, even though I consistently hear positive things from trusted sources). The few places in the city to which I return tend to be over-subscribed, like Kin Khao (mentioned above) or Z&Y in Chinatown. Part of the problem with Z&Y is that it doesn’t take reservations (unless you have a party of 6 or more).  But that’s because it doesn’t need to – people will line up for an hour or more for this spicy, Szechuan cooking.  And it’s easy to understand why – everything I’ve had has been terrific, especially the shaved beef tendons, soured green beans, and wontons in chili oil. I’ve also found chive pockets on the menu; one of my favorite Chinese dishes. If you like scallion pancakes (Z&Y’s are particularly great), you’ll like these thin pastry pockets filled with chopped Chinese chives (my favorite versions include scrambled eggs and dried shrimp).

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I haven’t been to the “manufactory” yet, but Tartine Bakery (Mission) is great. Although it’s most well-known for its bread, pastries, and sweets, I particularly like the hearty, hot-pressed sandwiches there.  And just down the street is Bi-Rite Creamery, where you’ll find fantastic burnt caramel ice cream.

If you’re looking for golden-brown flakes, you might also consider trekking to Arsicault in the Inner Richmond (or is it in Presidio Heights?) for its sheeted dough pastries.  I’ve written about it before on this blog.  Further out in the Outer Richmond is Marla Bakery, which has pretty great bread and a short but strong menu (it serves breakfast, lunch, and brunch.)

I’ll admit that I go to Blue Bottle Coffee mostly for proximity – there are three within walking distance of where I usually stay in San Francisco.  The wait can be infuriating, especially when there’s a line out the door and only one person working the register.  But, I suppose, that can be an argument for quality – slowing the orders helps baristas focus on each drink.  If St. Frank weren’t so far (it’s on Russian Hill), I’d be there more often.  Not only do the baristas there know what a smile is, there’s also wifi. Having both of those amenities makes St. Frank a unicorn among San Francisco coffee shops.

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There are a few places in San Francisco that I appreciate for specific reasons.  Tosca Café, for example, I keep in my back pocket for a late-night option. It’s open until 0200 every day of the week.

If I want food delivery, Rooster and Rice is usually at the top of my list.  It’s one of the few, Bay Area fast-casual concepts that I like.  It serves variations of khao mun gai, or Thai chicken and rice. It’s such a simple concept, I don’t know why there aren’t more of them across the country.

And because there are so few options in SoMa near the ballpark, where I spend a lot of my mornings, Cento gets a lot of my coffee money. This small, alleyway walk-up is the sort of unaccommodating, San Francisco coffee shop I would normally avoid – grumpy baristas who refuse to make gibraltars (a.k.a. cortado) to-go, because they insist on serving it in a gibraltar glass onsite.  And until recently, it was cash-only – in a tech city that operates on a cashless basis.  But, they do a decent job, and I admire the spunk – a little patch of analog in an increasingly digital city.

Of course, there are many places up and down the Bay Area coast where I will make a point of stopping when I’m in those corners, like Duarte’s Tavern in Pescadero (for its fruit pies), or Verve Coffee in Santa Cruz, where I can get pastries from Manresa Bread (Los Gatos).  In this latest issue of Ambrosia, we tell readers about Dad’s Luncheonette in the sleepy surf town of Half Moon Bay, where Scott Clark is serving some simple but tasty burgers and salads out of a caboose (literally).  In that same issue, you’ll also find my love letter to Napa and Sonoma, where I’ve spent quite a lot of time exploring, and, over the years, have settled into routines at familiar places, like Hog Island Oyster on Tomales Bay; Model Bakery in St. Helena (English muffins!); and El Molino Central in Boyes Hot Springs; among others.

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So reliable and satisfying is my cast of favorite restaurants that I’ve become reluctant to deviate. And it doesn’t help that when I have, I’ve been consistently unmoved, and in many cases disappointed.

But I am always hopeful of finding something new and good.  I know that there are a lot of places I’ve yet to discover (if you have recommendations, please send them).  My friends Maggie Spicer and Michael Molesky have opened Douglas, a corner market and café in Noe Valley.  Knowing them, it will be lovely.  And there are a few openings on the horizon to which I look excitedly, like Michael Tusks’s cave á vin Verjus (Jackson Square), which is expected open this fall, and Joshua Skenes’s Angler on the Embarcadero, which I will be photographing shortly.

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Photos: Crab and egg buns at Great China; Michael Tusk at Quince; Christopher Kostow in the kitchen at The Restaurant at Meadowood; Joshua Skenes, chef of Saison, with grouse in Idaho; Justin Cogley, chef of Aubergine among the tidal pools in Carmel-By-The-Sea; poached eggs with creamed spinach and cardoons at Boulette’s Larder; sheeps milk yoghurt with coffee-poached dates at Boulette’s Larder; Khun Yai’s rabbit green curry at Kin Khao; squeezing lime at Kin Khao; quail on the counter at Cotogna; roast chicken for two at Zuni Café; pluot and blackberries at Chez Panisse Café; spicy shaved beef tendons; Sean Ehland preparing loaves at Martha Bakery; antipasti on the counter at Tosca Café; coffee and Manresa Bread bostock at Verve Coffee in Santa Cruz.

A few months ago, I posted a picture of a plate of food to my Instagram story.  I purposely  framed the photo tightly – providing as little visual information as possible beyond the linen-lined table top.  But by context, it was clear that I was at a rather nice restaurant, with frilly rimmed china and white tablecloth. Over this photo, I superimposed the following:

“Female chef.  Two Michelin stars.  Where am I?”

I received dozens of guesses, not one of which was correct.

As America (and the rest of the world) lurches inelegantly from one public outrage to another, my blog remains silent, even as many of the pressing topics of the day affect the people and industry to which this blog is ostensibly devoted.  In another life, politics may very well have been the subject of my online thoughts.  But that is not the direction I chose. And you do not visit this blog for political views.  And, unlike so many online personalities these days, I probably have just as little interest in sharing my political views with you as you do in reading them.

But what do you do in a world where almost every topic actually worth talking about becomes a third rail?  Americans, sadly, seem to have chosen to retreat to their corners and dig in. Reason and rationale have been abandoned for tribal warfare.

As I have written on this blog before, sensationalism sells, and media have done a good job of setting fires and fanning the flames. But the media are not entirely to blame. We, the public, have become enthusiastic accomplices in the arson of America. Facts have been traded for emotion; genuine desire for understanding has turned to self-righteous moralizing and demoralizing.

If anything positive has come out of all of this outrage, it is an increased awareness of the everyday reality and struggle of classes overlooked or repressed, and in some cases, abused.  After all, aspiration for meritocracy is merely a platitude if the opportunity to merit is systematically uneven.  We must constantly strive to even the playing field for all.

But at what cost? Or, more importantly, by what methods?

Currently, there are three female chefs in America with two Michelin stars (currently, no female chef in America has ever earned three stars).  Can you name them?  If you’re like the vast majority of the people who hazarded a guess on my Instagram story, it’s likely that you only know of one: Dominique Crenn.  Her restaurant Atelier Crenn in San Francisco has neither frilly rimmed porcelain plates nor white tablecloth.  And yet, based on my photo, all but two guesses – dozens of them – put me at her restaurant.  Of the two other guesses, one was for Emma Bengtsson, the Swedish-born chef of the two Michelin-starred restaurant Aquavit in New York City (which, based on recent photographs, does dress its tables), and the other guess was for a foreign chef I did not know.

In fact, I was in San Francisco.  But I was not at Atelier Crenn.  I was at Acquerello, where Suzette Gresham has been cooking for 29 years.  Twenty-nine years.  Coincidentally, the night I was there, so was Michael Bauer, who subsequently penned this article about his visit (which I only found online today, while searching for articles about Gresham).  I don’t have a habit of applauding Mr. Bauer, who recently announced his retirement from his 23-year tenure as the restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. But here, I pause to give him credit for devoting an article to Gresham, who occupies a rare position in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the country at large.

To be fair, others have written about Gresham before. As far back as 2014, Eater SF interviewed Gresham. And last year, Eater SF included Gresham in a roundtable of female chefs in the Bay Area.  And there are so many of them in San Francisco – outstanding female chefs who have gifted the world with some of my favorite restaurants, three of which I mentioned in my previous blog post: Judy Rodgers at Zuni Café, Alice Waters at Chez Panisse, and Amaryll Schwertner at Boulette’s Larder.  They have not only appeared regularly on this blog, but also on my social media accounts when I’m at their tables.

But notice that I celebrate these women not for the qualities with which they were born, and over which they had no choice. I celebrate them for what they have earned and achieved in life, despite their gender. They are tremendously talented chefs and have created truly wonderful restaurants, in spite of an uneven playing field.  They prove that hard work and dedication – and, most importantly, cooking good food – win the day.  They (along with chefs like Ms. Gresham and Traci Des Jardins, whose restaurant Jardiniere – which opened in 1997 – I recently visited for the first time) have withstood the test of time.  These are the reasons they should be celebrated. That is meritocracy.

Ms. Crenn has been an outspoken advocate for the causes she champions.  Good for her – she’s built a platform and is using it (even if I take issue with her approach sometimes).  But while she’s made herself an easy reach for increasingly lazy and shallow journalism, there are many outstanding chefs of diverse backgrounds focused on cooking good food and running a good business instead of courting the media.  Who’s acknowledging them for their work, despite their genetically assigned attributes?

I understand that many industry awards, lists, and rankings are pushing the diversity angle in an effort to raise the tide for all boats.  [In addition to racial and gender diversity, geographic diversity has also become a point of affirmative action.]  And while I think the intentions are generally good, I reject this trickle-down approach because it’s being employed at the cost of meritocracy.  That’s too high of a price to pay, not to mention highly insulting to the integrity of those who this recent social awakening purports to benefit.  I don’t want to be a token. Do you?

We as a society must find ways to champion equality and diversity without killing meritocracy.  Let’s focus on everyday solutions in our respective corners so that, as the field levels overall, these every-so-often superlatives actually mean something.

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It is hard to believe that the year has tipped once again, and I find myself hurling through time and space towards those dozen, wonder-filled days at the end.  As I tap out these words, I count fewer than 15 days left at home between now and then, scraped together from a splinter of gaps between trips to Denmark, Greenland, both coasts, and points in between.

Christopher Kostow and The Restaurant at Meadowood will be hosting the Twelve Days of Christmas again this year.  And, for the sixth time, I have the honor of photographing the series, which, like last year, will benefit the St. Helena Preschool for All, a nonprofit organization that, in partnership with five private preschools, provides pre-school readiness programs for four year-olds in the St. Helena Unified School District.

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This year’s roster is eclectic.  The eleven guest chefs will come from seven countries outside of the United States. Among them is a Japanese chef cooking in France, a Danish chef cooking in Peru, and an Australian in Singapore. While I know a good half of them, I’m particularly excited to get to know the other half, especially Messrs. Amaro and Kim, and Msses. Seidler and Ros, who are unfamiliar to me.

Also notable is the fact that four of this year’s guest chefs are currently in transition, either having recently left a restaurant or are working towards opening their own restaurant in the coming months.

Reservations open today.  No doubt, they will fill quickly.  Visit The Restaurant at Meadowood’s reservation site for details, or click on the dates below for quick links to make a reservations on a specific night.

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December 7
JOSE ENRIQUE
Jose Enrique
San Juan, Puerto Rico

December 8
DAVID PYNT
Burnt Ends
Singapore, Singapore

December 11
JESSICA LARGEY
Simone (Opening in 2018)
Los Angles, California

December 12
JAMES LOWE
Lyle’s
London, The United Kingdom

December 13
KAMILLA SEIDLER
Formerly of Gustu in La Paz, Bolivia

December 14
BYUNG-JIN KIM
Gaon
Seoul, South Korea

December 15
WOJCIECH MODEST AMARO
Atelier Amaro
Warsaw, Poland

December 18
TREVOR MORAN and JUSTIN COGLEY
Moran: unannounced project in Nashville, Tennessee
Cogley: Aubergine in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California

December 19
MICHAEL TUSK
Quince, Cotogna, and Verjus
San Francisco, California

December 20
ANA ROS
Hiša Franko
Kobarid, Slovenia

December 21
SOTA ATSUMI
Maison (Opening in 2019)
Paris, France

December 22
CHRISTOPHER KOSTOW
The Restaurant at Meadowood
St. Helena, California

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Over the past five years, I have attended 60 dinners at the Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood.  Below are links to my posts and photos from all of them. 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)

2015

Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park, NoMad; New York, New York)
Nenad Mlinarevic (Focus; Vitznau, Switzerland)
Christian Puglisi (relæ; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Jorge Vallejo (Quintonil; Mexico City, Mexico)
Joshua Skenes (Saison; San Francisco, California)
Matthew Wilkinson (Pope Joan; Melbourne, Australia)
Kim Floresca and Daniel Ryan ([One]; Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Isaac McHale (The Clove Club; London, The United Kingdom)
Kyle Connaughton (Single Thread; Healdsburg, California)
Atsushi Tanaka (A.T. Restaurant; Paris, France)
Justin Yu (Oxheart; Houston, Texas)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2017

Mark Lundgaard Nielsen (Kong Hans Kælder; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Manish Mehrotra (Indian Accents; New Dehli, India; New York, New York; London, U.K.)
Jeremiah Stone & Fabián von Hauske Valtierra (Contra & Wildair; New York, New York)
Jeremy Fox (Rustic Canyon & Tallula’s; Santa Monica, California)
Ben Sukle (birch & Oberlin; Providence, Rhode Island)
Sean Brock (McCrady’s, McCrady’s Tavern, Husk, & Minero; Charleston, South Carolina)
Yoshiaki Takazawa (Takazawa; Tokyo, Japan)
Thomas Keller (The French Laundry; Yountville, California)
Eric Werner (Hartwood; Tulum, Mexico)
Jock Zonfrillo (Orana; Adelaide, Australia)
Alexandre Couillon (La Marine; Noirmoutier, France)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

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Everything was gigantic in Warsaw.  The buildings were gigantic – enormous concrete structures that stretched as far as I could see.  Those city blocks were gigantic too. What looked like a short walk on a map, to my surprise, took three or four times as long as I estimated.

But amidst all of the grey I found an idyllic patch of green, the famous Łazienki Park (pronounced WHY-zhyen-kee). Formerly the grounds of a complex of royal residences, it is now the city’s largest public park, where wild peacocks scuttle about the tree-lined trails and the city’s hero Frédéric Chopin is breathtakingly immortalized under a windswept willow.  I loved Łazienki Park so much that I returned every day that I was in Warsaw in the fall of 2005.

It is on the edge of this park that Wojciech Modest Amaro opened his restaurant Atelier Amaro in 2012, which earned a Michelin star a year later.  And now, on the eve of moving his restaurant to a new location, chef Amaro traveled to Napa Valley to be the seventh chef to cook with Christopher Kostow at the Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood.

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Chef Amaro is unafraid of strong flavors.  And he combines them in dynamic ways. There was, for example, trout mixed with honey; and smoked eel served with dill and gin.  For dessert, he made a pucker-tart sorbet of sea buckthorn and served it with bitter mustard seeds.

Amaro shared with guests a loaf of “March” bread that had been aged for over two years.  This dark, dense bread is, as he described it, a product of meagre times, when the dark crumbs left in the oven were saved, soaked in water, and allowed to ferment.  Tangy and spicy, Amaro’s March bread was sliced thinly and served to guests along with canapés in the kitchen.

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The Restaurant at Meadowood served two courses.  Kostow’s pierogi, stuffed with sweetbreads, was one of my favorite courses of this year’s series.  The dumplings were served three to a bowl, with hedgehog mushrooms and turnips.

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After dessert courses were cleared, chef Amaro served a collection of after-dinner sweets.  The most fascinating one to me was a pretzel that was made of a boletus (mushrooms, including porcini stems) mousse that was spread out on a sheet tray and stamped out.  These pretzel molds were frozen (first in a freezer, and then submerged in liquid nitrogen), before being dipped in dark chocolate, which formed a hard shell.  These were served frozen, and in my opinion, best taken with coffee.

Following is the entire menu from the seventh night of the Twelve Days of Christmas with chef Wojciech Modest Amaro of Atelier Amaro in Warsaw, Poland.  Here is a link to all of the photos.

