It seems a shame not to capture and share some of our collective intelligence about good places to eat and drink. Some of these are recommended by others, unvisited and to try.
seattle
Saint Helens. Beautifully designed wooden box brasserie on the Burke-Gilman trail near UW—cafe in the morning with nice breakfasts (and proper cappuccino) at the marble counter, good looking food and drinks in the evening, outdoor seating along the bike path.
Bateau. Great steak frites and other meat things, from their own farm. Owned by the same people as General Porpoise (who use said farm’s eggs).
Contadino. Decent pasta and pizza place on 19th.
Sitka & Spruce. Great creative food, and in the beautiful new Melrose Building.
Mamnoon. Superb Syrian food.
Chop Shop. Short but nice menu neighborhood cafe and bar. In the same excellently renovated building as Cloud Room.
London Plane. Looks attractive; had their Tartine-style bread at Bar Ferd’nand and it was really good.
Blind Pig / Babirusa. This place is in a strip mall in Eastlake and looks thoroughly unpromising from without. The mood improves inside, with an entirely seasonal and daily-varying menu on the blackboard full of creative combinations (watermelon and prawn soup, yum). With four of us, we just ordered everything and feasted.
Corson Building. Need to try.
Bar Sajor. By the Corson people. Need to try.
Barking Frog. Eastside restaurant attached to Willows Lodge. A lovely 2h bikeride from Seattle, and very good creative food. Next to Herbfarm, and just across the river (a short walk) from a bunch of wineries including Mark Ryan and DeLille.
Wandering Goose. Awesome biscuits and other things Southern on 15th, in the style of and owned by one of the Volunteer Park Café ladies (pay and order first at the glass pastry case in the front where one can be tempted to impulse eat, then sit). Great brunch. Unlike in the South, the cappuccino is respectable, though Victrola is also next door.
Rione XIII. Ethan Stowell’s new place on 15th. We had a beautiful snack here of prosecco, carciofi alla judea, and suppli al telefono. The micro-counter on the sidewalk outside reminds me of the sidewalk parks San Francisco has begun putting in, like the one outside Four Barrel. 15th is looking up.
Monsoon, 615 19th Avenue East. This is a place we’re very lucky to have so close to home, tucked away in the leafy part of Capitol Hill. Posh Vietnamese, strong on French influences and with a winning focus on high-quality ingredients (painted hills beef, mad hatcher eggs, etc.). The interior is minimal and attractive; open kitchen behind the bar. Prices are quite reasonable, but this is very much not a Chinatown dive; date night works here. Open every day for dinner, and now for lunch as well. On weekends there’s a lovely brunch, at which one can get dim sum (pieces ordered individually though, there’s not nearly enough volume here for the cart), broken rice bowls, banh xeo crêpes, or western things like eggs benedict and waffles, are very finely prepared. Faves: catfish hot pot, green papaya salad, egg dishes, all the dim sum. Pretty much everything is good here.
Vios. Owned by the cheerful, gastronomical and community-minded Thomas Soukakos. Greek food, again with an emphasis on simplicity and fine ingredients. A place in the back for kids to play, and nominally a “market” counter in the front, though market prices are well north of Greek islandish. For lunch, it’s hard to beat the lamb souvlaki sandwich, loaded with oven-roasted tomatoes, yogurt and parsley. At dinner, a glass of retsina and a pikilia plate to share would be a good start.
Omega Ouzeri. New place by Thomas of Vios, the grown up version. Delicious.
Anchovies & Olives. This has become perhaps our favorite place, because: it’s somehow light, in that one can go early or late or on a whim and feel instantly accommodated. The menu is short and sweet, and changes often. The dishes are interesting and might include things like, for instance, a little slab of grilled mackerel with the skin charred, the flesh succulent, on a bed of chorizo and wild mushrooms or some other such umami-intensive thing. The wines by the glass are very good. There’s a painting on the wall they should change. But otherwise the environment is appealing, dark and casual; the waitstaff hip and pierced, but not overly.
Cascina Spinasse. Warm buttery light, lovely handmade pasta, an open kitchen with lots of mason jars. The fonduta with truffles and egg is not to be missed.
Café Lago. Good pizza, and nice handmade lasagne.
Oddfellows. Hipster-intensive and delicious comfort food, in a high ceilinged room open to the street in the former Oddfellows building (and with much of the décor scavenged from the building’s former life).
