For chef Julian Silvera, a New York kid who never even saw the forest for himself until he was in his 20s, they are singularly distinctive—edible snapshots that form the musculature of his work at the new fine dining restaurant Vicinity in Los Gatos.
The caviar, uni, and egg dish has been in Akiyama's repertoire since he worked at the now-closed NYC restaurant Lan. It's presented as a rich chawanmushi, topped with generous uni and caviar. The nigiri course comes with three pieces, including the aori aka, in which the bigfin reed squid is chopped and intricately layered; the texture was far creamier than I ever expected squid to be.
The Tusk Bar exudes old-guard Manhattan élán-the sort of room that could have doubled as a private clubhouse for the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. The name is a wink to the Gilded Age fascination with exotic taxidermy, and the polished brass trim, elegant marble counter, and stuffed ostrich overlooking the salon would make any louche Robber Baron chortle into his Champagne flute.
Their collaboration fit into the increasingly popular restaurant trend of guest chef and so-called "four-hands" dinners in which two chefs, often from different cities or countries, create a menu together. Tan grew up in Malaysia, in a Malay-Chinese household, and at 17, moved to Singapore where he trained in Japanese and French-influenced kitchens, cooking in Taiwan, Spain and Macao before opening his own Restaurant Born in 2022.
Coming from Australia, where Michelin does not operate, this was my first exposure to a Michelin-starred restaurant as a guest. It was everything I imagined it would be. The precision. The discipline. The elegance of service. The execution on the plate. The entire experience felt intentional and deeply respectful of the craft.
Opened by husband-and-wife team Simone and Lidia Crepaldi on the old Chick 'n' Sours site in Dalston, HOAX is doing a creative take on classic Italian flavours. The menu includes dishes like citrus marinated sea bass with tomatoes and valerian gel, beef tartare with robiola, mustard and hazelnut, cacio e pepe, pasta pomodoro, braised beef cheek with potato purée and sweet peppers, roast chicken with brioche bread and black truffle sauce, and house tiramisu.
Claud is the oldest restaurant in Joshua Pinsky and Chase Sinzer's trio that includes seafood spot Penny and wine bar Stars. Here, you'll find sophisticated cooking, worthwhile desserts, and a lengthy list of bottles, in addition to surprisingly affordable by-the-glass selections ($14). Come here for a lowkey solo dinner, an intimate date, or a wine-fueled group outing; there are roomy booths toward the center of the restaurant.
Restaurant Gordon Ramsay High is right in the heart of the City of London in Bishopsgate. High in the sky, as the name suggests, on the sixtieth floor of Twenty-Two Bishopsgate, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay High opened on February 4th, 2025 and is the highest restaurant in Europe, measured from ground level. You pass through security at the building entrance, and two lifts swiftly ascend to the restaurant level.
In the first starred New York Times review from the Hawaiian islands, our chief restaurant critic Ligaya Mishan finds intriguing twists on a cuisine that's already fluid with Asian influences. I'm dreaming of being back in my hometown of Honolulu, where I went over the holidays and checked in on one of my favorite restaurants. The name of the restaurant is Maze from the Japanese Mazeru.
My time in a fine dining kitchen as a line cook was one of the most stressful and surprising experiences I ever had. It wasn't just difficult work. It was a difficult environment for a number of reasons. It was cramped and frantic, and the personality clashes you see on shows like "The Bear" were not uncommon. I don't recommend it.
Each item on his 13-course tasting menu will be primarily sourced from and largely informed by California's landscapes, coastlines, farms, forests, vineyards and native ingredients. Silvera's dishes are edible snapshots from his outings and foragings, from hikes in the coastal hills, walks on the beach and visits to farms. Almost 90 percent of the menu will be sourced from producers in the vicinity of the Bay Area.
Finding Vaca feels like a treasure hunt that's well worth the effort. Park in the 777 Figueroa Building and take a rather ominous tunnel down to the main retail stretch along Figueroa Avenue. Make a hard right at the end of the tunnel, and Vaca resides on the ground floor of a tall residential tower. Santana's approach to Spanish fare bucks the trend of mid-range prices, featuring high-end dry-aged beef, lush seafood paellas, and precise tapas.
Deserted white sandy beaches, a 15-seat chef's table serving a farm-to-table Michelin-starred tasting menu, silence broken only by crashing waves, and not a cocktail bucket in sight. Oh yes, this is Phuket, but not as you might know it. For those willing to go against the grain and head north over the bridge, it's just 20 minutes to Iniala Beach House, but a world away from the island you think you know.
Back in 2024, after a reporting trip for a whiskey magazine, I got tired of drinking. Perhaps it was the sluggishness I felt each morning, or maybe it was the podcast I'd heard while traveling, which shared the news that one or two glasses of red wine was not, as we had long been told, healthy. Whatever the reason, I tossed in the daily drinking towel after that trip, figuring that going forward, I might only have a drink or two every now and again.
The Grand Tasting is the best value. For $69 per person, guests may select three sample-sized entrees, and their choice of white or red wine (my server allowed me to swap out my drink for a nonalcoholic hibiscus lemonade). While servings are smaller than those offered a la carte, each portion is still quite hefty. The New Orleans gumbo yakamein ($39) suited the cold Chicago day I visited.
American cinema-verite demigod Frederick Wiseman's latest is a 6,000-course tasting menu of a documentary, like one of those supercuts with all the delicious food on offer in Studio Ghibli films. Most of the 95-year-old's career has been dedicated to chronicling US institutions, but here he returns to the strain of Francophile work he has dipped into since the mid-90s (he lives in the country part-time). In this case, he infiltrates the Michelin triple-starred Le Bois sans Feuilles restaurant in Ouches in the Loire,
When you want a luxurious dinner, seeking out a seafood restaurant is a good choice. You can enjoy everything from a briny shrimp cocktail to a comforting bowl of lobster bisque and even a remarkable seafood tower. Eddie V's Prime Seafood is on the smaller side of chain restaurants but boasts a smattering of convenient locations across the U.S. One of the most interesting things about the establishment is the fact that its seafood is flown in daily, fresh from the coasts.
Our restaurant critic Bill Addison teamed up with longtime columnist Jenn Harris again this year to spread out and sample hundreds of different dining establishments - in addition to crucial return visits - to determine a range of 101 restaurants that exemplify everything we love about dining in Southern California. Read the entire guide below, plus our writers' favorite places to sip tea, coffee or cocktails, and the updated Hall of Fame list.
Among New York City's fine-dining scene, L'Abeille is chef Mitsunobu Nagae's Michelin-starred playground, where he and the team experiment with French and Japanese ingredients and techniques to elegant results. The space is the definition of quiet luxury: stunning yet understated, stunning with velvet chairs and booths but no white tablecloths. It makes sense that director Celine Song filmed a scene for Materialists here, suitable for big-deal occasions, friend hangs, and family meals.
When a restaurant with the pedigree of 1919 at Condado Vanderbilt Hotel makes a leadership change, the food and beverage industry takes notice. The appointment of Chef Ciaran Elliott as Executive Chef marks not just a personnel shift, but a transformative moment that promises to elevate one of Puerto Rico's most celebrated fine dining destinations to new heights. With his distinguished background spanning multiple Michelin-starred kitchens across Europe and New York, Elliott brings the kind of global expertise that hospitality industry leaders dream of securing.
Our aspiration is to bring great Indian food all over this country-not just to New York, Miami, or Los Angeles, but to put it alongside any of the great ethnic cuisines you get in America, and what better city to do that in than Las Vegas?