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Canapés

Two-Year “March” Bread

(Amaro)

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1st Course
Eel, Dill, Gin
(Amaro)

2nd Course
Sea Trout
Sea buckthorn, rowan berry.
(Amaro)

3rd Course
Coal-Roasted Cabbage
Dried pork, clam buttermilk.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

4th Course 
Goose
Hazelnut, truffle.
(Amaro)

5th Course
Wheat
Black garlic, Jerusalem artichoke.
(Amaro)

6th Course
Sweetbread Pierogi
White truffle, turnip, hedgehog mushrooms.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

7th Course
Duck
Quince, pear.
(Amaro)

8th Course
Sea Buckthorn, Mustard
(Amaro)

9th Course
Aubergine
Elderflower, chocolate.
(Amaro)

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“Air Cognac”

Boletus Pretzel

Malt Toffee

(Amaro)

Warm Chestnuts
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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Wine Pairing

Blanc de Lynch-Bages, 2016

Julien Pilon “Millésime,” Condrieu, 2015

Albert Grivault, Meursault Clos des Perrieres, 2016

Bricco Rocche Barolo, 1998

Mescolanza, School House Vineyard, Syrah Blend, 2009

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Below are links to my posts and photos from all Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I have attended. 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)

2015

Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park, NoMad; New York, New York)
Nenad Mlinarevic (Focus; Vitznau, Switzerland)
Christian Puglisi (relæ; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Jorge Vallejo (Quintonil; Mexico City, Mexico)
Joshua Skenes (Saison; San Francisco, California)
Matthew Wilkinson (Pope Joan; Melbourne, Australia)
Kim Floresca and Daniel Ryan ([One]; Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Isaac McHale (The Clove Club; London, The United Kingdom)
Kyle Connaughton (Single Thread; Healdsburg, California)
Atsushi Tanaka (A.T. Restaurant; Paris, France)
Justin Yu (Oxheart; Houston, Texas)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2017

Mark Lundgaard Nielsen (Kong Hans Kælder; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Manish Mehrotra (Indian Accents; New Dehli, India; New York, New York; London, U.K.)
Jeremiah Stone & Fabián von Hauske Valtierra (Contra & Wildair; New York, New York)
Jeremy Fox (Rustic Canyon & Tallula’s; Santa Monica, California)
Ben Sukle (birch & Oberlin; Providence, Rhode Island)
Sean Brock (McCrady’s, McCrady’s Tavern, Husk, & Minero; Charleston, South Carolina)
Yoshiaki Takazawa (Takazawa; Tokyo, Japan)
Thomas Keller (The French Laundry; Yountville, California)
Eric Werner (Hartwood; Tulum, Mexico)
Jock Zonfrillo (Orana; Adelaide, Australia)
Alexandre Couillon (La Marine; Noirmoutier, France)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2018

Jose Enrique (Jose Enrique; San Juan, Puerto Rico)
David Pynt (Burnt Ends; Singapore)
Jessica Largey (Simone; Los Angeles, California)
James Lowe (Lyle’s; London, The United Kingdom)
Kamilla Seidler (formerly of Gustu in La Paz, Bolivia; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Byung-jin Kim (Gaon; Seoul, South Korea)
Wojciech Modest Amaro (Atelier Amaro; Warsaw, Poland)

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Photos: Coal-roasted cabbage with dried pork and clam buttermilk; chef Amaro in The Restaurant at Meadowood Farm; Amaro cutting pumpkin bread; two-year old “March” bread; coal-searing smoked eel; smoked eel served on pine branches; Amaro preparing trout with honey; John Hong and Kostow plating pierogis; wine pairings; Amaro and the team at The Restaurant at Meadowood; menu for Day 7 with Amaro; chef Amaro pre-service.

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I first attended the Twelve Days of Christmas in 2012.  A few months later, in March of 2013, Justin Cogley, chef of Aubergine at the l’Auberge Carmel in Carmel-by-the-Sea, asked me to photograph an event he called Rediscovering Coastal Cuisine.

In the years since, I have returned annually to photograph both events.

In February of this year (2018), Justin Cogley invited Christopher Kostow to cook at Rediscovering Coastal Cuisine.  Also invited to the event was Trevor Moran, formerly the chef at The Catbird Seat in Nashville, Tennessee.

To complete the circle among them, and especially for me, who has witnessed and recorded so much of their work apart, Christopher Kostow invited both Cogley and Moran to cook together with him on Day 8 of this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood.

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1. Humility and self-deprecation are endearing.
2. Make it tasty.
3. Be organized.

This would be my advice to any guest chef preparing to cook at The Twelve Days of Christmas.  And for these reasons, the Cogley and Moran dinner ranks among my favorites in the six years I’ve been photographing the series.

Funny, humble, and talented, the two guest chefs produced a delicious menu that included two canapés and three courses each.  Far from the shortest menu, this dinner had such good energy and moved along at such a steady clip (thanks to the organizational skills of sous chef Jacqueline Dasha, who ran point on this dinner) that it wrapped up nearly an hour earlier than any other dinner in this year’s series.

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Moran, who is working on a beer bar with potstickers and steamers in Nashville (opening in 2019), sent out fun dishes that packed a lot of flavor.  One of my favorite canapés of this year’s series was his beef tartare, which he sandwiched between two cracker-thin sheets of toasted Wonder bread (all of it was glued together with charcoal mayonnaise).  And his pork dumplings were a crowd pleaser.  They were steamed three to a plate and served with Moran’s own chili oil.

Cogley’s “coastal cuisine” has always been moored deeply to the waters of the Monterey Bay, which surround his restaurant.  Unsurprisingly, he served tender abalone grown just a few miles from his restaurant (I have visited this amazing set-up with Cogley many times, where cages are suspended in the cold waters beneath the Monterey Bay pier).

Cogley also served fatty ribeye, triple-seared, served with local matsutake mushrooms and a bit of shiso.

With so much food, The Restaurant at Meadowood cut back its menu and prepared two courses.  The first was salt-baked capon (from Four Story Hill Farm), which was plated with some cauliflower.  The second was a terrific dessert that I got to preview at dinner the night before this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas.  This was essentially upside down cake batter filled with thin slices of butternut squash.  The best part of this cake was the caramelized crust around the rim, and the refreshingly sour kefir ice cream with which it was served.

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Moran had a Japanese ice shaver shipped to The Restaurant at Meadowood (he’s planning to serve – kakigori – shaved ice at his new restaurant too). The Meadowood team prepared blocks of ice to fit in the machine’s vice. Moran hand-cranked each dessert to order: some sponge cake, an avalanche of shaved ice, a dousing of sweetened cream, and all of it topped with freeze-dried (to concentrate flavors) and then rehydrated fruit.  It was refreshing and welcomed break in the dinner.

Below, you’ll find the entire menu from the seventh night of the Twelve Days of Christmas with chefs Justin Cogley (of Aubergine in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California) and Trevor Moran (soon to be opening a restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee).  Here is a link to all of the photos.

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Canapés

Uni
Rice milk herbs.

Wagyu Tartare
Wonder bread, charcoal mayonnaise, horseradish.

(Moran)

Spot Prawn
Lemon verbena, finger lime.

Oyster Cracker

(Cogley)

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1st Course
Kohlrabi
Broccoli, shiro dash.
(Cogley)

2nd Course
Steamed Pork Dumplings
Ra-yu broth.
(Moran)

3rd Course
Monterey Bay Abalone
Rosehip, fennel.
(Cogley)

4th Course 
Potato Purée
Yeast sauce, smoked bread.
(Moran)

5th Course
Salt-Baked Capon
Cauliflower.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

6th Course
Triple-Seared Ribeye
Matsutake, shiso.
(Cogley)

7th Course
Shaved Ice
Sweet boiled milk, fruit.
(Moran)

8th Course
Squash Upside-Down Cake
Kefir ice cream.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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Warm Chestnuts
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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Wine Pairing

Château de Bréze, Clos David, 2015

Joh. Jos. Prüm, Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett, 2011

Qupé Roussanne, Santa Maria Valley, 2007

La Guiraude, Crozes-Hermitage, 2015

Dominus Napa Valley, 1997

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Below are links to my posts and photos from all Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I have attended. 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)

2015

Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park, NoMad; New York, New York)
Nenad Mlinarevic (Focus; Vitznau, Switzerland)
Christian Puglisi (relæ; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Jorge Vallejo (Quintonil; Mexico City, Mexico)
Joshua Skenes (Saison; San Francisco, California)
Matthew Wilkinson (Pope Joan; Melbourne, Australia)
Kim Floresca and Daniel Ryan ([One]; Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Isaac McHale (The Clove Club; London, The United Kingdom)
Kyle Connaughton (Single Thread; Healdsburg, California)
Atsushi Tanaka (A.T. Restaurant; Paris, France)
Justin Yu (Oxheart; Houston, Texas)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2017

Mark Lundgaard Nielsen (Kong Hans Kælder; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Manish Mehrotra (Indian Accents; New Dehli, India; New York, New York; London, U.K.)
Jeremiah Stone & Fabián von Hauske Valtierra (Contra & Wildair; New York, New York)
Jeremy Fox (Rustic Canyon & Tallula’s; Santa Monica, California)
Ben Sukle (birch & Oberlin; Providence, Rhode Island)
Sean Brock (McCrady’s, McCrady’s Tavern, Husk, & Minero; Charleston, South Carolina)
Yoshiaki Takazawa (Takazawa; Tokyo, Japan)
Thomas Keller (The French Laundry; Yountville, California)
Eric Werner (Hartwood; Tulum, Mexico)
Jock Zonfrillo (Orana; Adelaide, Australia)
Alexandre Couillon (La Marine; Noirmoutier, France)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2018

Jose Enrique (Jose Enrique; San Juan, Puerto Rico)
David Pynt (Burnt Ends; Singapore)
Jessica Largey (Simone; Los Angeles, California)
James Lowe (Lyle’s; London, The United Kingdom)
Kamilla Seidler (formerly of Gustu in La Paz, Bolivia; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Byung-jin Kim (Gaon; Seoul, South Korea)
Wojciech Modest Amaro (Atelier Amaro; Warsaw, Poland)
Justin Cogley (Auberine; Carmel, California) & Trevor Moran (Nashville, Tennessee)

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Photos: Sea urchin-filled kuih pie tee; Moran steaming pork dumplings; Kostow plating salt-baked capon; Cogley plating triple-seared ribeye; John Hong pulling capons out of salt crust; Monterey Bay abalone; Moran’s wagyu tartare sandwiched between two, thin crackers made from Wonder bread; Moran shaving ice for dessert; Jacqueline Dasha serving squash upside-down cake with kefir ice cream; wine pairings; Cogley and Moran with the team at The Restaurant at Meadowood; menu and amenities for Day 7; Daniel Kim mounding salt crust over capons before baking.

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There are few chefs I know who can and will hand-make pasta on-the-road at events.  Michael Tusk is one of them.  He’s the chef and owner of the wildly popular Cotogna and three Michelin-starred restaurant Quince, both in the Jackson Square neighborhood of San Francisco.  He’s about to open a cave à vin and specialty food market – Verjus – also nearby.

At this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood, he was the ninth chef to cook with Christopher Kostow.

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Having a flair for opulence and an eye for elegance (an art history major, Tusk, along with his wife Lindsay, who helps manage both restaurants, has turned Quince not only into one of San Francisco’s finest restaurants, but a gallery for their collection of modern art), Michael Tusk and his team produced some of the most luxurious and beautiful courses of this year’s series – like a stunning tartlet filled with pumpkin purée and paved over with nearly an ounce of osetra caviar.  This was topped with dollops of whipped smoked eel cream and gilded with gold leaf.  There was also an immensely comforting bowl of Aquarello Carnaroli risotto that was mounted with sea urchin butter, crowned with a medallion of spiny lobster tail, and ringed with more sea urchin.

But his dishes weren’t just beautiful.  In my opinion, Tusk’s dishes were also some of the most delicious guest chef dishes of the series.  Strongly anchored in classical cooking, they played to my preferences.

To begin, there was a tasty little green biscuit made from wild nettles filled with honey and foie gras. That was fantastic.  And Tusk’s squab course – a slice of pigeon breast layered with black truffles, plus a thigh – was, as we joked, very “squabby.” In other words, it was squab-lover’s squab dish.  I’m a squab-lover.

And, of course, there was pasta – tortellini, fatto a mano (made by hand). Filled with suckling pig meat, these little dumplings were served in warm brodo and topped with shaved Perigord truffles.

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To complement Tusks’s style, The Restaurant at Meadowood served two equally beautiful courses.  There was sole wrapped in cover crops and steamed. The packet was unbundled and plated at the table, the emerald greens glowing against the alabaster fillet.

Kostow’s prime rib was as rich and flavorful as the sole was delicate. Cured with koji, the beef needed little more than the sauce that accompanied it to the table.

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Yannick Dumonceau, formerly the pastry chef of the three Michelin-starred temple l’Ambroisie in Paris, is now the pastry chef at Cotogna and Quince.  And he brings with him all the sophistication of French pastryland.

For the Twelve Days of Christmas, he fabricated thin sugar glass “boules,” which he drove up from the city with care.  He filled these golden orbs with a variety of winter citruses in different textures, and sealed each one with a generous piping of whipped cream, topped with candied citrus peel and some gold leaf.  Accompanying his dessert, The Restaurant at Meadowood sent out a gorgeous tray of after-dinner sweets – citrus custard, angelica cookies, and a tea of citrus peel and angelica.

Following is the entire menu from the ninth night of the Twelve Days of Christmas with chef Michael Tusk of Cotogna, the three Michelin-starred Quince, and the soon-to-open Verjus, all of which are in San Francisco, California.  Here is a link to all of the photos.

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Canapés

Wild Nettle Biscuit
Honey, foie gras.

Beet “Tramezzini”

Black Radish
Dungeness crab.

(Tusk)

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1st Course
Fresh Run Farm Pumpkin
Golden osetra caviar, smoked eel.
(Tusk)

2nd Course
Aquarello Carnaroli Risotto
Sea urchin, spiny lobster, “carboncino de pane.”
(Tusk)

3rd Course
Local Sole
Cover crop, smoked wing rillettes.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

4th Course 
Suckling Pig Tortellini “Fatto a Mano”
Perigord black truffle brodo.
(Tusk)

5th Course
Paine Farm Squab
Red cabbage, black chestnut, local porcini mushroom.
(Tusk)

6th Course
Aged “Prime Rib”
Koji, nasturtium.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

7th Course
Winter Citrus “Boule”
Clementine, passion fruit, cara cara orange.
(Tusk/Dumonceau)

Citrus Custard
Angelica Cookies
Tea of Citrus and Angelica
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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Warm Chestnuts
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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Wine Pairing

Chappellet Chenin Blanc, 2017

Domaine Zind Humbrecht, Pinot Gris, Clos. Saint Urbain, 2013

Quintodecimo “Exultet,” 2016

Pio Cesare Barbaresco, 2010

Caymus Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon, 1990

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Below are links to my posts and photos from all Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I have attended. 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)

2015

Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park, NoMad; New York, New York)
Nenad Mlinarevic (Focus; Vitznau, Switzerland)
Christian Puglisi (relæ; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Jorge Vallejo (Quintonil; Mexico City, Mexico)
Joshua Skenes (Saison; San Francisco, California)
Matthew Wilkinson (Pope Joan; Melbourne, Australia)
Kim Floresca and Daniel Ryan ([One]; Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Isaac McHale (The Clove Club; London, The United Kingdom)
Kyle Connaughton (Single Thread; Healdsburg, California)
Atsushi Tanaka (A.T. Restaurant; Paris, France)
Justin Yu (Oxheart; Houston, Texas)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2017

Mark Lundgaard Nielsen (Kong Hans Kælder; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Manish Mehrotra (Indian Accents; New Dehli, India; New York, New York; London, U.K.)
Jeremiah Stone & Fabián von Hauske Valtierra (Contra & Wildair; New York, New York)
Jeremy Fox (Rustic Canyon & Tallula’s; Santa Monica, California)
Ben Sukle (birch & Oberlin; Providence, Rhode Island)
Sean Brock (McCrady’s, McCrady’s Tavern, Husk, & Minero; Charleston, South Carolina)
Yoshiaki Takazawa (Takazawa; Tokyo, Japan)
Thomas Keller (The French Laundry; Yountville, California)
Eric Werner (Hartwood; Tulum, Mexico)
Jock Zonfrillo (Orana; Adelaide, Australia)
Alexandre Couillon (La Marine; Noirmoutier, France)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2018

Jose Enrique (Jose Enrique; San Juan, Puerto Rico)
David Pynt (Burnt Ends; Singapore)
Jessica Largey (Simone; Los Angeles, California)
James Lowe (Lyle’s; London, The United Kingdom)
Kamilla Seidler (formerly of Gustu in La Paz, Bolivia; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Byung-jin Kim (Gaon; Seoul, South Korea)
Wojciech Modest Amaro (Atelier Amaro; Warsaw, Poland)
Justin Cogley (Auberine; Carmel, California) & Trevor Moran (Nashville, Tennessee)
Michael Tusk (Cotogna and Quince; San Francisco, California)

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Photos: Zac Yoder taking Michael Tusk through The Restuarant at Meadowood’s Farm, Tusk’s pumpkin tartlets with caviar; Tusk shaving black truffles over tortellini in brodo; Aquarello Carnaroli risotto with sea urchin and spiny lobster; Neil Stetz basting squab; saucing Kostow’s aged prime rib; saucing Kostow’s steamed sole with cover crop; Quince’s pastry chef Yannick Dumonceau finishing one of his winter citrus “boules,” citrus and angelica tea service; wine pairings; Michael Tusk and the team at The Restaurant at Meadowood; suckling pig tortellini in brodo; the menu for Day 9.

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Slovenia is a small country, she told me. You can go from the beach to skiing in less than an hour. Wedged between Italy, Austria, Croatia, and Hungry, it’s a dynamic crossroad for wildly different cultures and culinary traditions.  And Ana Ros, chef of the Hiša Franko in Kobarid near the Italian border, is excited by this diversity of her homeland.

