January is the time for foodies to start planning a trip to one of the world's top eateries – there's nothing like the smug glow that goes with knowing you have a coveted table at, say, El Bulli to get you through a tough winter. KATY McGUINNESShas some suggestions, from a day trip to a long-haul pilgrimage, to get the juices flowing
Napa, New York, Chicago: 3 US pilgrimages
Napa, California
The French Laundry, 6640 Washington Street, Yountville, 00-1-707-9442380, frenchlaundry.com
Thomas Keller's French Laundry – 12th in the world rankings – is the top destination restaurant in the US. Each day two nine-course tasting menus are created, the chef's tasting and a tasting of vegetables, each priced at $240 (€170). No single ingredient is repeated during the course of the meal. From a recent chef's tasting you might have eaten: Keller's signature oysters and pearls (sabayon of pearl tapioca with Island Creek oysters and white sturgeon caviar); Moulard duck foie gras en terrine (confit de canard, flowering quince, cornichon, frisee lettuce and Dijon mustard, Sea of Japan octopus (piquillo peppers, panisse, globe artichokes, Romesco, parsley and caper vinaigrette); Caesar salad (sweet butter-poached Maine lobster tail, caramelised romaine lettuce, garlic Melba and bottarga di muggine); tartare of kuroge beef from Shiga (jidori hen egg, pommes gaufrettes, baby beets, scallions and black truffle); Elysian fields farm lamb saddle ( collier d'agneau, sugar-snap peas, turnips, Thumbelina carrots and navarin jus); red hawk (caraway-seed pain perdu, hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, rocket and aged sherry); dark and stormy (Maui Gold pineapple sorbet, spiced gingerbread and Gros Michel bananas); Gâteau Saint Nizier au Manjari (mango-chilli relish, Valrhona cocoa nibs, lime foam and coconut milk sorbet); and mignardises. Phew.
Reservations need to be made exactly two months in advance, except for parties of eight or more, which are exempt from the reservation madness if booked far enough ahead.
The reservation line opens each day at 10am local time.
Such serious dedication is required to secure a reservation at the French Laundry that there are blogs devoted to the endeavour. Tips include using your credit card’s concierge service, especially if you happen to have an American Express Black or Platinum card at your disposal. Alternatively, the concierge of a good Napa or Yountville-area hotel, booked well in advance, should have some pull. The online reservations service Opentable.com is also worth a try, bearing in mind that the tables become available at exactly midnight local time, 61 days in advance. Given how difficult it is to secure a seat at Keller’s table, I would be mightily impressed by anyone who managed it.
A Napa holiday that included a meal here would make the most wonderful honeymoon or celebration of a significant birthday or anniversary.
New York
Per Se. 10 Columbus Circle, 00-1-212- 8239335 or opentable.com, perseny.com
Per Se – sixth in the S Pellegrino World’s Best 50 Restaurants – is Keller’s urban interpretation of the French Laundry. The concept and reservations policy are similar, and here the tasting menu is priced at $275 (€195). New York is coming down with terrific restaurants, but, for my money, this is the one to go after. Time to start calling on friends in high places.
Chicago
Alinea. 1723 North Alsted, 00-1-312- 8670110, alinea-restaurant.com
Grant Achatz's restaurant – 10th place – offers a 12-course tasting menu ($150/€105) and a 24-course "tour" ($225/€160) that features osetra caviar, pork belly, yuba, choa tom, trout, goose, hot potato, passion fruit, kumquat, elixir végétal, white truffle, bacon, peanut butter, Thai banana, calamari, oyster leaf, matsutake, bison, black truffle, duck, foie gras, egg-nog, lemon soda, bubblegum, blackberry, hay, chocolate and pound cake. In many ways this is the nearest US equivalent to the laboratory experimentation that has become de rigueur in Spain.
Ruth Reichl, the legendary food writer, says Achatz is “redefining the American restaurant”. The chef’s battle with tongue cancer – he is a young man, and it had a catastrophic effect on his palate for some time – makes him a romantic figure. A friend who ate here last year says she would crawl over glass to do it again, so sublime was the experience.
Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com) flies to San Francisco, New York and Chicago from Dublin and Shannon
Foodie weekend in Copenhagen
Copenhagen, Denmark
NOMA, Strandgade 93, 00-45-32963297, noma.dk
Located in a converted warehouse by the water in Copenhagen’s picturesque Christianhavn, Noma was last year voted the world’s third-best restaurant. Under chef Rene Redzepi, it is home to an innovative exploration of Nordic and North Atlantic cuisine and the regeneration of the endangered culinary craft of the region. In lay terms, get ready for horse mussels from the Faroe Islands, seaweed and curds from Iceland and musk ox from Greenland, along with foraged berries, herbs and grains native to the region. Specialities include skate and chanterelles with marinated beach plants and mussel juice, and salsify and milk skin with truffle from Gotland. The kitchen also tends towards beers, fruit juices and fruit vinegars in its sauces and soups. The wine list is biased towards wines from cooler climes, such as those of Austria and Germany.
The Noma Nassaaq 12-course tasting dinner costs 1,295 kroner (€175), with accompanying wines for 1,045 kroner (€140). A friend who knows what he is talking about says this was the most exciting food that he ate last year. It’s top of my personal list for 2010.
Scandinavian Airlines (flysas.ie) flies to Copenhagen from Dublin
Gourmet holiday around stellar Spain
Spain
Spain has more entries in the S Pellegrino list of the world’s top 50 restaurants than any other country. And a Spanish restaurant is nothing without its laboratory, where teams of chefs push the boundaries of culinary achievement. Committed foodies might consider intensive training for a trip that takes in all four: Mugaritz and Arzak, in and around San Sebastián (fourth and eighth on the list, respectively); and the two near Girona, El Celler de Can Roca (fifth) and El Bulli (first). The less obsessive might consider a trip to any one of them as the gastronomic high point of a holiday.
San Sebastián
Mugaritz. Otzazulueta Baserria, Aldura Aldea 20zk, Errenteria, Gipuzkoa, 00-34-943-518343, mugaritz.com
This is such a wonderful city for food, from the simplest tapas bars to the very smartest restaurants, that I would happily spend a week or more based there, exploring all the possibilities. Andoni Aduriz’s Mugaritz, in a rural farmhouse in the hills outside San Sebastián, has two Michelin stars. Aduriz worked with Ferran Adrià at El Bulli, but his style is more subtle and earthy than his mentor’s, less in thrall to chemistry. The atmosphere is relaxed and informal. You should expect to pay about €200 per head, including wine.
Arzak. Avenida Alcalde Elosegui 273, San Sebastián, 00-34-943-278465, arzak.info
Juan Mari Arzak and his daughter Elena are the third- and fourth-generation creative geniuses behind the three-Michelin-star Arzak, where dinner averages €145, excluding drinks and taxes.
Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com) flies to Bilbao from Dublin. Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies to Biarritz, over the border in France, from Dublin
Girona
Girona is just down the coast from Barcelona, and you could make a fine holiday that took in both cities and perhaps included visits to the Salvador Dalí museum at Figueres and the pretty seaside town of Cadaqués, where the artist had a home. Barcelona, too, is awash with good eating – worth a visit for the razor clams at the Boqueria market alone, never mind any number of excellent tapas spots and fine restaurants.
El Celler de Can Roca. Can Sunyer 48, Girona, 00-34-972-222157, cellercanroca.com
This restaurant is run by the three Roca brothers: head chef Joan, maitre d’ and head sommelier Josep and pastry chef Jordi. The state-of-the-art kitchen-cum-lab and light-filled dining space have contributed to the restaurant’s meteoric rise into the world’s top 10. Its feast menu – nine courses and two desserts – costs €135.