Tallulah’s. 19th is starting to look pretty great. This place, next to the new and very well supplied neighborhood grocery Cone & Steiner and the equally hip Hello Robin ice cream shop, is very good looking and the food is credible.
Quinn’s Pub. Gastropub with good food.
Osteria La Spiga
Via Tribunali
Serious Pie
Cafe Presse. Mainstay of late night dining. Kitchen open til 1am everyday.
Le Pichet. Belltown restaurant by the Cafe Presse people, also open late, somewhat more limited menu.
Harvest Vine. Longtime great tapas place.
Pintxo. Basic tapas place in Belltown.
Boat Street Café
India Bistro
Volunteer Park Café
Smith. Poutine! And uncommonly good mac and cheese.
Agua Verde Paddle Club. Decent Gringo Mex with high quality ingredients. There’s often a long line, but in the summer you can rent out a kayak before a late dinner.
Elemental
Carta de Oaxaca
Staple & Fancy
How to Cook a Wolf. My other co-favorite of Ethan Stowell’s, with Anchovies & Olives.
Shanghai Garden
Essential Baking
Armandino’s Salumi. Brainchild of Mario Batali’s father, really beautiful salumi and (if one shows up and waits in line) great weekday lunch. The finocchiona and a nontraditional variation with mole are tops.
Grand Central Bakery
Columbia City Bakery. Best pain au levain in Seattle. I’m guessing some of the best bread on the West Coast period north of Tartine.
General Porpoise. Extremely good filled doughnuts and good espresso, also beautiful.
La Medusa
Besalu
Rosellini’s bakery. I thought we’d never supplant Besalu for the coffee and pastry during the kids’ parkour class. But this place has done it. Shorter lines, astounding quiche, beautiful berry-filled danishes and excellent canelles.
Bakery Nouveau. Finally a real bakery in Capitol Hill. Fancy cakes etc., though the croissants aren’t up to the level of Honore or Besalu.
Ocho
Poco
BaBar
Jewel
Revel. Dungeness crab noodles with red curry and creme fraiche– superb.
Espresso Vivace. Gold standard for espresso in Seattle. Several locations.
Victrola. Go-to for great espresso on 15th on Capitol Hill. The espresso is in fact more robust and less middle-of-the-road than Vivace’s.
Eltana. Great bagels, nonstandard spreads, and delicious shakshuka.
Than Brothers. The actual best Pho in Seattle is to be had at Monsoon, but that’s quite fancy. For the it’s-on-your-table-in-60-seconds, $3.99, cream puffs included version, one goes to Than Brothers.
Fogón. Good Mexican place in the Pike/Pine corridor. Hip, neither self-consciously upscale nor dumpy.
Din Tai Fung. Soup dumplings. One has opened in University Village!
Delancey. This pizza place is by all accounts awesome. Next to the also awesome Honore in Ballard.
For cooking, aside from Pike Place Market–
De Laurenti
Mutual Fish. Best seafood seller in Seattle. (Not a restaurant.)
Fishermen’s terminal in Ballard. Good fish can be gotten here, from off the boat, much more cheaply than at Mutual.
Cone & Steiner. Nice (if pricey) neighborhood grocery on 19th.
Molly Moon. Good icecream.
Il Corvo. Downtown and lunch only, but nice handmade pasta.
the san juans
Mossback. This place is actually in Kingston. It’s awesome.
Catkin cafe. On Orcas, in Olga. Superb.
bellevue
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Din Tai Fung. Soup dumplings are the thing to get here of course: xiao long bao.
Wild Ginger. Chilean sea bass + herbs with brown rice = excellent.
Monsoon East
portland
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Tasty n Sons. Pleased by our dinner at this place.
Pok Pok. Vietnamese street food place highly recommended by Jessy.
san francisco
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Flour + water. The Mission.
La Ciccia. Sardinian.
Nopa. Near the panhandle.
Bi-rite
Zuni
Tartine. Really excellent bread and pastries. Legendary bread actually, Pollan more or less devotes a chapter to it in Cooked.
BarBambino
Commonwealth
Walzwerk
Heirloom
Wayfare Tavern. Very good.
AQ. Very good.
Wexler’s. Beautiful drinks and food, gorgeous black wave on the ceiling.
Bourbon & Branch (anti saloon league, speakeasy) http://www.yelp.com/biz/bourbon-and-branch-san-francisco
[...]