Ros was the tenth guest chef to cook at this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas with hosting chef Christopher Kostow at The Restaurant at Meadowood.

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Walking through the The Restaurant at Meadowood’s farm picking out greens and garnishes for her dishes, Ana Ros repeatedly told head farmer Zac Yoder not to fuss about consistency or beauty – she prefers the wildness and inconsistencies of nature. She’s more interested in the flavor, anyway.

At afternoon line-up, less than two hours before the restaurant’s doors would open to guests, Ros’s menu had not been finalized.  And she was perfectly calm about it, telling the staff that she prefers to cook this way, because the spontaneity often results in more intense flavors, which she likes.

And to her word, her flavors were intense.  There was lamb tartare dressed with very lamby lamb fat, served in a burnt onion cup.  There was rich foie gras soup fragrant with warm winter spices. She appropriately called it “Christmas soup.”

And perhaps the most interesting combination of flavors I experienced all series was Ros’s veal tongue topped with a warm oyster, all of it sauced with an intensely concentrated sauce made from red bell peppers.  As unique as I thought this was, surprisingly, it would not be the last time I’d see veal tongue and oysters at the Twelve Days of Christmas.

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Chef Kostow brought to the menu a more classic and familiar set of flavors.  At the beginning of the meal, he served a bowl of cold vichyssoise. The velvety potato soup was poured over warm, tender new potatoes and a generous spoonful of osetra caviar.

Towards the end, he presented a beautifully glazed Pekin duck (that’s a breed, not a misspelling – although it probably is a bastardization of the origin of these Chinese birds).   These large ducks had been glazed with a concentrated cherry juice.  The breasts were carved and finished for plating.  The dark meat was also removed and incorporated into a comforting side of steamed, short-grain California rice.  I loved this course.

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Somewhere in the first third of the meal, a candle was set on each table.  After the last meat course was cleared, servers came to each table to decapitate the top half of the wax trunk, revealing a surprise within – warm, creamy Cremeaux de Citeaux cheese.  The cheese was scooped out of the candle and served with honey and butter-fried bread from The Charter Oak.  This has been a crowd favorite for years.

Following is the entire menu from the tenth night of the Twelve Days of Christmas with chef Ana Ros of Hiša Franko in Kobarid, Slovenia.  Here is a link to all of the photos.

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Canapés

Beignets
Soured milk.

(Ros)

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1st Course
Christmas Foie Gras Soup
(Ros)

2nd Course
Winter Vichyssoise
Hot potato, cold potato, caviar, pea.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

3rd Course
Lamb Tartare
Dressed with lamb kidney fat, roasted onion, sunchoke.
(Ros)

4th Course 
Pumpkin
Fermented apples and different textures of duck.
(Ros)

5th Course
Trompe l’Oeil
Spiny tail lobster, matsutake, celery root,
white truffle, pecan oil.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

6th Course
Cod
Glazed with pear, tonka bean, habanero, hay soup.
(Ros)

7th Course
Duck Broth
Chrysanthemum.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

8th Course
Breast of White Pekin Duck
Glazed in preserved cherry juice;
rest of the duck in California rice.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

9th Course
Beef Tongue
Oysters, red bell pepper,
salad of charcoal-roasted borage and salicornia.
(Ros)

10th Course
Cremeux de Citeaux
Beeswax, honeycomb.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

11th Course
Sour Milk Ice Cream
Parsley, granite, porcini crumble.
(Ros)

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Warm Chestnuts
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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Wine Pairing

Château de Bréze, Clos David, Val de Loire, 2015

Franz Hirtzberger Neuburger, Smaragd, 2013

Kongsgaard, Napa Valley Chardonnay, 2015

Qupé Syrah, Santa Barbara County, 1999

Ronco Severo, “Artiùl”, 2010

Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, 1991

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Below are links to my posts and photos from all Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I have attended. 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)

2015

Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park, NoMad; New York, New York)
Nenad Mlinarevic (Focus; Vitznau, Switzerland)
Christian Puglisi (relæ; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Jorge Vallejo (Quintonil; Mexico City, Mexico)
Joshua Skenes (Saison; San Francisco, California)
Matthew Wilkinson (Pope Joan; Melbourne, Australia)
Kim Floresca and Daniel Ryan ([One]; Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Isaac McHale (The Clove Club; London, The United Kingdom)
Kyle Connaughton (Single Thread; Healdsburg, California)
Atsushi Tanaka (A.T. Restaurant; Paris, France)
Justin Yu (Oxheart; Houston, Texas)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2017

Mark Lundgaard Nielsen (Kong Hans Kælder; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Manish Mehrotra (Indian Accents; New Dehli, India; New York, New York; London, U.K.)
Jeremiah Stone & Fabián von Hauske Valtierra (Contra & Wildair; New York, New York)
Jeremy Fox (Rustic Canyon & Tallula’s; Santa Monica, California)
Ben Sukle (birch & Oberlin; Providence, Rhode Island)
Sean Brock (McCrady’s, McCrady’s Tavern, Husk, & Minero; Charleston, South Carolina)
Yoshiaki Takazawa (Takazawa; Tokyo, Japan)
Thomas Keller (The French Laundry; Yountville, California)
Eric Werner (Hartwood; Tulum, Mexico)
Jock Zonfrillo (Orana; Adelaide, Australia)
Alexandre Couillon (La Marine; Noirmoutier, France)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2018

Jose Enrique (Jose Enrique; San Juan, Puerto Rico)
David Pynt (Burnt Ends; Singapore)
Jessica Largey (Simone; Los Angeles, California)
James Lowe (Lyle’s; London, The United Kingdom)
Kamilla Seidler (formerly of Gustu in La Paz, Bolivia; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Byung-jin Kim (Gaon; Seoul, South Korea)
Wojciech Modest Amaro (Atelier Amaro; Warsaw, Poland)
Justin Cogley (Auberine; Carmel, California) & Trevor Moran (Nashville, Tennessee)
Michael Tusk (Cotogna and Quince; San Francisco, California)
Ana Ros (Hiša Franko; Kobarid, Slovenia)

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Photos: Christopher Kostow, the team at The Restaurant at Meadowood, and Ana Ros plating during service; Zac Yoder showing Ros The Restaurant at Meadowood’s farm, along with David Guilloty; Guilloty plating a presentation of the cherry-glazed Pekin duck; Ros plating pumpkin; Kostow plating caviar for his “winter vichyssoise;” Ros plating cod course; Ros’s dessert of sour milk ice cream; duck broth in heated vessels; wine pairings for Day 10; chef Ros with Kostow and the team at The Restaurant at Meadowood; Ros’s tongue with oyster course; Kostow and Ros at line-up.

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I’ve had two excellent meals at Clown Bar, and my enthusiasm for that restaurant has been recorded on this blog (here, and here, and here again). This beautifully preserved bistro is in the 11eme of Paris, just next to the Cirque d’Hiver.  I regret not having gone earlier, as I’m sure I missed many great meals there.

The chef was Sota Atsumi, and this year, he is the answer to the question that I was asked so often: Which of this year’s guest chefs at the Twelve Days of Christmas are you most excited to see cooking at The Restaurant at Meadowood?  Atsumi was the eleventh chef to cook with hosting chef Christopher Kostow in this year’s series.

Late last year, the Japanese-born chef announced that he was leaving Clown Bar to open his own restaurant.  Maison, expected to open by mid-2019, will be near the Clown Bar, also in the 11eme of Paris.

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Astumi’s cooking is firmly anchored in the foundations of classical cooking. But what I particularly love about it is how masterfully he weaves in other cultural sentiments. His are not the grotesque, hybrid creatures that plague “fusion” cooking.  For the most part, Atsumi’s food remains recognizably Continental, even if the flavors and presentations aren’t necessarily so.

There was, for example, a fillet of halibut presented, as he described it to me, “en papillote,” wrapped in a Japanese hoba leaf that he sweated over the grill to bring out its fragrance.  The pistachio pesto sauce spooned over the fish was so gently laced with Szechuan peppercorn that it took me a few bites to feel the tingle.

Sometime’s he goes completely off-road, like the first course he served at this dinner: caviar with a purée of finger bananas spiked with the high acidity of yuzu.  It was a completely unexpected combination of flavors.  But, it was, from what I could tell, a house hit.

And sometimes he sticks close to the classics. Celebrated for his game pithiviers, Atsumi made a vegetable version for this dinner, interleaving thin slices of celeriac with black truffle.  These were molded in long terrine logs. Slices of this pithivier were served piping-hot with a meat jus and stalks of lightly charred hay. My only complaint about this course is that it was too small; I could have eaten a whole log of this.  It was fantastic.

(Atsumi was the second chef who served veal tongue with oysters.)

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Atsumi produced so many courses – one canapé, nine courses, and two desserts – that The Restaurant at Meadowood limited its side of the menu to two courses.

Kostow’s cooking dovetails well with Atsumi’s.  Like Atsumi, Kostow’s cooking is solidly grounded in classic techniques. And like Atsumi, having mastered the fundamentals, Kostow ably explores abroad.

For this dinner, Kostow pulled out two terrific dishes, both quite traditional. One of them has been, annually for quite a few years, one of my favorite dishes at The Restaurant at Meadowood.  Mackerel is a cranky fish that Kostow tames well in his various versions of escabeche. The one he served this night was excellent.

Earlier in the day, I arrived in the kitchen to chef de cuisine John Hong elbow-deep in an open bladder.  Next to him was a mound of pig bladders, all stuffed with poussins.  These birds were presented table side, still en vessie. The breasts were carved out onto plates, sauced, and per tradition, served with a side of rice (with local matsutake). This too was excellent.

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Sous chef Jacqueline Dasha spent a good part of her day at the sheeter. In between runs, she generously coated the slab of buttery dough with sugar. Lots of sugar.  She was making kouign amann, the caramelized Breton rosettes that have recently become popular among American audiences. This was one of Atsumi’s two desserts. He served these little sugar bombs with a side of vanilla ice cream.

Following, you’ll find the entire menu from the eleventh night of the Twelve Days of Christmas with guest chef Sota Atsumi, who will be opening Maison in Paris, France in 2019.  Here is a link to all of the photos from this dinner.

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Canapés

Foie Gras and Chestnut

(Atsumi)

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1st Course
Yuzu, Banana, Caviar
(Atsumi)

2nd Course
Bluefin Tuna and Eggplant Mille-Feuille
(Atsumi)

3rd Course
Sunchoke
Sea urchin, hazelnut purée.
(Atsumi)

4th Course 
Salted Mackerel
Vegetable escabeche.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

5th Course
Celery Root and Black Truffle Pithivier
(Atsumi)

6th Course
Beet Ice Cream
Smoked eel, red onion.
(Atsumi)

7th Course
Calf’s Tongue
Chile ancho, oyster.
(Atsumi)

8th Course
Fermented Mushroom Soup
Homemade butter.
(Atsumi)

9th Course
Halibut
Pistachio mustard, wrapped in hoba.
(Atsumi)

10th Course
Poussin en Vessie
White truffle; California rice with local matsutake.
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

11th Course
Aged Beef
Sucrine, Comte, gribiche.
(Atsumi)

12th Course
Pear Soup
Parsley granité, panna cotta.
(Atsumi)

13th Course
Kouign Amann
Vanilla ice cream, citrus.
(Atsumi)

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Warm Chestnuts
(The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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Wine Pairing

Domaine Zind Humbrecht Pinot Gris, Clos Saint Urbain, Rangen de Thann, 2013

Julien Pilon “Milésime”, Condrieu, 2015

Les Mesnil Blanc de Blancs Brut Champagne

Martinelli Chardonnay, Russian River Valley, 2015

La Rioja Alta, S.A. Gran Reserva 904, Cosecha, 2007

Spottswoode Cabertnet Sauvignon 2005

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Below are links to my posts and photos from all Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I have attended. 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)

2015

Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park, NoMad; New York, New York)
Nenad Mlinarevic (Focus; Vitznau, Switzerland)
Christian Puglisi (relæ; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Jorge Vallejo (Quintonil; Mexico City, Mexico)
Joshua Skenes (Saison; San Francisco, California)
Matthew Wilkinson (Pope Joan; Melbourne, Australia)
Kim Floresca and Daniel Ryan ([One]; Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Isaac McHale (The Clove Club; London, The United Kingdom)
Kyle Connaughton (Single Thread; Healdsburg, California)
Atsushi Tanaka (A.T. Restaurant; Paris, France)
Justin Yu (Oxheart; Houston, Texas)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2017

Mark Lundgaard Nielsen (Kong Hans Kælder; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Manish Mehrotra (Indian Accents; New Dehli, India; New York, New York; London, U.K.)
Jeremiah Stone & Fabián von Hauske Valtierra (Contra & Wildair; New York, New York)
Jeremy Fox (Rustic Canyon & Tallula’s; Santa Monica, California)
Ben Sukle (birch & Oberlin; Providence, Rhode Island)
Sean Brock (McCrady’s, McCrady’s Tavern, Husk, & Minero; Charleston, South Carolina)
Yoshiaki Takazawa (Takazawa; Tokyo, Japan)
Thomas Keller (The French Laundry; Yountville, California)
Eric Werner (Hartwood; Tulum, Mexico)
Jock Zonfrillo (Orana; Adelaide, Australia)
Alexandre Couillon (La Marine; Noirmoutier, France)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2018

Jose Enrique (Jose Enrique; San Juan, Puerto Rico)
David Pynt (Burnt Ends; Singapore)
Jessica Largey (Simone; Los Angeles, California)
James Lowe (Lyle’s; London, The United Kingdom)
Kamilla Seidler (formerly of Gustu in La Paz, Bolivia; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Byung-jin Kim (Gaon; Seoul, South Korea)
Wojciech Modest Amaro (Atelier Amaro; Warsaw, Poland)
Justin Cogley (Auberine; Carmel, California) & Trevor Moran (Nashville, Tennessee)
Michael Tusk (Cotogna and Quince; San Francisco, California)
Ana Ros (Hiša Franko; Kobarid, Slovenia)
Sota Atsumi (Maison, opening in 2019; Paris, France)

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Photos: Beet ice cream with smoked eel and red onion; Atsumi in the garden; Atsumi plating halibut on hoba leaf; Atsumi at the stove; Atsumi’s bluefin tuna with eggplant “mille-feuille;” Atsumi finishing a plate of beef; Kostow presenting the poussin en vessie; Daniel Kim at the Josper; wine pairings; chef Atsumi with Kostow and the team at The Restaurant at Meadowood; Sam Cheol translating on behalf of chef Atsumi; Atsumi egg washing celery root and truffle pithiviers.

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All of the guest chefs have left.  On the last night of this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood – the 120th dinner, and my 72nd – the kitchen returned to the hosting chef Christopher Kostow and his team.

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There are few restaurants in the United States that could pull off what Kostow, the restaurant’s director of operations Nathaniel Dorn, and their team have now done for 10 years in a row during the Twelve Days of Christmas.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that they are attached to a world-class resort (Meadowood Napa Valley), which helps host the guest chefs in grand style. But even without the luxuries and conveniences afforded by the resort, the logistics of coordinating 11 guest chefs, who fly in from around the globe, and their menus (most of which is done remotely in a variety of languages), and carrying it all out with the highest standards exceed the wherewithal and stamina of even the best restaurants in America.

In five previous posts about the last night of this dinner series, I’ve tried to convey how and why the Twelve Days of Christmas represent, aspirationally, the very best of what the culinary world can achieve.  (You will find those posts hyperlinked at the bottom of this one. If you know little about this event, I encourage to go back a read what I’ve written before.)  But that doesn’t give you a detailed account of the daily demands involved.

Since so many of my readers and followers have asked about my experience as the photographer, this year, I will tell you about a typical day for me at The Twelve Days of Christmas.  To be clear, my work is relatively uninteresting and unimportant compared to the real work at hand.  But, because what I do is so integrally dependent on what the staff at The Restaurant at Meadowood does, I hope that telling you about my day will give you a better idea of just how much work and detail goes into every single dinner.  As you read through, keep in mind that I have, by far, the easiest job in the entire place. I am merely a lucky observer of this spectacular culinary show.

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MORNING

My day starts early.  I’m usually up and ready to go by 0700.  If I haven’t already done so the night before, I will begin my day by transferring all of the photos from the previous day to my external hard-drive.  There are usually anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 photos per day.

Before I leave my room (at Meadowood Napa Valley), I’ll usually call The Grill – the other restaurant on property – with my breakfast order to-go.  Swinging by The Grill first to pick up my order, I’m usually in the kitchen at The Restaurant at Meadowood by 0830. The sous chef appointed to assist that day’s guest chef is already there, along with a handful of cooks who have started prep.

Depending on how much space is needed by the guest chef(s) in the kitchen, I am usually able to carve out a corner (or more) on one of the two kitchen tables (where four guests can usually dine during service) to use as a temporary office.  There, I’ll stand and edit photos, with one eye on the kitchen. My goal is to get as many photos edited – at least 25, but usually closer to 40 – as possible and uploaded to an online album accessible by The Restaurant at Meadowood’s media team by noon.  That sounds easy, but sifting through thousands of photos takes time.  And editing is invariably interrupted by distractions – I’ll see something interesting and go over to a station and photograph what a cook or chef is doing; or I’ll get pulled into a conversation about ingredients or the process (usually because I’m curious); or I’ll field any number of photo requests by someone on staff.