El Bulli. Cala Montjoi, Roses, Girona, 00-34-972-150457, bulli@elbulli.com, elbulli.com
Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli comes top of the S Pellegrino list of the world’s best restaurants. The lottery for reservations for the 2010 season, which runs from June 15th to December 20th, opens right now. Two million people apply each year, so you shouldn’t get your hopes up. But, then again, if you’re not in you can’t win, so get e-mailing. The tasting menu costs €230. Expect to pay about €350 per head, including wine. More than anything, dinner at El Bulli is theatre – and enormous fun, one of the great experiences for anyone interested in food.
Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies to Girona from Dublin. Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com) flies to Barcelona from Dublin, Cork and Belfast
Marbella
The food in and around Marbella has improved dramatically in recent years. It may not yet have entries in the top 50, but the renaissance in modern Spanish cooking has arrived, and a plethora of interesting eateries should tempt anyone in search of more than gazpacho and paella. Dani García’s Calima (Calle José Melia, Marbella, 00-34-952-764252, restaurantecalima.com), at Hotel Gran Melía Don Pepe, serves impeccable contemporary Andalusian food – seafood is the focus – in quite formal surroundings. There are three tasting menus; expect to pay about €150 before wine. In contrast, Skina (Calle Aduar 12, Casco Antíguo de Marbella, 00-34-952-765277, restauranteskina.com), in the old town, is an unpretentious yet elegant exponent of the Spanish new wave – there are only 14 covers, and the tasting menu is a reasonable €68.90. (If I’m in Marbella this year, Skina is the one I’ll be trying to get to.) Messina (Avenida Severo Ochoa 12, Marbella, 00-34- 952-864895, restaurantemessina.com) is sophisticated yet friendly, and consistently gets the top spot on TripAdvisor. Its tasting menu costs €55; otherwise, choosing the four most expensive dishes would cost you €62. Its little sibling, Messina Puerto Banús (Plaza Marina Banús, 00-34-952-8159840, restaurantemessina.com), gets the thumbs up for terrific tapas at a reasonable price – reckon on €20 for lunch before wine. Also in Puerto Banús, Novelli’s, in the revamped Hotel Lorcrimar (Arroya Marbella Dinamar, 00-34-952-929269, hotel-lorcrimar.com), draws a glamorous crowd to its terrace overlooking the pool, with a tasting menu priced at €85 per person, plus wines, and its popular Sunday roast.
Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com) flies to Malaga from Dublin, Cork and Belfast. Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies from Dublin and Shannon
Ultimate gourmet day trip
Bray, England
THE FAT DUCK, High Street, 00-44-1628-580333, fatduck.co.uk
Lunch at the Fat Duck, Heston Blumenthal’s temple to molecular gastronomy – the global number two, according to the S Pellegrino World’s Best 50 Restaurants (theworlds50best.com) – is achievable as a day trip. The restaurant accepts reservations up to two months in advance, giving you plenty of time to nab the cheap airfare you’ll need to counteract the bill, which will be hefty. The tasting menu costs £150 (€170) per head, with accompanying wines from a further £90 (€100).
You might expect a menu along the lines of lime grove (nitro-poached green tea and lime mousse); red-cabbage gazpacho (Pommery grain-mustard ice cream); jelly of quail, cream of crayfish (chicken-liver parfait, oak moss and truffle toast); roast foie gras (cherry puree, braised konbu and crab biscuit); mock turtle soup, sound of the sea; powdered Anjou pigeon (blood pudding and confit of numbles); taffety tart (caramelised apple, fennel, rose and candied lemon); the not-so-full English breakfast (parsnip cereal, nitro-scrambled egg and bacon ice cream, hot and iced tea); and whisky wine gums. Or, then again, you might not: Blumenthal (right) keeps reinventing his menu.
Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com) flies to London Heathrow from Dublin, Cork, Shannon and Belfast. BMI (flybmi.com) flies from Dublin and Belfast. A taxi to the restaurant costs about £60 (€68) each way; for two people it’s about the same price as – and a lot quicker than – taking the Heathrow Express into London, then catching another train back to Maidenhead for a hop by taxi to the Fat Duck