Frances
Eiji
Starbelly
Mission Chinese Food
Pizzetta 211
Chez Maman
Kasa
Dosa
Spork
Range
Plow
Pi
Pizzeria Delfina
Monk’s Kettle
Cafe Mystique
Absinthe
Chilango
Weird Fish
Farmer Brown
Little Star
Burma Super Star
La Taqueria
Absinthe
Benu
Bistro Aix
Bourbon Steak
Cotogna. Very excellent.
Slanted Door. Great Vietnamese near the ferry terminal.
Marlowe. This place is quite good.
Outer Lands. Beautiful environment out on Sunset, good drinks and very nice food.
Farallon. Not sure on looking, possibly douchy.
Fifth Floor. Pricey but interesting Ferran Adrià kind of situation near the SF studio.
Gitane. Indulgent tapas of the broiled bacon-wrapped-date sort in a little alley, same neighborhood.
Mamacita
Prospect
Ristobar
Saison
Waterbar
Zero Zero. Pizza and pasta, decent.
Montesacro Pinseria + Enoteca. Gritty and cool pizzeria just off Market St., interesting lighter-weight take on the dough (supposedly inspired by the early Roman version of pizza) and good simple wines, kitchen open til 11pm everyday except Sunday.
SPQR. Fancy haut Roman, delicious and creative.
Nico. This place is excellent. A delight of short menu and few options, both food and wine– all paired, mostly inspired.
Verbena. This looks like it needs to be tried.
The Square. Not bad, short of fabulous.
Casey’s Pizza. This pizza truck is astonishingly good. One needs to check the website to see where it will be.
proxy. This temporary project on a stalled development in Hayes Valley is home to a lovely biergarten and an assortment of food trucks.
Bar Agricole [pic]. The restaurant is so beautiful that it’s hard to focus on the food. The food’s good. The drinks are good. The space is a sort of Swedish designer’s dream. Clean wood, wood-textured cement, perfectly shaped glasses and decanters, a sense of modernist lifestyle geometry that makes one feel that one is simultaneously inhabiting the decade of Fallingwater and the 21st century utopia wrongly prefigured by Fallingwater.
Coffee bar. Very pleasant environment in which to hang out with the laptop and hack for an afternoon. Acceptable espresso (though not on par with the best in SF). Soups and sandwiches. Some power outlets, and some tables “laptop-free”.
Piccino [pic]. Little coffeeshop in the Dogpatch; also now sporting an adjacent place to sit down for pizza, wine, salads. Undergoing some kind of major expansion now, scaling up to a larger restaurant. The tiny mostly standing-room bar is still best, I think. Very fine espresso and cappuccino, served in crudely formed raku cups whose glazed and scored surfaces feel good on the fingers. Blue Bottle beans. Limited but good selection of small baked things as well.
Ritual [pic]. Among the best SF coffeeshops, on par with Four Barrel and Blue Bottle on a good day (though not as consistent). Excellent croissants and attractive space.
Blue Bottle. The classic place for a beautiful cappuccino in the traditional size. (The Vivace of SF?) The wait may be long, and the baristi are insensitive to line length– perhaps even shear-thickening as it lengthens. Their very high self-regard is justified. Also: lovely for breakfast. Only 2–3 things, but good ones.
Four Barrel. An excellent third wave coffeeshop. Much of the deep, warehouse-like space is devoted to roasting and other coffee machinery; the front, where you sit or stand at the bar, is furnished cleanly and minimally—except a hairily tangled hanging rope light, and four boar heads mounted on the wall. The menu is short and rigorous; for example, only plain croissants, but good ones. The unexpected “boar head element” is an affogato made with stout-flavored gelato, which is pfg.
Sightglass
Farm: Table
the summit
Bouche. This was a lovely surprise find near the Microsoft offices on Market Street. Not particularly noticeable from the outside, quite hip on the inside with vertical space, raw materials and a taxidermied Boar’s head, serving dinner until late (i.e. 12:35am on a Monday, which is when I showed up after the late flight in from Seattle). I had a lovely glass of Peche Abuse red blend, a corn soup done very creatively with a foamy emulsion and a temperature gradient from hot around the rim to a small icy dollop of sorbet in the center, and a couple of other small dishes, all delicious. I left very happy. The waitstaff were friendly French expats, and the chef (Guillaume from Provence) sported the Einsteinian “afro of genius”.