In these relatively quiet morning hours, the florist usually visits to refresh the arrangements in the restaurant, or change out old for new.  Sometimes, as I’m passing by, she’ll ask if the holly has been dropping too many berries.  Since the staff is so diligent about cleaning, it’s hard for her to tell.  So I’ll give her her my highly unskilled opinion, and she seems genuinely thankful for it.

By 1000, all the cooks are in the kitchen, as is the guest chef and his/her assistant(s).  Sometimes there is more than one guest chef in the kitchen. At 1030, the kitchen stops for morning line-up, during which the guest chef and Kostow run through the day’s menu and make sure that all of the cooks are on the same page regarding the day’s prep.

Sometime between morning line-up and 1230, we’ll usually take the guest chef to The Restaurant at Meadowood’s Farm (which is shared with The Charter Oak).  Kostow, the guest chef, the resident sous chef running point for the guest chef, sometimes the guest chef’s assistant, and I will caravan off-site to the Montessori of St. Helena. That’s where the garden is. It’s about five minutes away.  The head farmer Zac Yoder will walk us through the garden and take last-minute orders for greens and herbs for that night’s dinner.  We’re usually in the garden for about 20 minutes.

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AFTERNOON

By the time we get back to the restaurant, close to 1300, the front of the house staff have arrived.  The wine team begins porting the night’s wine pairings from storage and prepares the bottles for service. Jeremy Rupp, the expeditor, walks the guest chef through the inventory of serviceware to make sure the proper plates and bowls are pulled. A team of servers are in the front of the house rolling hundreds of napkins.  Tables and chairs are rearranged according to the day’s reservations. Beau du Bois, the Bar and Spirits Manager starts preparing the bar.  There’s vacuuming and general tidying happening everywhere.

The kitchen is full-tilt by 1400.  Somewhere around this time, the kitchen tables are prepared for service, and I am displaced.  If I haven’t packed my things up entirely, I usually decamp to the bar area, where the fireplace has now been lit for the night. But usually, there’s too much activity at this time of the day for me to concentrate on editing.  And, besides, I feel like an asshole for being the only one sitting in a house full of activity. So I prefer to float about the restaurant with my camera. There’s something interesting happening in every part of the restaurant, especially in the kitchen, when, after a day of prepping, dishes finally start to take form.  But no matter how busy things are, I usually find a minute to run over to the resort’s reception area to grab a few cookies (they change daily) and some coffee; a much-needed afternoon jolt.

In past years, I had a longer buffer period in the afternoons.  That’s because there used to be one seating.  All of the guests would arrive at 1800 and be seated closer to 1900.  So, from the noon photo deadline, I had a generous stretch of time before afternoon line-up at 1630, during which I would continue editing, or work ahead on blog posts, or even download some of the morning’s photos and prepare them for quick turnaround.   But this year, in an effort to increase the quality of the overall experience and product (and accommodate more guests), The Restaurant at Meadowood reconfigured the dinner with staggered seating, like a normal restaurant service.  As a result, the first seating was moved up to 1730, with doors opening at 1700.  This shortened the day considerably for everyone, especially the kitchen.

While the cooks forge ahead with prep in the kitchen, at 1530 sharp, the front of the house and key kitchen staff are lined up in the restaurant’s lounge (rotunda) to welcome the guest chef at the afternoon staff meeting.  Kostow and the guest chef will run through the night’s finalized menu with the service staff, describing each course in detail, after which the floor is opened to questions (including notes for dietary restrictions). This is the front of the house’s only chance to learn the menu for service.

After the menu is thoroughly reviewed, Micah Clark, the restaurant’s head sommelier, runs through the night’s wine pairings.  After that, Dorn usually has some housekeeping reminders for the staff.  By the time the meeting is dismissed around 1600, the cooks in the kitchen will have stopped prep, cleaned the entire kitchen (including washing the floors and wiping down all of the counters), and put out staff meal.  Everyone eats quickly, usually standing, and then resumes final preparations for service.  The counters are taped down, the finalized tickets are affixed to the pass, and the guest chef will usually plate the entire menu so that the staff can familiarize themselves with each course, the appropriate markings (utensils), and any service steps required (like table-side pouring, carving, etc.).

Between 1630 and 1700, I’m on my way back to my room to suit-up for dinner.  While there, I’ll also change out my camera batteries, clean my camera lenses, and make sure that I have plenty of space on my memory cards.  If I have extra time, I’ll transfer as many photos as I can from my camera to my external storage unit.

Back at the restaurant, Dorn meets with the front of the house to run through the night’s guest list, noting special requests and double-checking dietary restrictions.  The final menus are printed and packaged with the guest amenities – this year, each party or couple received a bottle of the restaurant’s apple brandy, some house-made caramels, and a copy of the menu.

At 1700, the front door is open to guests.

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SERVICE

I am usually back in the kitchen by 1730, by which time the first guests have begun trickling in. As in the past, guests are first welcomed to the kitchen for Champagne and canapés before being taken to their tables.  I’ll spend the first hour in the kitchen photographing service.

For about half of the dinners, I’m seated for dinner around 1830 – usually at the bar, but sometimes in the dining room.  This enables me to shoot some of the courses at the table, in the restaurant.  During these dinners, I shuttle between seat and kitchen, shooting service when I’m not eating.

For the other half of the dinners, I’m in the kitchen the entire night.  One corner of the kitchen, which isn’t used during service, is reserved for a small team of staff to stand and eat during the Twelve Days of Christmas. This usually includes the restaurant’s media team (including me), and a rotation of staff who work at the farm. We’ve affectionally dubbed this corner the “Snack Shack.” Here, we get the full menu and wine and a front row seat to the action.

Dinner service is when I take the most photos.  Being in the kitchen for most of the day gives me an incredible amount of backstory and context for what happens in the kitchen at night. During service, all of the moving parts that I saw earlier in the day finally come together.  Documenting this process is what I love doing most.

This year, with staggered seating, dinner service ran from 1730 to roughly midnight, and often later, depending on the length of the menu.  I stay as long as I need in order to get the shots I want, which includes a group shot of the guest chef with the kitchen team. That usually happens at the end of the night.

When I do finally leave the restaurant – usually between 2300 and midnight – I am immensely thankful for and painfully aware of just how short my commute is.  Someone in the front of the house calls a car for me, and within minutes, I’m whisked back to a plush room, with treats on my pillow and a glowing fireplace.  After a long day, it’s heaven.  I put my feet up and edit photos until I can’t keep my eyes open.

At the restaurant, however, service continues until the last guest leaves.  In the meantime, cooks start stripping the kitchen, scrubbing and cleaning and resetting for the next day.  The washers continue their thankless job in the dish pit, painstakingly cleaning thousands of plates, utensils and glasses. And as the restaurant empties, the servers migrate from the front of the house to the back to join the herculean effort of polishing and drying all of the stemware.  You have no idea.  I have no idea.

As hard as I try to notice and acknowledge all of the work that goes on around me, every day, just beyond my periphery, a thousand things are happening. The restaurant’s elves are visiting every guest chef’s and every guest chef’s assistant’s room before they arrive to drop off welcome gifts. Richard Wang is monitoring flights and organizing airport transfers.  In the communications office, Martina Kostow and Marie Masyczek field media inquiries and messages.  There are last-minute menu changes, with magnified ripple effects, sending sous chefs scrambling.  And I can only imagine the kind of requests, demands, and changes that Chitra Samanta has to deal with every day in the reservations department.  And amidst all of this busyness, I waltz through, blissfully unaware like a charmed Mr. Magoo.

No matter how long the day, how hard the service, every morning, when I walk into the kitchen, everything sparkles anew as if it were the first day.

These people make it look effortless.

I don’t know how they do it.  I really don’t.

I am tremendously grateful for the opportunity of working alongside such motivated, professional, and genuinely humble people.

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Have you ever wanted to eat an entire Perigord truffle?

On the twelfth night, guests got to do just that.

Quarter-sized Perigord truffles were trimmed into perfect balls, pressure cooked, and then embedded into gougères.  These were finished with grated Gruyère cheese and served as canapés.  They were fantastic.

This last menu was a parade of such luxuries.

There was caviar served with tendons and sabayon. That was decadent.  So was coal-seared foie gras, served with fluffy pain au lait.

And then there was the sprawling buffet of fish and shellfish, all from northern Californian waters: spot prawns, geoducks, oysters, and mackerel.  This was served with garlicky babka (my favorite) and copious amounts of butter.

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One of my favorite courses was Kostow’s sweetbreads.  These creamy nuggets were skewered on branches of California bay and grilled.  The entire, fragrant bunch was presented and the sweetbreads unthreaded at the table.  They were finished with Kostow’s version of sauce Périgueux.

I also loved the salt-baked prime rib, which was served naked on a plate, accompanied by a carousel of sides for the table: fermented potato purée, chanterelles, and a spicy salad.  That sort of simplicity in a shared format, is exactly the way I like to eat.  Every part was perfect.

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There were white truffles of course.  They were infused into butter, which veined wheels of Cashal blue cheese.  The cheese was sliced at the table and portioned out along with poached pears and buttery slices of The Charter Oak bread.

To end the night, a sundae of pine ice cream with candied baby pine cones, a very Napa Christmas ending.

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Following, you’ll find the entire menu from the last night of the Twelve Days of Christmas with host chef Christopher Kostow and his team at The Restaurant at Meadowood cooking.  Here is a link to all of the photos from this dinner.

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Canapés

Gougère
Whole Perigord black truffle, Gruyère.

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1st Course
NorCal Fish and Shellfish
Oysters, mackerel, spot prawn, geoduck.

2nd Course
Caviar
Smoked tendon, cultured butter, sabayon.

3rd Course
Coal-Seared Foie Gras
Crab apple, chrysanthemum, pain au lait.

4th Course 
Black Cod in Olio
Punterelle, green almonds treated like olives.

5th Course
Sweetbreads
Grilled California bay, black truffle, celery.

6th Course
Salt-Baked Prime Rib
Fermented potato, grilled chanterelles, spicy salad.

7th Course
White Truffle-Veined Blue Cheese
Beeswax, poached pear, The Charter Oak bread.

8th Course
Pine Sundae

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Warm Chestnuts

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Wine Pairing

Failla Chardonnay, Platt Vineyard, Sonoma Coast, 2016

Joh. Jos. Prüm Riesling, Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Kabinett, 2011

Qupé Roussanne, Santa Maria Valley, 2007

Fleuril 2015

Beaulieu Vineyard, Georges de Latour, Private Reserve, 1982

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Below are links to my posts and photos from all Twelve Days of Christmas dinners I have attended. 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)

2015

Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park, NoMad; New York, New York)
Nenad Mlinarevic (Focus; Vitznau, Switzerland)
Christian Puglisi (relæ; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Jorge Vallejo (Quintonil; Mexico City, Mexico)
Joshua Skenes (Saison; San Francisco, California)
Matthew Wilkinson (Pope Joan; Melbourne, Australia)
Kim Floresca and Daniel Ryan ([One]; Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Isaac McHale (The Clove Club; London, The United Kingdom)
Kyle Connaughton (Single Thread; Healdsburg, California)
Atsushi Tanaka (A.T. Restaurant; Paris, France)
Justin Yu (Oxheart; Houston, Texas)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2017

Mark Lundgaard Nielsen (Kong Hans Kælder; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Manish Mehrotra (Indian Accents; New Dehli, India; New York, New York; London, U.K.)
Jeremiah Stone & Fabián von Hauske Valtierra (Contra & Wildair; New York, New York)
Jeremy Fox (Rustic Canyon & Tallula’s; Santa Monica, California)
Ben Sukle (birch & Oberlin; Providence, Rhode Island)
Sean Brock (McCrady’s, McCrady’s Tavern, Husk, & Minero; Charleston, South Carolina)
Yoshiaki Takazawa (Takazawa; Tokyo, Japan)
Thomas Keller (The French Laundry; Yountville, California)
Eric Werner (Hartwood; Tulum, Mexico)
Jock Zonfrillo (Orana; Adelaide, Australia)
Alexandre Couillon (La Marine; Noirmoutier, France)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

2018

Jose Enrique (Jose Enrique; San Juan, Puerto Rico)
David Pynt (Burnt Ends; Singapore)
Jessica Largey (Simone; Los Angeles, California)
James Lowe (Lyle’s; London, The United Kingdom)
Kamilla Seidler (formerly of Gustu in La Paz, Bolivia; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Byung-jin Kim (Gaon; Seoul, South Korea)
Wojciech Modest Amaro (Atelier Amaro; Warsaw, Poland)
Justin Cogley (Auberine; Carmel, California) & Trevor Moran (Nashville, Tennessee)
Michael Tusk (Cotogna and Quince; San Francisco, California)
Ana Ros (Hiša Franko; Kobarid, Slovenia)
Sota Atsumi (Maison, opening in 2019; Paris, France)
Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

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This year, The Restaurant at Meadowood asked guests to bring one unwrapped toy to dinner to be donated to families in need.  By the end of the series, nearly 2,000 toys spilled out from underneath the Christmas trees throughout the restaurant.  All of these had to be transported to the various donation centers in the region – one was as far as three hours away.  Also, this year, through the Twelve Days of Christmas, The Restaurant at Meadowood raised over $60,000 for the event’s beneficiary, the St. Helena Preschool for All.

Photos: Salt-baked prime rib on the pass; The Restaurant at Meadowood dining room; a wreath in the lounge on a sunny day; packaging nightly amenities; Beau du Bois preparing the cocktail cart; folding napkins; Christmas trees in the bar; the fireplace has been lit in the bar; the bar at night; Christopher Kostow during service; Kostow saucing sweetbreads; black cod in olio; plates of coal-seared foie gras; the sprawling buffet of NorCal fish and shellfish; David Guilloty slicing white truffle-veined blue cheese; Jacqueline Dasha plating pine sundaes; wine pairings; The Restaurant at Meadowood team after the last service; some of The Restaurant at Meadowood staff with a load of toys to deliver; the restaurant’s apple brandy bottles for each of the 12 days.

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Some of my happiest moments in 2018 were spent waist-high in cold water.  On especially good days, the sun glinted off the rushing stream, and glistened at the seams of the slow-moving eddies and pools into which my mind swirled.  In those peaceful afternoons, tiny flies hung in the air like a thousand points of light, stirring hope from the deep.

I pulled trout from the crisp, mountain streams of Utah, and beautiful cod from the inky abyss of Greenlandic fjords.  In the mauvey glow of morning, with San Francisco twinkling in the distance, sea bass fought my line, only to be swiped clean off the hook by a seal waiting opportunistically nearby.

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But those were the highlights.  As any fisherman knows, with the good, there is plenty of bad: long days in the pouring rain, or set against gust and gale, casting into sound and fury.  I had plenty of those in 2018 too.

A seemingly endless day spent tracing the icy banks in the snowy expanse of Nevada yielded nothing.  The second day was just as hopeless. As the sun disappeared behind the mountains, we shrugged.  And, turning to each other to call the day, I watched the slack line suddenly go taught.  You just never know.

But the tally never mattered. What endure are the many scenes from 2018 set amidst field and stream, all of them spectacular. Despite the excruciatingly early mornings, creaky cots, mosquitos nets, and the sweaty miles squishing along in waders, the adventure was great. And I am grateful for every minute of it.

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Chapters within chapters.  That is how densely knit 2018 was for me.

It seems like just last week I was scrambling to remember and record as much of 2017 as possible.  And now, I find myself at the top of 2019 doing the same for 2018, bewildered by just how much I have to unpack.  Sadly, only a fraction of it will fit into this one blog post.

In the past year, I committed more time to pursuing a career in photography.  Thankfully, I found plenty of work.  And that meant that, more than any year before, 2018 unfolded according to client needs.

But years of being disciplined and choosey about the kinds of people with whom I am willing to work are finally paying off.  I now have the privilege and pleasure of working with those who I consider to be among the very best in the industry.  And letting them dictate my year was an absolute joy.

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I get just as many inquiries (if not more) about how I left my career as a lawyer to become a professional photographer as I do for restaurant recommendations.  In most cases, I’m reluctant to reply because I know that, ultimately, my story will be unhelpful to those who hope for a similar change.  That’s because I believe that life is highly circumstantial.  There is no formula, no right or wrong way to leave one career for another.  And, I certainly know that luck played a huge role in my story.  What I think most people actual want when they reach out to me is motivational reassurance.  And, without knowing their life circumstances, I am hesitant to give it.

But because my transition from lawyer to photographer is crucial to understanding the most significant realization I made in 2018, I will spend a little time on it here.

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while know that none of this was planned.  Far from it, there were years of uncertainty that I spent bracing for a hard landing.

Even before I left the practice of law, I began realizing that I had outgrown my role as a blogger.  And yet, at the time, being a blogger seemed like an identity to which I would be confined forever.  My biggest obstacle was my anonymity, which restricted me from moving beyond my blog.  And, admittedly, until I left the practice of law, I was comfortable hiding there.

So when I left the law firm at the beginning of 2011, that was just half of what I needed to do. It wasn’t until I shrugged off my anonymity later that year that I suddenly found myself truly facing a whole new universe of possibilities. And it was terrifying.  But the ensuing free-fall forced me to sort out my priorities quickly and efficiently.

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I discovered early on that, although I wished to write more, I was ill-suited for the publishing world of the day. Interactions with editors and publishers revealed a reprehensibly shallow and insular culture that did not prize quality or education. I’m not just talking about food media, which have received the brunt of my disgust.  More surprising to me were the disappointing conversations I’ve had with book agents and publishers, many of whom have told me that talent and story are irrelevant nowadays without a huge social media following.

Perhaps I’ll publish one day. But not now.

So, I turned to another method by which I communicated with others about the things that mattered to me. In retrospect, photography seems like an inevitable path. But at the time, it was not obvious.  It took a lot of convincing for me to embrace the possibility of being a professional photographer.  I was not trained for it.  I had no credentials to offer.  Until people started paying me for my photography, I merely used it as a way to catalog my life.  I hadn’t been trying to make anything look glamorous.  Unlike so much of social media today, there was little to no artifice involved in what I was doing, no romantic or aspirational subtext to my work.  I was simply photographing in the field and on-the-go. It was practical and efficient. And that is what I loved about it.

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The wonderful thing is that little has changed for me in the years since.  As a professional photographer, I’ve been able to maintain my journalistic approach to photographing an industry that, for decades, only cared about what ended up on the plate.  Despite the fact that I’m often introduced as a “food photographer,” tabletop photography (like event-related photography, which comprises a lot of my work) is only a small part of a much broader, and in my opinion, a far more interesting scope of work.

Even though my work is now mostly commercial – the bulk of my photography is used for advertising in one way or another – my focus hasn’t really changed. My subjects remain craftsman and their craft, and the places where they practice it.  I am less interested in showing the end result, and more interested in recording all of the things that make that result possible. It is there in the process that ideas happen, where craft is refined, and where I am able to feed my insatiable curiosity.  As an observer, having backstage access to the spheres I photograph has provided me an incredible education.

Unlike so many photographers these days, I make no mistake about my place in the world: I am not saving lives, or even making a significant contribution to society at large.  What I have to offer is simply a point of view.  Lucky for me, I arrived on the scene at a time when my point of view was useful. The food, beverage, and hospitality industries had just begun taking a more holistic approach to their businesses. They began exploring beyond the kitchen and dining room, moving the conversation out into the field, where I already was.

What I realized in 2018 was that I wasn’t just finally getting to do what I love doing.  I have been doing it all along, even when I had no audience.  It just took me a while to find the people who could help me do more of it.  And I am so grateful that I have.

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I was lucky to spend much of 2018 working with familiar faces in familiar places.

I returned to South Carolina to work with Courtney Hampson, who casts her spells across the Low Country to conjure magical scenes in the mid-November nights for Music To Your Mouth. For the seventh year, I photographed this amazing event at Palmetto Bluff.  I’ll be returning at the end of January, 2019 to photograph her newest event, Field & Fire.

I continued long-standing partnerships with Justin Cogley at Aubergine (Rediscovering Coastal Cuisine), and Relais & Châteaux (Gourmetfest) at l’Auberge Carmel in Carmel-by-the-Sea. I also continued to work extensively with Joshua Skenes and his expanding portfolio of restaurants. In 2018, this included the opening of Angler in San Francisco, as well as other unannounced projects.

In 2018, Gavin Kaysen wrapped up his final season of the Synergy Series. I have enjoyed working with him and his crew for the past three years at Spoon and Stable in Minneapolis on this event, and wish him the best of luck as he turns his attention to opening his new restaurant Demi in 2019.

And, for the sixth year, I closed out the calendar in the pine-scented hills of Napa documenting one of the most-watched culinary events on the annual calendar.  I have now photographed seventy-two dinners of The Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood.

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I also worked on a number of new projects in 2018.

In addition to working with the Fairmont brand of hotels, I photographed twice for Alys Beach, a short but gleaming stretch of shoreline on the panhandle of Florida. In February, this private development hosted 30A Wine Fest, and Digital Graffiti in May. The latter brought dozens of digital artists from around the world to share their art, which was projected onto the property’s uniquely bleach-white structures at night.

I also had the incredible opportunity of photographing for Blackberry Mountain. Set among 5,000 acres in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee, this new resort focuses on health and wellness. As you might have guessed, it’s a sister property of Blackberry Farm.  I loved working with Sarah Chabot, the Director of Marketing, and her team because they and their company value process and culture, and the preservation of both.  Not only did Chabot entrust me with photographing the restaurants on the property, but over three visits in three different seasons, she sent me into the woods in search of what makes Blackberry Mountain truly special.  I had help of course.  A native of the area, Boyd Hopkins is the resort’s resident guide and guru when it comes to those Tennessee mountains.  Plainspoken and straightforward, this trailblazer – in the literal sense of that word – is the ultimate woodsman. His knowledge of flora and fauna was incredible, and the stories he spun from them were captivating.  If you ever have a chance to visit Blackberry Farm or Blackberry Mountain, a day with Hopkins will be a day well-spent.

Blackberry Mountain will open soon in Q1 of 2019, and I can’t wait to return to photograph the resort once it does.

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Although 2018 didn’t fling me as far as in previous years – Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, and all over Europe in 2016; Thailand, Cambodia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and all over Europe in 2017 – I still managed to break my previous travel record.  Logging over a hundred flights, I flew more than 150,000 miles – the equivalent of six times around the earth.

With the exception of a sunny escape to the cape of Baja California in Mexico, I mostly shuttled across the Atlantic between the U.S. and Europe.

In June, I was in Paris.  As I wrote a couple of years ago, this ancient city has managed to remain a significant intersection throughout my life. This time, my college classmate Steve Weissman happened to be in town to cover The French Open for the Tennis Channel.  It got pretty hot in the stands, so I ended up spending most of the time with Steve on the couch of the Tennis Channel set. From that canopied catbird seat overlooking the Roland Garros complex, we watched all the matches on all the monitors. It was a pretty sweet way to experience The French Open.  At night, we cleaned up and went out for steaks and escargot and turbot and baba and found ourselves next to food personalities and fashion icons. Only in Paris.

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I was also in Copenhagen twice; once in March, and once in September.  With the exception of a brief trip across the sound to the snowy Swedish countryside for dinner, I mostly stayed in the city.

In August, I returned to that stunning Basque coast for more jamón, beef, and seafood.  This was my third visit to the region, and this time, I was able to spend a couple of days in Bilbao – to see the Guggenheim – as well as a few days in San Sebastian.  I’ll be going back for a fourth time in a couple of months, after which I hope to finally record some thoughts about that delicious and beautiful region of Spain.

And, after more than a decade of traveling through Schipol Airport on my way to destinations beyond, I finally exited customs and spent a few days in Amsterdam.  I wrote about that trip and the personal history of it all on this blog last month.

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I had never been to the northern coast of France.  So in 2018, I carved out a few days to visit Bretagne. The Roellinger family operates a number of small hotels clustered around the seaside city of Cancale. Together, these hotels, each with a unique story and style, comprise Les Maisons de Bricourt.  I stayed at the newest property, La Ferme du Vent.  Set amidst a windswept field, which grades slowly down to the sea, this former farm is now dotted with beautifully finished cottages.  Rustic and wild, this retreat focuses on peace and wellness, and the mystical history of the place, which is rooted in Celtic lore and legend.

Through a line of trees, on the adjacent property, is Château Richeux, which is also a part of Les Maisons de Bricourt.  On the ground floor of that seaside manse, Hugo Roellinger, son of the famous chef Olivier Roellinger, is continuing his family’s culinary legacy at the restaurant la Coquillage.

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One day, I crossed over to Normandie to visit Mont-St-Michel.  Over a millennium ago, the Normans ferried stones across the shallow flats to build this magnificent fortress abbey.  This walled, Medieval city, which becomes an island at high tide, remains wonderfully preserved – if not a bit overrun with tourists.

Another day, I went into Cancale to visit Hugo and his father at their family home.  I had met both of them in California a couple of years earlier. It was here in this ivy-covered malouinière that Olivier Roellinger opened his restaurant in 1982 – the original Maison de Bricourt. Within a decade he had earned two Michelin stars, and retired from the kitchen, a celebrated hero of modern French cuisine with three stars, in 2009.

Hugo told me that their family home dates to the 1700s, when it was occupied by the French privateer Robert Surcouf, who pirated British trading ships in the Indian Ocean. Windfall wealth and spices from corsairs like Surcouf poured into the Breton port of St-Malo, near Cancale.  It is the flavors that these corsairs brought to the Breton coast that first inspired O. Roellinger’s cooking decades ago.  Some 300 years after Surcouf, in a twist of historical irony, the Roellinger’s home is now the headquarters for their own spice company, Épices Roellinger. Down in the cellar, Hugo showed me tins full of precious vanilla pods from around the world, and other rare spices.  The Roellingers sell their spices in a small retail shop next door.

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In the beginning of this post, I mentioned a few fishing trips.  But there were also a lot of hunting trips in 2018 as well.

To clarify, I don’t have a hunting license (yet).  So, on these hunting trips, I was only shooting my camera.  In August, I was on an elk hunt in southern California, and on another one in Washington state in early November.  And in October, I went on my first moose hunt in Utah.

But the highlight hunt of 2018 was the trip I took to Greenland with my friend Mark Lundgaard Nielsen. Chef of Kong Hans Kælder in Copenhagen, Mark was invited to cook at an event in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.  He asked me to join him on the trip, which also included three days of hunting and fishing.  Of course I went.

Currently, the only commercial airline that services Greenland is Air Greenland.  And Air Greenland only flies to and from Greenland from two cities outside of Greenland.  You can either fly from Reykjavik, Iceland on a Dash-8, which takes you directly to Nuuk.  Or, there is one flight a day on a wide-body jet (Airbus 330) from Copenhagen, Denmark to Kangerlussuaq.  Kangerlussuaq is an airfield in the middle of nowhere just north of the Article Circle. There is nothing there except the airport, a small airport hotel, and a handful of houses where, presumably, the airport workers live.  A former U.S. Air Force station, Kangerlussuaq is the only airstrip in Greenland large enough to accommodate a wide-body jet (there are plans to enlarge Nuuk’s airstrip to accommodate wide-body jets).  I met Mark in Copenhagen and flew together from there to Kangerlussuaq, where we then transferred on a second flight to Nuuk.

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Nuuk is a small coastal village that seems to be growing rapidly.  Even still, since there are no roads or highways connecting Greenlandic cities – there isn’t enough traffic to justify them – the roads in Nuuk simply stop at the edge of the city.  Beyond those dead-ends is vast wilderness.

Although Greenland has been under Danish rule for over two centuries, it didn’t officially become a Danish territory until the 1950s. As a territory, Greenland is largely self-governed under a system that the Danish government calls “home rule.”  Since the island is fairly isolated from the rest of the world, the population remains predominately native Greenlandic, and the official language is Greenlandic.  But Danes – even second or third generation Danes – are common here.  And Danish is widely spoken.

Anne Grødems is one of these multi-generational Danish Greenlanders.  She organized the event that brought Mark to Greenland, and was a wonderful host while we were there.

One day, while Mark was prepping for the dinner, Anne took me to the village co-op, where locals have traditionally bought and sold their meat and fish. Because Greenland is so isolated from the rest of the world, most Greenlanders still hunt and catch their own food, or rely on friends and family to do it for them.  There were bins full of fresh salmon, piles of caribou meat for sale, and a hunter dismembering a freshly caught seal.  Afterwards, she took me to a local restaurant to try some native Greenlandic food. Our lunch included narwhale skin (yes, the “unicorn” whale), which is eaten raw with a bit of salt.  Locals call it “Greenlandic chewing gum” because the rubbery skin is impenetrable, and can be chewed for hours.  It’s the fat on the skin you’re after anyway.  And after that has melted, most people swallow the rest.  We also had dried ox jerky, dried seal jerky, raw seal fat, and a steaming bowl of seal stew that had been thickened with rice.  Seal fat has a particularly oily smell to it – once you have it, you’ll never forget it.  I’ve now had it a few times, and I have to admit that I’m still working hard on acquiring a taste for it.

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After the event was over, Anne’s husband Ove, and Ove’s colleague Rene Christensen took Mark and me on a three-day hunting and fishing trip.  We boarded Ove’s boat Nana and sailed three and a half hours north along the western coast of Greenland, and into a fjord, where we dropped anchor.

Without question, Greenland is the most untouched land I have visited.  Even the remote parts of Iceland and Patagonia that I had visited were reachable by land vehicles.  Where we were in Greenland, there were no roads, not even dirt tracks for cars to follow.  For as far as the eye could see, there was no trace of human life.  In fact, there was little evidence of life at all – a quiet, still vastness of rock carpeted with moss.  It is quite possible that we walked where no human had walked before.

We slept on the boat and shuttled to shore in a dinghy every morning. From dawn until dusk, we trekked and canvassed the land for caribou.  On the first day, we shot two snow hare; on the second day, we shot a third.  But there was no caribou in sight.

Nevertheless, we ate well on the good ship Nana.  Mark had prepared food for us to heat up at night.  There was hearty Danish tarteletter – a rich chicken velouté that’s served in puff pastry cups. One night we caught cod off the side of the boat and cooked that.  We had heaps of Greenlandic shrimp with us as well, and made smørrebrød with it. And never one to overlook details, Mark had brought canelés, which we heated up after dinner using a stovetop toaster.

Finally, on the third day, two caribou.  Both were shot and dressed before noon.  And both had to be packed out.  I did my part: with my camera slung over one shoulder, and a rifle over another, I hiked back with a liver in one hand, and a heart in another.  In good spirits, but on stormy seas, we sailed back to Nuuk, where Anne awaited us with a feast she had prepared.

I can’t thank my new Greenlandic friends enough for their incredible hospitality.  I hope I get to visit them again soon.

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Sadly, 2018 was the first year in over a decade that I didn’t visit New York.

Otherwise, work took me all over the United States: Pittsburgh, Austin, Knoxville, Panama Beach, Salt Lake City, Carmel, the Napa Valley, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and the Olympic Peninsula of Washington.

I also visited my goddaughter in Seattle, attended the James Beard Awards in Chicago, visited Charleston twice – once with my family, and once with friends – and finally made it back to Washington, D.C.  I am happy to report that the dining scene in the capital city has improved significantly since I was last there in 2013.

Throughout all of my travels in 2018, I had a lot of great food.  Per annual tradition, I’ll be writing about my favorite dishes, desserts, and meals in the following three posts.  In the meantime, I will end this post with a list of every restaurant I visited in 2018.