OK, this is silly, but Beard Papa in the basement of the Westfield Center has outrageously good Japanese-style vanilla cream puffs.
los angeles
Intelligentsia. The best espresso.
Gjelina. Nice casual food in Venice.
berkeley/oakland
A Cote
Ippuku
Plum
Gather. Good for brunch.
Strada. Decent coffee, excellent work environment (plugs and WiFi outside).
Enoteca Molinari
victoria, b.c.
There are blogs claiming that Victoria is a foodie place, and this may or may not be the case– I know that many of the places I researched looked problematic, and the impression was confirmed when we passed by them (the downtown is really very small) and saw that they had obvious problems (e.g. those awful OPEN signs written in elliptical LED, or an “Italian” fish dish covered with melted asiago cheese, wtf). But we did in the end find a beautiful place to eat, and checked out another place that would be worth trying next time.
ulla. Almost passed it up because the food pictures on the website seemed a bit too much. Made reservations anyway, because the presentations weren’t tall and were sparing in their use of dots– good signs. And it was really lovely. In the mouth, not just on the plate. (Though on the place it was also every bit as pretty as in the photos.) The ingredients were of high quality, and the dishes rendered with a quiet, intense pride that didn’t whiff of cultural cringe like some of the establishments down the street. The place has a modern, comfortable, white wood kind of look, and attentive but not overweening staff. Very much worth returning to, and would be in any city.
devour. Closed on weekends, looks like a one woman show with just a few tables. I want to try this place next time. It looks promising.
philadelphia
zahav. Very good looking reco from Ilse.
aspen
Victoria’s Espresso. The only fully acceptable coffee in Aspen, and good for salady quichey things as well.
ohio
Jeni’s ice cream.
boston
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Voltage Coffee & Art. Good espresso near MIT and enough barista tattoos to look familiar from the Seattle perspective.
Belly bar. Noisy and hip basement bar on Kendall Square with a few communal high tables. Nice short wine list, good salumi and ciccheti, and fondue if you reserve ahead. The lamb polpette were delicious.
Dumpling Cafe Inc. This place in Chinatown had credible and yummy soup dumplings. (Listed on the menu as “mini juicy buns”, either pork or pork + crab. The pork-only are the way to go.)
chicago
Sepia
Blackbird
Avec. Probably favorite place in Chicago for now.
Province
Girl and the goat
Intelligentsia
new york
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Casa Mono. Good tapas, recent discovery by Adrienne (Dec 2015).
Barbuto. Decent Italian food in a converted garage in the meatpacking district.
Frank.
Prune.
Balthazar.
Batali place on Waverly
Batali place on Thompson
Mamoun. Cheap and ever awesome falafel in the East Village open til after midnight; try the excellent smoky chicken kebab in pita with a dollop of babaganoush.
Torrisi Italian Specialties. This place looks very special and has come with high praise from trusted friends. Unfortunately, I think getting a reservation is difficult.
Telepan. Anne and Michael rec.
Per Se. Must try it.
WD~50. Also must try it.
Le Bernardin
Daniel
Nice Matin. Brunch standby near the Natural History Museum.
Cafe Lalo. Cute and good for brunch or frittata type stuff anytime of day, also a huge dessert menu and absinthey drinks at night.
new:
Buddakan. Douchey vibe but good food til 11 near Google.
Txikito. Great food. Alex Raij.
El Quinto Pino. Other Alex Raij good place.
La Vara. Yet another Alex Raij place. They’re all good.
Barbuto.
Bea. Late night snacks and wine in midtown west.
banff
Whitebark cafe. The best espresso in Banff.. Aussie run, of course.
berlin
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Bunker
Al contadino sotto le stelle
Kollwitzplatz
amsterdam
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De Kas
barcelona
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Cera 23. Recommendation from Ilya.
Commerç 24. Also from Ilya.
Calamarga.
san sebastian
Rekondo. Great place.
Sirimiri Gastroleku. Short menu, delicious stuff.
Bar Goiz Argi. The absolute best pintxos I’ve had.
cambridge, uk
The Punter, 3 Pound Hill. Cambridge is a very beautiful little town. And it turns out that, notwithstanding being in England, it does have an excellent place to eat: The Punter. A pub with lovely modern food made from high quality ingredients, and the usual supply of artisanal warm beer or whatever they call it.
reykjavik
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Fish Company
tokyo
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Bear Pond Espresso. Tokyo is a good place for coffee, and Bear Pond is the most awesome espresso in Tokyo and in the world.
Place with Blaine
French bakery
tel aviv
Yo’Ezer Wine Bar. [Note– the patriarch is dead and the place is now closed :( super sad. Yo’Ezer RIP.]
Margaret Tayar. This is the place under the big blue metal fish visible from the Jaffa clocktower. Opening hours seem somewhat erratic, and the temperamental eponymous Margaret’s “high prices” for this kind of food annoy many locals. (For a non-Israeli, this means little, as the food is delicious Yemenite stuff, you won’t be coming here every day, and if this restaurant were anyplace else in the world its prices would be unremarkable. The fine-ness of the preparation is also a step above ordinary Yemenite holes-in-the-wall.)
Suzanne Dellal. Lovely breakfasts in the cafe with ample patio and outdoor seating near the dance school.
Barbunia and Barbunia, the bar. The bar, across the street from the main restaurant at 162 Ben Yehuda, is better.
Container is a cool place in Jaffa, right on the water opposite the piers. Good drinks, good food, and a beautiful raw industrial space true to its name.
Ido says (May 2012): “If you have the time, go to Berti (ברטי)– King George 86 TLV”. This seems like advice worth following.
Basta, in/next to the Carmel market. The truffle pizza is great. (Thanks Ishay.)
Recommendations from Michelle:
Rabin Square area (all are within walking distance from one another):
1. The ‘Brasserie’ — a very popular place, good food. Recommended dishes: bone marrow with toast, chicken consomme, endive salad with champagne vinaigrette (good for a nice lunch). Bakery next door belongs to them and has excellent coffee and pastries.
2. Bookworm or ‘Tolaat Sfarim’ — right across the square from the Brasserie, an excellent bookstore cafe. They have wonderful meal-salads and good coffee, and everyone who is someone in the intelectual life of Tel Aviv sits there. Also a very pro Palestinian place.
3. ‘Cardinal Chocolate’ A Chocolatier — delicious chocolates way beyond anything anyone over here makes... Don’t miss the sour cherry pralines.
http://www.telaviv4fun.com/bistro.html
Yehuda Halevi/ Lilenblum area:
1. ‘Joz Veloz’ — the hipster hangout. Arrive early, there is a line. Food has been excellent or nothing much in waves, no idea what is happening now, but I am going there when in Israel, just to feel the beat of the city which I so miss here. Correct Adress is: Yehuda Halevi 51. There is an iron gate at the side of an ugly residential building, through the gate to your right, in a converted insurance office.
2. ‘Katit’ Extra fancy local fusion. The chef, Meir Adoni, is a whiz in desserts and sweets, I ate there once and loved it, hope it is still the same ;-)
3. North Abraxas — this place is supposed to be incredible, don’t miss it (and tell us how it was...). The chef, Eyal Shani, is a genius, and it is also supposed to have excellent music.
4. The trendiest, hippest place in town is called ‘The Basta’. It is in the corner of one of the streets of the Karmel market — on Hashomer st. No. 4. I am totally planning on visiting it, it is supposed to be out of this world delicious (the above applies here as well about telling us how it was).
5. And of course, ‘Herbert samuel’, Very easy to find, delicious and very easy to enjoy. if this list is too confusing, go there only- it’s the closest there is to a sure thing. [I can confirm this place is excellent.]
Odds & Ends we mentioned:
- ‘Old timer’s’ cool cafe in TLV = ‘Cafe mersand’ — Ben Yehuda 70
- Jerusalem — ‘Rashel’s Sandwich’ No. 17 Beit-Lechem Rd. — take the daily special (Tunisian food, all freshly cooked there, delicious!!)
jerusalem
Abu Shukri. Best hummus ever.
venice
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Venissa on Burano. Unbelievably delicious and beautiful place, inventive haute cuisine. Very special wines (including vines they’re cultivating on the property, a resurrected varietal the Doges used to keep on the island). (Pricey.)
Ae Oche. In San Polo, off a “local” quiet square on the Zattere vaporetto stop. Widely regarded as the best pizza in Venice.
La Zucca. Near Ae Oche, this place is very nice, and a little more inventive than the usual Venetian standards, while still firmly grounded in tradition. Mostly vegetables.