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JANUARY

Aubergine (Carmel-by-the-Sea, California)
Empanada Madness (Leawood, Kansas)
fl.2 at the Fairmont (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; 4x)
Mission Taco (Kansas City, Missouri)
Or, The Whale (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
Q39 (Kansas City, Missouri)
Sahara (Kansas City, Missouri)
Tako (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)

FEBRUARY

American Restaurant (Kansas City, Missouri; Friends of James Beard Foundation)
Ba Bar (Seattle, Washington)
Bar Melusine (Seattle, Washington; 2x)
benu (San Francisco, California)
Boulette’s Larder (San Francisco, California)
Canlis (Seattle, Washington)
Chinook’s (Seattle, Washington)
Copal (Seattle, Washington)
Fonville Press, The (Alys Beach, Florida; 3x)
General Porpoise (Seattle, Washington; 2x)
Great China (Berkeley, California)
Happy Gillis Café & Hangout (Kansas City, Missouri)
Il Corvo (Seattle, Washington)
Joe’s Kansas City (Kansas City, Kansas)
London Plane, The (Seattle, Washington)
McClain’s Market (Leawood, Kansas)
Mister Jiu’s (San Francisco, California)
Saison (San Francisco, California)
Wataru (Seattle, Washington)
Z & Y (San Francisco, California)
Zuni Café (San Francisco, California)

MARCH

Anderson & Maillard (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Antler Room, The (Kansas City, Missouri)
Apollo Bar (Copenhagen, Denmark; 2x)
Acquerello (San Francisco, California)
Bluestem (Kansas City, Missouri)
Daniel Berlin (Skåne Tranås, Sweden)
Grøften (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Hogshead (Kansas City, Missouri)
Jardiniere (San Francisco, California)
Kong Hans Kælder (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Mälmo Saluhall (Mälmo, Sweden)
noma (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Ramen Shop (Oakland, California)
St. Genevieve (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Zuni Café (San Francisco, California; 2x)

APRIL

Barn at Blackberry Farm, The (Walland, Tennessee; 2x)
Dogwood at Blackberry Farm (Walland, Tennessee; 2x)
Hidden Dim Sum (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Jah Izakaya (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Kong Hans Kælder (Copenhagen, Denmark; påfrokost)
Marchal at the Hôtel d’Angleterre (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Martina (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Messenger Coffee (Kansas City, Missouri; 2x)
Novel (Kansas City, Missouri)
Palægade (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Port Fonda (Kansas City, Missouri)
Rye (Kansas City, Missouri)
Young Joni (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

MAY

167 Raw (Charleston, South Carolina)
3 Arts Club Café (Chicago, Illinois)
Acre (Animas, Mexico)
avec (Chicago, Illinois)
Bachelor Farmer Café (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Bavette Boeuf and Bar (Chicago, Illinois)
Blue Fish (Palmilla, Mexico)
Broadway Deli (Kansas City, Missouri)
Fonville Press (Alys Beach, Florida)
George’s (Alys Beach, Florida)
Giant (Chicago, Illinois)
Husk (Charleston, South Carolina)
La Panaderia (San Jose del Cabo, Mexico)
L’Avant Comptoir (Paris, France)
Leon’s Oyster Shop (Charleston, South Carolina)
Mamiche (Paris, France)
mokonuts (Paris, France)
Publican Anker (Chicago, Illinois)
Quinsou (Paris, France)
Restaurant at 1900, The (Mission, Kansas)
Rodney Scott’s BBQ (Charleston, South Carolina)
Somerset (Chicago, Illinois)
Stinky’s Fish Camp (Santa Rosa Beach, Florida)
Sur (Cabo San Lucas, Mexico)

JUNE

Café Breizh (Cancale, France)
Château Richeux (Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes, France)
Chez l’Ami Jean (Paris, France)
Kulture Kurry (Overland Park, Kansas)
L’Ambroisie (Paris, France)
L’Avenue (Paris, France)
La Ferme du Vent (Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes, France; 3x)
La Fontaine de Bellevie (Paris, France)
Port Fonda (Kansas City, Missouri)

JULY

Asador Etxebarri (Axpe, Spain)
Bachelor Farmer Café, The (Minneapolis, Minnesota; 3x)
Barn at Blackberry Farm, The (Walland, Tennessee; 2x)
Boulette’s Larder (San Francisco, California)
Casa Julián (Tolosa, Spain)
Dogwood at Blackberry Farm (Walland, Tennessee, 3x)
Elkano (Getaria, Spain)
El Puertito (Bilbao, Spain)
Ganbara (San Sebastian, Spain; 3x)
Gandarias (San Sebastian, Spain)
McGonigle’s (Kansas City, Missouri)
Saison (San Francisco, California)
Savoy at 21C, The (Kansas City, Missouri)
Victor Montes (Bilbao, Spain)

AUGUST

A Rake’s Progress (Washington, D.C.)
Bad Saint (Washington, D.C.)
Bite, The (Kansas City, Missouri)
Brothers & Sisters (Washington, D.C.)
Dabney, The (Washington, D.C.)
Golden Ox, The (Kansas City, Missouri)
Joe’s Kansas City (Kansas City, Kansas)
Kobi Q (Kansas City, Missouri)
Maketto (Washington, D.C.)
Maydan (Washington, D.C.)
Nerua at the Bilbao Guggenheim (Bilbao, Spain)
Pizza 51 (Kansas City, Missouri)
Q by P. Chang (Bethesda, Maryland)
Rye (Kansas City, Missouri; 3x)
Savoy at 21C, The (Kansas City, Missouri)
Seylou (Washington, D.C.)
Tacos El Gallo (Kansas City, Missouri)

SEPTEMBER

Angler (San Franciscom, California; 7x)
Apollo Bar (Copenhagen, Denmark; 3x)
Atelier September (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Boulette’s Larder (San Francisco, California; 2x)
Douglas on Sanchez, The (San Francisco)
Hamano (San Francisco, California; 2x)
Kong Hans Kælder (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Marchal at the Hôtel d’Angleterre (Copenhagen, Denmark)
NICO (San Francisco, California)
Saison (San Francisco, California)
Sam’s Grill (San Francisco, California)
Sarfalik (Nuuk, Greenland)
Soba Ichi (Oakland, California)
Takuss Pub (Nuuk, Greenland)
Turtle Tower (San Francisco, California)
Zuni Café (San Francisco, California)

OCTOBER

Angler (San Francisco, California)
Barn at Blackberry Farm, The (Walland, Tennessee; 2x)
Bellecour (Wayzata, Minnesota)
Boulette’s Larder (San Francisco, California)
Brady’s Irish Pub (Kansas City, Missouri)
Campos (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Dogwood at Blackberry Farm (Walland, Tennessee; 2x)
HSL (Salt Lake City, Utah)
La Mar (San Francisco, California)
Mad Moose (Eden, Utah)
Pizza Nono (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Pretty Bird (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Red Cliff Grill (Huntsville, Utah)
Saigon Pho (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Saison (San Francisco, California)
Savoy at 21C, The (Kansas City, Missouri)
Spoon & Stable (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Sura Eats at Parlor (Kansas City, Missouri)
Tartine Manufactory (San Francisco, California)
Z & Y (San Francisco, California)
Zuni Café (San Francisco, California)

NOVEMBER

All Good Things at the Fairmont (Austin, Texas)
Blakeslee’s Bar & Grill (Forks, Washington; 2x)
Breda (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
FIG (Charleston, South Carolina)
Garrison at the Fairmont (Austin, Texas)
George W.P.A. (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Henrietta’s (Charleston, South Carolina; 2x)
Kulture Kurry (Overland Park, Kansas)
Leon’s Oyster Shop (Charleston, South Carolina)
Messenger Coffee (Kansas City, Missouri)
Ordinary, The (Charleston, South Carolina)
Pendergast (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Restaurant at 1900, The (Mission, Kansas)
Revue at the Fairmont (Austin, Texas)
Rijks (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Scandinavian Embassy, The (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Sully’s (Forks, Washington; 2x)
White Label (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
White Room, The (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

DECEMBER

801 Chophouse (Leawood, Kansas)
Bouchon (Yountville, California)
Charter Oak, The (St. Helena, California: 4x)
Gott’s (St. Helena, California; 3x)
Messenger Coffee (Kansas City, Missouri)
Pizza 51 (Kansas City, Missouri)
Restaurant at Meadowood, The (St. Helena, California)
Restaurant at Meadowood, The (St. Helena, California; The Twelve Days of Christmas: Enrique, Pynt, Largey, Lowe, Seidler, Kim, Amaro, Cogley & Moran, Tusk, Ros, Atsumi, and Kostow)
Rye (Kansas City, Missouri)
Scribe Winery (Sonoma County, California)
Slaps BBQ (Kansas City, Kansas)
Southside (Napa, California)

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Here is a catalog of my prior year-end posts:

2011: suitcase party…
2012: foreign and domestic…
2013: blurred lines…
2014: leapfrogging… 
2015: fairytale…
2016: hemispheres and horizons… 
2017: an education…

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Photos: Lord of the flies in Nevada; striped bass fishing in the waters of Marin, California; pulling cod from the icy waters of Greenland; tying lines in Nevada; Ove Grødems with a snow hare in Greenland; glassing at sunset in the mountains of Utah; Rodney Scott preparing the barbecue for 30A Wine Fest at Alys Beach, Florida; ducks above the fire at Music To Your Mouth at Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina; Ilya Fushman and Joshua Skenes salting freshly caught salmon on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington; preparing the grill for a cookout for Rediscovering Coastal Cuisine on a private beach along the Carmel coast of California; Ludo Lefebvre and Gavin Kaysen at the Synergy Series at Spoon & Stable in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Christopher Kostow lining a grill with cabbage for Rediscovering Coastal Cuisine at l’Auberge Carmel in Carmel-By-The-Sea, California; beer on the porch at Blackberry Mountain; Digital Graffiti at Alys Beach, Florida; The French Open at Roland Garros in Paris, France; le Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris, France; the stone pathway to San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, Spain; le Ferme du Vent in St-Méloir-des-Ondes, France; le Ferme du Vent in St-Méloir-des-Ondes, France; Mont-St-Michel, France; la Maison de Bricourt in Cancale, France; the colorful houses in Nuuk, Greenland; the airport at Kangerlussuaq, Greenland; hunters on the hunt in Greenland; Mark Lundgaard Nielsen and Ove Grødems in the dinghy to shore in Greenland; Ove Grødems in Greenland; packing out caribou in Greenland; Charleston, South Carolina; the bleach-white homes of Alys Beach, Florida; moose hunting in Utah.

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Before I get on with telling you about my favorite whatnots from 2018, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you.  What follows is partly an explanation, partly an admission, and all of it a disclaimer.

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Over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed that my exposure to restaurants has slowly narrowed. As I explained in my previous post, this is largely because of my growing workload, which has increasingly determined where I go and where I eat.

But admittedly, part of it is also by choice.

When I first started this blog in the mid-aughts, I was one of the few, younger online pundits who joined the older, more seasoned pundits in voicing skepticism and cynicism about the “Molecular” (or “Modernist”) movement that was spreading around the world.  But unlike a lot of them, I was actually willing to visit these newer, more experimental restaurants.  Many of the older and wiser among us were not.  And I thought it was awfully close-minded of them.

Now that I’ve been around the block a few times, I’ve gained a little perspective and realized that perhaps it wasn’t close-mindedness.  Perhaps it was certainty – not necessarily certainty that the newer, more experimental restaurants would be bad, but rather certainty in what and where they did actually like to eat.

A decade on, I think I’ve arrived at that same place.  I’ve had thousands of meals across the world since I started writing this blog – the ledger is published for all to see.  And after eating so much unremarkable, ill-conceived, over-conceived, or sometimes, just poorly cooked food, over and over and over again, I’m not as eager to try the new as I am in returning to the good.  And now, I that I know where the good is, I go and go often.

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By most standards, I still ate across a broad spectrum of restaurants in 2018.  Although I have strong preferences, I still eagerly seek out new restaurants and new experiences – usually after vetting them first. (You’ll find all of the restaurants I visited last year listed in this prior post.)

But undeniably, over the past two years, I’ve begun gravitating more and more towards the small handful of restaurants that cook the kind of food I like: excellent ingredients, minimal intervention, maximum flavor.  And this year, their impact was particularly pronounced.

For one thing, being more choosey about where I ate in 2018 netted me better food than I had last year.  But also, more than any year before, I happened to work with quite a few restaurants that I like. This not only increased the proximity and exposure I had to them, but, coupled with my preferences, it also exponentially increased the chances that I’d find exceptional food among them.

Over three separate trips to Tennessee to photograph for Blackberry Mountain, for example, I ate at the Barn at Blackberry Farm at least a half-dozen times.  Photographing for Angler, I ate there seven times – before it actually opened.  I ate at Saison five times – three times when Joshua Skenes was still the chef there, and twice after Laurent Gras took over the kitchen.  And, during my time photographing at the Twelve Days of Christmas I had 13 dinners at The Restaurant at Meadowood.  The sheer number of dishes I’ve had at each of these restaurants disproportionately outnumbered the rest of the field.

I could choose to take an egalitarian approach to my year-end collections, and in the spirit of inclusivity, feature a wider range of restaurants that I visited in 2018.  That’s the direction that the restaurant industry is tacking nowadays, and it’s utter nonsense.  There’s nothing egalitarian about the word “favorite.”  I believe in meritocracy, and will adhere faithfully to it here in giving my opinion of what I liked best about eating last year.

For the fourteenth year, you will find below my 25 favorite dishes from the previous year.  Among them are simple rice dishes, fatty meats, and something I can only describe as a parlor snack.  There are fish and fowl, and lots of crab. And there’s a whole family of buttery dough in there too – extraordinary sandwiches, tourtes, and pithiviers.  What is tragic are the high number of exceptional dishes that clusters just beyond these, which won’t be mentioned here.

[The title of each dish below is hyperlinked to a photo of that dish.  In some cases, I’ve written about the dish in a previous blog post, which is hyperlinked from either the chef or restaurant name that appears below the title.]

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25. QUELQUES HUÎTRES TIÈDES
Camembert au lait cru, asperges blanches et
angélique du jardin.
(La Coquillage; St-Méloir-des-Ondes, France)

The Breton coast is famous for its oysters, and nearby Normandie is famous for its dairy.  Hugo Roellinger combined these two gifts in a bowl of fat oysters in a warm, milky bisque of Camembert and angelica.

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24. PICKLES AND HOMEMADE SALTINES
Whipped butter.
(Publican Anker; Chicago, Illinois)

My friend Carla described this best: strangely delicious. Or maybe she said it was strangely addictive. Either way, she was right, and I’m glad she convinced me to order this odd assortment of deliciousness.

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23. ANTELOPE TARTARE
(Angler; San Francisco, California)

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22. JAMON BOCADILLOS
(Ganbara; San Sebastian, Spain)

We ordered them by the dozens, these buttery, golden mini croissants (which I think Ganbara bakes in-house) filled with waxy jamón.  And we cleared a few of these platters standing around on the sidewalk drinking Txakoli in the balmy Basque afternoon.

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21. PERSIAN TAHDIG AND LEBNAH
(Maydan; Washington, D.C.)

Chef Gerald Addison asked if he could just send a few things out to me, a single diner at the bar. Before long, there was a sprawling feast cobbled together from all over the Middle East.  All of it was delicious, especially this Persian “scorched rice” cake, a thin layer of it crisped in hot oil.

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20. ASOPAO
(Jose Enrique for the Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

Jose Enrique described this dish as Puerto Rican “hangover food,” made from rice and leftover scraps.  His version included pork and chicken sausages, onion, garlic, tomato, capers, and turmeric, which Enrique says grows all over his native island.

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19. MARYLAND BLUE CRAB
Charred broccoli, lemon balm, and garlic chive
(The Dabney; Washington, D.C.)

Jeremiah Langhorne served two crab dishes side-by-side.  One was a tomatoey Maryland crab soup with okra with just a bit of spice to it.  I loved it.  The other one was this buttery bisque with blue crab and garlic chive.  This one was extraordinary.

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18. GRILLED BUTTERMILK-BRINED CHICKEN
Preserved lemon, herbs, and drippings served with
steamed California-grown Komachi rice with cultured butter.
(The Charter Oak; St. Helena, California)

Katianna Hong excels at comfort food.  And this dish was Katianna creating comfort at its best. The tender chicken, bathing in its own juices and drippings, was served with a side of steamed and buttered Komachi rice. Although they were served with a smattering of other dishes, you didn’t have to tell me who in the group were the happy couple.

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17. VEAL AND FOIE GRAS TOURTE
Shiitake and curry sauce.
(Kong Hans Kælder; Copenhagen, Denmark)

I had this tourte a couple of times: once at Mark Lundgaard Nielsen’s restaurant in Copenhagen, and again in Kansas City at The American Restaurant, when he made it for a Friends of James Beard Foundation dinner.

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16. 11 YEAR-OLD COW
A simple lettuce salad.
(Asador Etxebarri; Axpe, Spain)

Fatty, dry-aged meat so old that the tallow had yellowed; and a side of crisp lettuce, tartly dressed: Perfect.

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15. PIGEON TOURTE
Pistachio, duck liver, confit of leg, and curry sauce.
(Marchal; Copenhagen, Denmark)

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14. KING CRAB
Drawn butter.
(Angler; San Francisco, California)

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13. SALLY FOX’S MUTTON
Cultured cream, ghormeh sabzi, mutton fat, crumpet.
(Christopher Kostow for the Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

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12. SAISON RESERVE CAVIAR
Bone marrow, banana waffles, grilled banana peel butter.
(Saison; San Francisco, California)

I am often a guinea pig for Joshua Skenes. Thankfully, his trials are far more successes than errors, and I am the lucky beneficiary of this windfall, especially since Skenes’s whims and inspirations come and leave quickly. Much of what I get to try never reappears again; a one-time taste of something extraordinary.  Here is one such fleeting moment: a giant bone marrow served with heaping amounts of caviar and a stack of super-light and airy waffles (more crisp than soft).  And then the grilled banana peel butter – that was phenomenal.

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11. CELERY ROOT AND BLACK TRUFFLE PITHIVIER
(Sota Atsumi for the Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

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10. STUFFED QUAIL
Morels in cream sauce.
(Kong Hans Kælder; Copenhagen, Denmark)

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9. SHAVED PORK SHOULDER
Yogurt, herbs.
(The Barn at Blackberry Farm; Walland, Tennessee)

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8. POUSSIN EN VESSIE
California rice, matsutake, white truffles.
(Christopher Kostow for the Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood)

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7. PARMENTIÈRE D’ESCARGOT À L’AIL DES OURS
Mesclun d’herbes, potagères.
(l’Ambroisie; Paris, France)

Fat snails under a thin, ultra-crispy sheet of potato, all of it radiating garlic.  And yet, afterwards, no garlic.  Exquisite technique, bold flavors, soft touch; that is why I love Bernard Pacaud’s cooking at l’Ambroisie.

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6. WHOLE TURBOT
(Elkano; Getaria, Spain)

Not since my meals at Ibai (San Sebastian, Spain) have I had a whole fish cooked with as much skill.

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5. TOASTED GRAINS AND SEEDS
Beef broth, smoked butter, cured beef and radishes.
(The Barn at Blackberry Farm; Walland, Tennessee)

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4. SUNCHOKE
Sunflower seed praline, black truffle.
(Saison; San Francisco, California)

There was sunchoke in this this dish. It was hard to tell under the avalanche of Perigord truffles of impeccable quality and smell.  But there was sunchoke in this dish.  Just trust me.

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3. CAROLINA GOLD RICE
Clams and fennel.
(The Barn at Blackberry Farm; Walland, Tennessee)

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2. BOX CRAB IN ITS OWN BROTH
Buttermilk.
(Saison; San Francisco, California)

A rich crab bisque, a dollop of tangy buttermilk.

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1. PINTO BEANS & CHARRED CABBAGE
Foie gras, smoked chicken broth, and herbs.
(The Barn at Blackberry Farm; Walland, Tennessee)

Like a lot of Cassidee Dabney’s cooking, this dish used simple ingredients to create incredible layers of flavor.  The backbone of her cooking is solid, and she ventures just enough off-script to add bit of adventure and excitement.  Notice, four of my ten favorite dishes this year were from her kitchen.  Here, the smoked chicken broth infused with foie gras was exceptionally balanced and sophisticated.

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Photos: Sunchoke (no. 3) at Saison; Pigeon Tourte at Marchal (no. 15); Sally Fox’s Mutton by Christopher Kostow at The Twelve Days of Christmas (no. 13); Pickles and Homemade “Saltine” Crackers at Publican Anker (no. 24); jamón bocadillos at Ganbara (no. 22); Persian Tahdig at Maydan (no. 21); bone marrow with Saison Reserve Caviar and banana waffles at Saison (no. 12); Parmentière d’Escargot at l’Ambroisie (no. 7); a whole turbot at Elkano (no. 6); Toasted Grains and Seeds (no. 5), and Carolina Gold Rice (no. 3), both at The Barn at Blackberry Farm.

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I have little to add to the thoughts that I previously recorded about pastryland in 2016, and which I reiterated in 2017.

The majority of desserts I encounter in restaurants continues to be overwrought.  Sadly, excessive plating remains a popular style.  And pastry chefs haven’t lost their interest in unorthodox (sometimes bizarre) ingredients. In 2018, I had desserts made with mushrooms, plankton, caviar, and seaweed.  I’m not saying these ingredients can’t be successfully used in pastries (to the contrary, one of my favorite desserts last year incorporated caviar magnificently), but most attempts that I’ve encountered have been… challenging.  I wonder how much further pastry chefs will stretch concepts and comfort zones.

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As in the past, some of the best pastries I had in 2018 were found in coffee shops and bakeries. Let me tell you about a few of my favorites.

In Kansas City, I am lucky to have Ibis Bakery and, since I first mentioned them a year ago, I continue to enjoy the many, wonderful sheeted dough pastries that they offer at Messenger Coffee on Grand Boulevard.  There are blonde puffs filled with cherries and cheese; darker ones filled with cranberries and almonds, sometimes peaches or blueberries, and pineapple too; claws with a heart of goat cheese; and a whole family of croissants, some sweet, some not.  I’m a little annoyed by how popular they’ve become, especially on the weekends when there’s a line out the door.  But they deserve every bit of attention they’re getting.  I’m there almost every day when I’m home.

Speaking of Kansas City, a native Kansas Citian is making fantastic pastries in Copenhagen.  Milton Abel, III, who has worked as the pastry chef at The French Laundry (Yountville), where I first met him, and per se (New York), as well as at both noma and amass (both in Copenhagen), is now baking at a café in the Nørrebro neighborhood of Copenhagen.  In the early months of 2018, he and coffee roaster Hans Andersen opened Andersen & Maillard.  Not surprisingly, Abel’s work is exceptional.  He offers croissants with varying percentages of butter, kouign amann, excellent chocolate chip cookies, a variety of buns and breads, and probably much more that I haven’t yet seen.  I’ve also read that, in the summer, Andersen & Maillard started offering soft serve (made from leftover steamed milk).  I can’t wait to go back.

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In Washington D.C., I really enjoyed Seylou Bakery, which specializes in whole-wheat flour.  Even the croissants here are made of whole wheat. Mine was noticeably moist in the middle, but it was incredibly flakey throughout.  I thought it was excellent.

In Seattle, I went to Sea Wolf, where I found quite an impressive list of breads, including lye rolls.  The pastries we tried were very good, with unique fillings like apples and anise, or vegetables, like Brussels sprouts.

Across town, I found excellent doughnuts – the new darling of coffee shops these days – at General Porpoise (there are now four locations of Renee Erickson’s café).  Her doughnuts are piped with fillings like chocolate marshmallow, rose cream, vanilla custard (my favorite), lemon curd, and raspberry jam.  They’re so popular that they sell out often. To keep up with the demand, there are multiple deliveries throughout the day.

And while photographing for fl.2 at the Fairmont Hotel in Pittsburgh, I had quite a few of its flakey croissants for breakfast.  I literally waited next to the ovens in the pastry kitchen for them to come out.

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In Paris, I returned to the Boot Café for those daringly dark scones I love so much. (I’ve written about this tiny café in the 3eme before.)

Thanks to a tip from my friend Hermon, I checked out Mamiche in the 9eme.  This small bakery – with no room for sitting – offers a wide selection of baked goods, including chocolate babka, brioche buns, and pain perdu, which looked more like giant, glazed marshmallows.  Buttery and sweet, and incredibly moist, they were fantastic.  I’ll have to return for the fougasses; they looked great.

I had pain perdu for breakfast another morning. I don’t know if the French actually eat this for breakfast, or if it’s just a wink to tourists.  Anyway, I consider it a dessert.  The pain perdu at la Fontaine de Belleville (10eme) is more like what we think of as French toast in America: slices of eggy toast dusted with powdered sugar.  Here, no syrup.  I didn’t miss it.

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About pie:

In Kansas City, I go regularly to Rye (two locations) for Megan Garrelts’s terrific pies. My favorite are her cream pies, especially the ones with coconut cream and banana cream fillings – both copiously covered with whipped cream.

I also found surprisingly good apple pie at White Label, a coffee shop in Amsterdam. I wrote about it in a prior post.  And also at Tartine Manufactory in San Francisco.  The slice there was especially tall, and the apple wedges particularly meaty and fragrant.

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In my opinion, simple desserts are the best desserts.  Perhaps more than previous years, you’ll find that reflected in this year’s list: some sorbet, or fruit, or a wedge of dark chocolate, all of them of exceptional quality.  Who can argue with exceptional quality?

Having already published my favorite dishes of last year (which includes disclaimers that apply here), I now present my 15 favorite desserts from 2018.  [The title of each dish below is hyperlinked to a photo of that dish.  In some cases, I’ve written about the dish in a previous blog post, which is hyperlinked from either the chef or restaurant name that appears below the title.]

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15. CERISES SUMMIT DU GARD
Crémeux chocolat cru, chantilly tonka, & glace hysope.
(Quinsou; Paris, France)

From top to bottom, I was pleasantly surprised by the meal I had at Antonin Bonnet’s little restaurant on rue de l’Abbé Grégoire in the 6eme.  It was terrific.  And at the end, dark chocolate and cherries, a couple best left alone. And Bonnet respected them accordingly.

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14. WINTER CITRUS “BOULE”
(Yannick Dumonceau for the Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

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13. MILK ICE CREAM
Smoked caramel, smoked cocoa nibs.
(Saison; San Francisco, California)

As early as 2015, and as recently as last year, this has been a perennial favorite.

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12. COCONUT SORBET
(Angler; San Francisco, California)

How do you make something taste more like itself?  This is the point upon which Joshua Skenes’s cooking pivots. Having eaten quite a bit of his food over the years, I would say that he has mastered this point.  And as a result, his flavors are as confident as they are pure.  This simple sorbet is a good example of this: you cannot imagine coconut tasting any better, or any other way.

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11. STRAWBERRY SORBET
Spring herbs, lavender almonds.
(The Barn at Blackberry Farm; Walland, Tennessee)

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10. SHAVED ICE
Sweet boiled milk, fruit.
(Trevor Moran for the Twelve Days of Christmas;
The Restaurant at Meadowood; St. Helena, California)

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9. APPLES & CREAM
Sorrel granita, whipped cream.
(The Barn at Blackberry Farm; Walland, Tennessee)

Laurence Faber’s desserts are thematic.  He chooses a superstar ingredient to play the central role, and assembles a small but spectacular supporting cast to showcase it.  He does this brilliantly.  Over the course of multiple visits to The Barn at Blackberry Farm in 2018, I was treated to a beautiful show of strawberries in the spring (see no. 11), peaches in the summer, and apples in the fall.

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8. FRUIT PLATE
(Angler; San Francisco, California)

People scoff at the idea of serving fresh fruit, unadorned, in a restaurant. I used to be among them.  And then I realized that in places like California, where there is access to ripe fruit year-round, proximity is everything. Instead of picking fruit prematurely for shipping and storage – to places like Kansas City, or New York – fruit can be picked for ripeness.  But availability does not equal access. You still have to know where and how to look for great fruit. And once you find it, you must eat it quickly, which limits the amount that you can buy at once. So having one type of ripe fruit might be reasonable, but an assortment, unreasonable.  That’s why the fruit plate at Angler is such a luxury. At any one time, you’ll have at least three – sometimes many more – types of fruit in prime condition: juicy plums, fleshy figs candy-sweet grapes, and those meaty pineapples smoked on the hearth.

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7. BABA AU RHUM
Crème Chantilly.
(Kong Hans Kælder; Copenhagen, Denmark)

What I love about Kong Hans Kælder is the level of scrutiny that chef Mark Lundgaard Nielsen applies to quality and technique.  And of course that includes everything that comes out of the pastry kitchen, a department that so many otherwise great restaurants neglect. Working with his pastry chef Hugo Ricciardi, they take an elegant approach to great classics, like peach Melba, profiteroles, and this beautiful little baba cake with rum and crème Chantilly.  The results are always perfect.

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6. ESPRESSO GRANITA
(Zuni Café; San Francisco, California)

This is a longtime favorite. And as long as Zuni Café keeps putting this perfect little parfait on its menu, I’ll keep ordering it.

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5. FLAN DE QUESO FRESCO
(Asador Etxebarri; Axpe, Spain)

I gasped from pleasure and surprise when this dessert arrived at our table. The kitchen had sent it out to us at the end of a long and wonderful meal.  This warm, fluffy cloud – more soufflé than flan – topped this list in 2012. Of it, wrote: “Unmolded from a metal ring at the table, this flan was not like any flan I’ve had elsewhere. This flan was magical, a warm, fluffy cloud of air suffused with tangy fat, bilging slightly at the sides from the weight of its own magnificence…”

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4. SALTED DRIED EGG WHITE
Caramelized rosemary and frozen goat yoghurt.
(Daniel Berlin; Skåne-Tranås, Sweden)

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3. TARTE FINE SABLÉE AU COCOA AMER
Crème glacée à la vanille Bourbon.
(l’Ambroisie; Paris, France)

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2. FRAISES DES BOIS
Chantilly.
(La Maison Berthillon; Paris, France)

A tower of whipped cream swirling above a mound of sweet rubies. This was the perfect answer on a warm, sunny spring afternoon in Paris.

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1. MILLE-FEUILLE
(La Coquillage; St-Méloir-des-Ondes, France)

Turn on your sound and listen.  I had ordered this mille-feuille off the dessert trolley the first night at La Coquillage, the Roellinger family restaurant overlooking the windswept coast of Bretagne. It was so fantastic that I ordered it to be delivered for in-room dining the next night at La Ferme du Vent.

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Photos: Flan de Queso Fresco (no. 5) at Asador Etxebarri in Axpe, Spain; an assortment of pastries – croissants and chocolate chip cookies – at Andersen & Maillard in Copenhagen, Denmark;  whole wheat croissant at Seylou in Washington, D.C.; doughnuts in the case at General Porpoise on Capitol Hill in Seattle, Washington; the bakery case at Mamiche in Paris, France; the pain perdu at la Fontaine de Belleville in Paris, France; the lattice apple pie at White Label in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; apple pie at Tartine Manufactory in San Francisco, California; a stack of croissants at fl.2 at the Fairmont in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; the dessert trolley at La Coquillage in Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes, France; Strawberry Sorbet (no. 11) at The Barn at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee; Winter Citrus “Boule” by Yannick Dumonceau (no. 14) at the Twelve Days of Christmas at the Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena, California; Fruit Plate at Angler in San Francisco, California; Baba au Rhum at Kong Hans Kælder in Copenhagen, Denmark; a coupe of fraises des bois and a tower of crème Chantilly at Maison Berthillon in Paris, France; Tarte Fine Sablée at l’Ambroisie in Paris, France; the mille-feuille from La Coquillage at la Ferme du Vent in Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes, France.

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Did you know that salmon not only find their way up rivers to spawn, but they’re able to find the specific feeder branch, upstream, where they hatched?   It’s amazing.

But in Norway, scientists have noticed that wild salmon are struggling to find their home streams. Wild salmon that have been tagged and tracked by marine biologists are showing up far off track in spawning season.  And it’s becoming a problem.

Scientists suspect the increasing population of farmed fish in the Norwegian fjords are partly to blame.  Not only have these caged fish introduced diseases to endemic species, but they may also be disorienting local salmon and interfering with their natural spawning cycles.  I first learned of this issue at a salmon hatchery in Norway in 2013, and wrote about it on this blog shortly thereafter.  Informative conversations, like this one, that I had with Norwegian chef Christopher Haatuft during this trip inspired him to create and host a series of events at his restaurant Lysverket. He asked me if I would help him, and I eagerly agreed.  The Friends of Lysverket series would bring me back to Haatuft’s breathtakingly beautiful corner of the world more than a dozen times over three years to learn about the incredible culture and unique foodways of that region.

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Important conversations about our foodways are happening all over the world.  Here in America, the Southern Foodways Alliance, initiates and encourages dialogue and introspection within the food and restaurant community in the American South. Taking an academic approach to its work, the SFA also focuses on preserving and recording as much of it as possible.  The James Beard Foundation hosts “boot camps” throughout the year to get chefs engaged in policy and change on a variety of issues.  And Chefs Brigaid, founded by Dan Giusti, formerly the head chef of Noma, is harnessing the experience and influence of professional chefs to improve foodservice programs in our nation’s public schools.

These, and many other programs, are doing great work.  But I fear that it’s being lost or ignored in the near-blinding glamor and glow of restaurant celebrity today.  One way to overcome this, of course, is to leverage restaurant celebrity for advocacy and awareness.  Charity dinners, for example, are great way to spotlight causes and bring much-needed dollars to them.  I participate in them often, and have helped organize and host them regularly.

But what’s often missing at these events is meaningful conversation. These dinners appeal to an audience that’s happy to pay for a special culinary experience and, at the same time, walk away feeling like they’ve contributed to a cause.  Many are eager to engage more with the issues that these causes raise, but don’t have time.  Or maybe they do.  But rarely is that opportunity offered.

I want to offer that opportunity, at least in my little corner of the world.

With the help of the Karbank family, which owns the 1900 Building and The Restaurant at 1900 in Kansas City, I am helping to launch a series of food talks and dinners.  Our first “Talking Food at 1900” event will explore aquaculture.

On Saturday, 26 January, I will be moderating a small panel discussion that will continue the conversation that I first started in the fjords of Norway years ago.  We are bringing my friend Christopher Haatuft from Bergen, Norway to share his experiences as a chef working with marine biologists and fisheries – including whalers – along the Norwegian coast.  Also joining the conversation will be Magdalena Wallhoff, a longtime friend and colleague, who has more than a decade of experience in the fish farming industry.  She not only has incredible knowledge about the commercial aspects of fish farming, but has worked hard to champion fair labor standards, improvement of infrastructure, and environmental protection within the farmed fishing communities of the developing world.  I have traveled with her to fish farms in the jungles of Honduras, Mexico, and Indonesia, to understand the issues her industry faces, and have witnessed the incredible work that she and others have done.  This panel discussion will take place at 4:00PM at the 1900 Building.  Attendance is FREE, and we will be raffling off a table for two for the following night’s dinner – Sunday, 27 January – when Haatuft will be cooking with Linda Duerr, the chef at The Restaurant at 1900. If you would like to attend the panel discussion, we encourage you to register for online so that we can get an adequate headcount. If you would like to attend the dinner, please reserve online.  Seats are limited.

In September, we will be hosting another Talking Food at 1900 event.  Sarah Steffens, the chef of Dogwood at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee will be joined by Blackberry Farm’s master gardener John Coykendall for a discussion on their amazing seed saving programming, and the importance of preserving traditional farming techniques.

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Photos: Diver Knut Magnus Persson and a prehistoric-looking “stenbider” (“stone biter”) fish in Sotra, Norway; Christopher Haatuft on at Lysverket in Bergen, Norway; Magdalena Wallhoff in Bellingham, Washington; shrimper Knut Jørstad and Christopher Haatuft in Sotra, Norway.

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Last year, I got pretty worked up about an insultingly bad meal I had in 2017.

This year I have no barns to burn; only good news to share.

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In addition to telling you about my favorite meals of the year, I have, for more than a decade, used this post to round up thoughts and observations I’ve made in the preceding year about the restaurant industry at large.

This year’s thoughts require quite a bit of backstory, which I present with bias.

Since I first arrived on the restaurant scene in the early aughts, the global dining culture has been in a state of great agitation. In those early years, the advent of the internet compelled change that spurred an era of intense experimentation and innovation.  While I think this energized and improved the hospitality side of the restaurant industry, I’m not as enthusiastic about the effect it has had in kitchens, particularly at the high end.

A rising generation of chefs at the time began untethering from traditional modes of cooking to indulge their curiosities elsewhere.  But this shift wasn’t just happening among this small group of progressive thinkers, who began challenging culinary norms and traditions.  The internet made it possible for this vanguard to share and exchange ideas beyond its circles. And the ensuing expansion of social media gave these chefs a global reach that made them and their work tremendously influential.  This caused a reordering of priorities. Diminishing was the primacy of deliciousness, ascendant were ideas and aesthetics.

But even though these ideas spread quickly, those generating the ideas and driving the conversation remained few (reminder: I’m still talking about the higher end of dining).  Most who ascribed to this new culinary order were not creators themselves, but rather followers.  However unique and earnest the intentions, conceptual approaches to cooking, like the “Modernist” (or “Molecular”) and “New Nordic” movements, which spread virally throughout the kitchens of the world, became corrupted in replication. Wannabes began adopting (or mimicking) superficial aspects of these concepts without truly understanding them.  What’s worse is that, in doing so, an entire generation of cooks weren’t actually learning to cook. The result was not a marketplace flooded with great ideas, but rather one choked with culinary ersatz.  In recent years, this has been exacerbated by a steep decline in the desire for critical and evaluative conversations about cooking.  Let to run wild without such accountability, the gastronomique mondiale has devolved into a circus of narcissism and overrun by infantile groupies mesmerized in the cult of chefs.  Where are the adults in the room?

As a consumer who unabashedly prioritizes deliciousness über alles – and have been very vocal about it – this is how I have largely viewed the last decade and a half of fine dining.  As my sense and sensibilities run counter to zeitgeist, I expect many of you to disagree.

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It’s not that I object to experimentation and innovation, or fail to see their value.  To the contrary, I’ve had rewarding meals of all stripes, and greatly appreciate the contributions that progressive movements have made to the culinary dialogue.  But laudatory examples are exceedingly rare (and I have used this annual blog post to recognize them when I find them*).  Most of what I’ve had to sit through and pay for – and eat – at the higher end of dining has been uninteresting at best, inedible at worst.

This week, Pete Wells, the incumbent restaurant critic of the New York Times, wrote of Jonathan Benno’s new, eponymous restaurant in the city’s NoMad neighborhood: “[It] will probably be a tough sell to those diners who expect all restaurants to fall on a continuum between Noma and the Salt Bae place. But I prefer it to any number of newer, self-consciously modern restaurants, some of which are so determined to be of the moment that they might as well have a time stamp. Benno is not trying to be contemporary. It’s trying to be delicious. And it is, from start to finish, almost without exception.” [Emphasis is mine.]

Obviously, contemporary cooking and deliciousness aren’t mutually exclusive. And I’m not suggesting that Mr. Wells implies that they are. But the distinction that he draws between them aligns with my experiences: for more than a decade, the two have rarely been companions.

Thankfully, I have good news.  And this is what I want to say this year: The wheel is turning.  After a decade-plus of talking about ideas, I think chefs are slowly awakening to the fact that we have a crisis of cooking on our hands. Even the most ardent supporters of conceptual cooking with whom I’ve spoken recently now eagerly admit that there is far more silliness than seriousness in restaurants these days, and it’s getting out of hand. Symptomatic is a deficit of skilled cooks – not simply in the number of cooks available, but the number of cooks who actually know how to cook.  It’s beginning to have a crippling effect on the restaurant industry.

It’s time to get back to cooking.

And here again, I have encouraging news.  From a cultural standpoint, I see the needle moving.  There seems to be a growing interest in and appreciation of classical and traditional modes of cooking.  I’m not talking about the trolleys and trays being trotted out at fancy restaurants these days, or the table-side to-do that seems to be showing up with increased frequency.  That’s the superficial stuff, some of which is just more mimicry without understanding, or simply good dinner theater.

I’m talking about chefs who are focused on understanding ingredients, and how best to showcase their natural qualities and maximize their flavor with as little manipulation as possible.  I’m talking about cooking with heat and mastering timing.  And I’m talking about a return to the primacy of deliciousness over ideas and aesthetics.

My year-end list of my favorite meals has always celebrated the chefs and restaurants that appeal to my native preferences in eating.  But more than any year before, this year, I use this list to advocate for them, and hopefully generate more momentum in their direction.

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In 2018, I not only indulged my preferences, I wallowed in them.  As a result, I had far more noteworthy meals than I can adequately credit here.  But the vast majority of these great meals were at a handful of restaurants.  So, instead of presenting ten of my favorite meals, I’ve decided to feature ten restaurants that, collectively, represent the highest density of good eating.  I ate at seven of these restaurants more than once in 2018, and some of them as many as half-dozen times or more.  And they all performed so consistently that ranking them seems silly.  So, you’ll find them listed alphabetically below.

In the interest of transparency, I paid for my meals at four of the following restaurants; I was gifted meals at two of them; and I ate at the remaining four restaurants while working on projects with them (I wrote more about these relationships in my prior post about my favorite dishes from 2018).

This is the eleventh year that I have memorialized my favorite restaurant meals.

[Here is a list of all of the restaurants that I visited in 2018.  Clicking on the names of the restaurants listed below will take you to an album of photos from that meal.]

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L’AMBROISIE
(Paris, France)

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Others aspire for finesse the way it emanates naturally from Bernard Pacaud’s cooking.   At l’Ambroisie, Pacaud is content to celebrate the beauty and flavor of ingredients with a quiet magnificence.  I first wrote about l’Ambroisie shortly after my first meal there in 2008. More recently, I wrote about the meal I had there in 2017.  L’Ambroisie is one of a few restaurants that has appeared on this year-end list every year I’ve eaten there.  I hope this is not the last time.

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ANGLER
(San Francisco, California)

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Even before it officially opened its doors, I already had a number of excellent meals at Joshua Skenes’s new restaurant on the Embarcadero.  Angler offers the kind of intuitive deliciousness for which Skenes is celebrated, but in a more shareable way. Here, he explores and showcases ingredients individually, one plate or platter at a time: superbly roasted chicken with beautifully burnished skin; a giant tomato dressed with intensely sweet tomatoes dried in the hearth; a bowl of fruit at peak ripeness.  In this way, Angler demands trust and commitment from its diners. Missing is the variety offered by tasting menus. But in return, diners are rewarded with an opportunity to focus and indulge in a way few restaurants of this caliber offer.

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ASADOR ETXEBARRI
(Axpe, Spain)

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Victor Arguigoniz’s cooking expresses the flavors of the Basque country in simple terms: some buffalo milk made into fresh cheese; plump prawns gently warmed; a sea bream beautifully cooked and butterflied from head to tail; salted anchovies on toast.  It is as uncomplicated as it is exceptional.

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THE BARN AT BLACKBERRY FARM
(Walland, Tennessee)

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Four of my ten favorite dishes from 2018 were from Cassidee Dabney, chef of the Barn at Blackberry Farm, and two of my favorite desserts last year were from the restaurant’s pastry chef Laurence Faber. Despite working at one of America’s classiest resorts, Dabney and Faber do not forsake their humble surroundings. They are resourceful stewards of these eastern hills of Tennessee, showcasing what they have locally: beans, rice, seeds, cabbage, and less-glamorous cuts of meat. And from this agrarian and austere collection, they coax rich and sophisticated flavors that elegantly tell a soulful story of the American South.  I had over a half dozen incredible meals at the Barn at Blackberry Farm last year, and I can name few restaurants in America that have earned as much enthusiasm from me as this restaurant did in 2018.

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ELKANO
(Getaria, Spain)

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Elkano shames with simplicity.  What it achieves with fish on live coals exceeds what most others fail to accomplish with far more.  After six years of missed opportunities and bad timing, I finally made it to this beautiful restaurant perched on the steep coastline of Getaria, Spain.

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LA FERME DU VENT
(Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes, France)

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Technically, this is not a restaurant.  La Ferme du Vent is a hotel run by the Roellinger family.  Guests here are treated to breakfast prepared by the Roellinger family restaurant la Coquillage on the neighboring property of Château Richeux.  And it’s fantastic.  Delivered every morning in a giant box, the buffet included cold cuts, cheeses, yogurt, fruit, juices, breads, pastries, and a little stack of Breton crêpes.    This spread is just one more example of how Europeans excel at breakfast, and it joins a growing list of truly terrific breakfasts that I’ve had at European inns: Henne Kirkeby Kro (Denmark); Falsled Kro (Denmark); in de wulf (closed; Belgium); Fäviken Magasinet (Sweden); la Grenouillère (France); Maison Moizeau (France); and Bras, which appeared on this list in 2015 (France).  In the afternoon, I’d come back to my room to find buttery Breton sablé cookies and candy-sweet strawberries. And one night, I ordered dinner to be delivered to my room: a dozen Breton oysters, some local cheeses, and that impossibly flaky mille-feuille that topped my list of favorite desserts last year.  Since none of it required à la minute cooking, it was the perfect kind of meal for in-room dining, and this was, by far, the highest quality and best in-room dining experience I’ve ever had.

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KONG HANS KÆLDER
(Copenhagen, Denmark)

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It’s hard to find a superlative that I haven’t already attached to Mark Lundgaard Nielsen’s classical cooking in this ancient cellar in Copenhagen.  My visits to Kong Hans Kælder are well-documented on this blog, including my first meal in 2015, which inspired the joyful title “cooking is back.”   In 2018, I visited the restaurant twice – once in late March, and again in September.

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MARCHAL
(Copenhagen, Denmark)

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The former assistant head chef of Kong Hans Kælder under Mark Lundgaard Nielsen (see above), Andreas Bagh is deeply rooted in classical French technique and sensibilities. And in his years as the head chef at Marchal at the Hôtel d’Angleterre, I have come to discover an incredible technician with a superb sense of flavor and style. Bagh’s cooking is not only exceedingly correct, but wonderfully lush as well. There’s a grandeur and opulence to his presentations, a sense of indulgence that you rarely find in fine dining anymore.  In 2018, I ate at Marchal twice. In March, there was chestnut agnolotti with truffles, and that stunning pigeon pithivier I wrote about earlier.  In September, he presented a whole turbot in a turbotière, which he unseamed and plated at the table.

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SAISON
(San Francisco, California)

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Saison has appeared on this list every year since 2011.  I admit that my work with the restaurant and chef Joshua Skenes enables me to experience this restaurant in a different way than most.  But for seven years, I have personally witnessed an unbroken line of quality in cooking that speaks to the very heart of why I love to eat.

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THE RESTAURANT AT MEADOWOOD
(St. Helena, California)

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I’ve written more about The Restaurant at Meadowood than any other restaurant, owing to the annual Twelve Days of Christmas event that has given me unprecedented access to this incredible restaurant tucked in the foothills of Napa Valley. But I wouldn’t elect to cover this event or this restaurant so faithfully if I didn’t feel that chef Christopher Kostow and his team consistently achieve a standard worth mentioning. In 2018, my favorite meals at The Restaurant at Meadowood included nights 2 (Pynt), 8 (Cogley & Moran), 11 (Atsumi), and of course the last night of the Twelve Days of Christmas, when Kostow and his team, after hosting 11 incredibly demanding dinners, regain their kitchen and demonstrate why they are such an outstanding culinary powerhouse.

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I believe that keeping wishlists is important.  Here is mine for the new year

BUCKET LIST

Sadly, I visited no new countries in 2018.  So the tally remains at 47.  I renew my hopes of  getting to 50 by the end of 2019.  The Baltic states (Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania) remain my top choice – if you have recommendations, please send them.

Otherwise, I reiterate my hopes of visiting any one of the following countries: Russia, India, Colombia, Peru, Scotland, New Zealand, Vietnam, South Korea, and the Faroe Islands, a Danish protectorate in the North Atlantic.  I’ve not been to any of them.

I still haven’t been to Alaska.  It is the only U.S. state I haven’t visited.  I am eager for any worthwhile destinations and restaurants there.

In Europe, I knocked off quite a few restaurants I wanted to visit in 2018.

In France, I’d still like get to Régis Marcon’s self-named Régis & Jacques Marcon in Saint-Bonnet-le-Froid.  Also, I will push again for La Maison Troisgros in Roanne, which I’d like to couple with a trip to the Vallée de Joux in Switzerland to visit some of the great houses of horology I admire.

I’d like to spend more time in London, and see the surrounding countryside.

Last year, I expressed my desire to get more acquainted with Italy. I’d still like that very much.

Our gentle giant to the north, Canada, also needs to be visited.  I haven’t crossed our northern border in quite a few years.

In the United States, my top priority is New York City.  2018 was the first year in over a decade that I failed to visit.  I can’t let that happen again in 2019.

I’d also like to visit Portland, Oregon. My last visit there was in 1999.

And New Orleans. I’ve heard that a lot of great new restaurants have opened since my last visit to the Crescent City in 2010.

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*  Despite my conservative leanings, I am and have been open to acknowledging exceptional cooking in a wide range of restaurants.  This annual list of my favorite restaurants has included quite a few vanguards of progressive cooking: wd~50 and Alinea in 2010; Quique Dacosta and elBulli in 2011;  Martín Berasategui in 2012; and Noma and Geranium in 2013.

Photos: Turbot and flatfish on the grill at Elkano in Getaria, Spain; the pass at Angler in San Francisco, California; pineapples on the hearth at Saison in San Francisco, California; the cellar dining room of Kong Hans Kælder in Copenhagen, Denmark; unpacking in-room dining at La Ferme du Vent in Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes, France; Ravigote de Petits Pois at l’Ambroisie in Paris, France; the great sea tanks at Angler in San Francisco, California; the oven at Asador Etxebarri in Axpe, Spain; Shaved Pork Shoulder at The Barn at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee; turbot on the grill at Elkano in Getaria, Spain; Breton “huitres plats” at La Ferme du Vent in Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes, France; Veal and Foie Gras Tourte at Kong Hans Kælder in Copenhagen, Denmark; shaving truffles over a gratin of chestnut agnolotti at Marchal in Copenhagen, Denmark; North American Prong Horn on the table top at Saison in San Francisco, California; the Josper at The Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena, California; Champagne and taper on the table at Kong Hans Kælder in Copenhagen, Denmark.

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The email I hope to get each year finally arrived.

Christopher Kostow and The Restaurant at Meadowood will be hosting its eleventh annual Twelve Days of Christmas, which will benefit the St. Helena Preschool for All.  And for the seventh year, I’m the lucky guy who gets to go to Napa Valley in December to photograph it all.

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Like last year, this year’s guest chefs create a cultural kaleidoscope.  There’s a Chinese-Canadian cooking Nigerian food in England, a young Brit dazzling Hong Kong, and a Korean making headlines in New York.  There’s a Mexican chef who moved to California to critical acclaim. And now she’s moving back to Mexico to become an advisor to President López Obrador.

When was the last time you had Peranakan cuisine?  This year, you can experience this unique, confluence of flavors from the Malay peninsula on the tenth night.

And when was the last time you experienced the terroir of Bornholm, or Newfoundland?   Chefs from both of those islands will be cooking this year too.

All told, this year’s dinner series will welcome chefs from eight countries.  And by the time the series starts, I will have been to nine of these chefs’ restaurants.

Reservations open today. And if past is prologue, seats will disappear quickly. Visit The Restaurant at Meadowood’s reservation site for details.  I hope to see you in Napa in December.

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DECEMBER 6
GABRIELA CAMARA
CONTRAMAR
(Mexico City, Mexico)

DECEMBER 7
JOHN SHIELDS
SMYTH and THE LOYALIST
(Chicago, Illinois)

DECEMBER 10
DANIEL CALVERT
BELON
(Hong Kong, S.A.R.)

DECEMBER 11
JOSE AVILLEZ
BELCANTO
(Lisbon, Portugal)

DECEMBER 12
JUNGHYUN PARK
ATOMIX and ATOBOY
(New York, New York)

DECEMBER 13
JEREMY CHAN & IRE HASSAN-ODUKALE
IKOYI
(London, The United Kingdom)

DECEMBER 14
NICOLAI NØRREGARD
KADEAU
(Bornholm and Copenhagen, Denmark)

DECEMBER 17
BRADY WILLIAMS
CANLIS
(Seattle, Washington)

DECEMBER 18
JEREMY CHARLES
RAYMONDS
(St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador; Canada)

DECEMBER 19
MALCOLM LEE
CANDLENUT
(Singapore, Singapore)

DECEMBER 20
VAL M. CANTU
CALIFORNIOS
(San Francisco, California)

DECEMBER 21
CHRISTOPHER KOSTOW 
THE RESTAURANT AT MEADOWOOD
(St. Helena, California)

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Photos: All photos were taken at the Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena, California in December of 2018.