Tonolo. In the San Polo quarter across a bridge behind the Scuola San Rocco. The fiamma, a choux pastry filled with marsala cream, is pretty much the best thing I’ve ever tasted. But everything here is good. Cappuccino comes in lovely little blue porcelain cups. Don’t get there too late in the morning as their pastries sell out.
Da Fiore. As far as I know the only place in Venice with a Michelin star. We had a wonderful meal here, both haute and with a welcome element of earthiness. The house-made prosecco is delicious. This was the first place I tried crudo, sashimi-style fish in olive oil, and probably still the best. (Update: Da Fiore remains excellent.)
Corte Sconta. On Calle del Pestrin, in Castello. It’s worth taking a long walk to dine here. A bit pricey, like Da Fiore; and I think equally great. The meal begins with a long and creative tasting menu of seafoods; the challenge is to still be able to keep going by the time you get to the part you actually ordered. [Note: last visit in 2015 was underwhelming.]
Ai Do Mori. Near the Rialto bridge, hidden away on the Calle Do Mori in San Polo. One goes here for an “ombra”, a glass of white wine in the afternoon and some cicheti (little bites at the bar, a bit like tapas or pintxos).
rome
Enoteca Corsi. Near the Pantheon. Unfancy but uncheap. Excellent Roman eating.
lisbon
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100 Maneiras. This place is (Adrienne assures) amazing.
Pap’ Acorda
Rubro Avenida “had a beautiful interior and was delicious. recommended.”
corsica
Campu Latinu is the fancier of two restaurants in the picturesque village of Lama (population 176 in 2008 according to Wikipedia— an inland hamlet perched on a steep mountainside about halfway between Ile Rousse and Bastia). The setting is beautiful and atmospheric, with outdoor seating on a stone terrace under fig trees and climbing vines overlooking the valley. As dusk comes in, around 9 o’clock, layers of mountainous silhouette rise softly out of the clouds on the far side in purple bands. One of the traditional dishes served by Campu Latinu, a sort of beef pot pie with juniper berries in the stew, was a standout.
Café de la Place. Place Pascal Paoli, up to the castle, with its wonderful panoramic viewpoints, is recommended. At Café de la Place on this square we had a very good handmade pasta dish with sanglier, which are the wild pigs living on the island.
U Paglia Orba, in Corte. We had a very nice meal here. The place is focused on high-quality regional cooking. The proprietor was kind and attentive to the kids, and the bill was very reasonable.
Emile’s on the waterfront in Calvi is a Michelin-starred place with a second-story balcony. It’s white tablecloth (what Michelin place isn’t?), but not excessively formal. The meal was very good, and the wines excellent.
M*. We had a very nice upscale lunch on the water at Saint-Florent, but I’m now unable to find the name of the restaurant, which is quite frustrating. It began with an “M”, and one accessed it by walking down a somewhat hidden ramp off the main square. The langouste in lemon butter sauce here made it clear what all the fuss was about. This place also served delicious stuffed sardines, in which brocciu was deployed to better effect than in the ubiquitous cannelloni.
paris
Buvette Gastrotheque. Very cute atmospheric place with nice food, focused on small dishes tapas-style but mostly traditionally French.
kb cafeshop. Very nice little spot, probably makes the only proper cappuccino (or “cafe creme”) in France.
Paradis. We had a good lunch here.
L’Ogre. Good steak frites place.
Rendezvous au Marche. A simple place run by a dude who loves his meat, and loves to cook. Classic and delicious.
Lou Pescadou Chez Julien.
Helene Darroze. Birthday lunch for Adrienne here– delicious and delicate, impeccable service without obnoxiousness.
D’Chez Eux. Very traditional bistrot.
L’Ardoise. Cute place.
Le Petit Vendome. Traditional steak frites place (and sandwich shop by day); legit, big portions.
Angelina. Fancy tea house with lots of complicated sweets.
madrid
Tasca Celso y Manolo. Favorite place in Madrid so far. Delicious and cheeky giant-sized menu focusing on the very local. Inventive and traditional at the same time.
TriCiclo. Delicious creative fusion‑y tapas.
Tandem. Smaller place down the street from TriCiclo run by the same guys, also very good.
La Ardosa. Super cute bar with great vermut and tortilla.
Ten Con Ten. Great high-end yet casual place, on the spot seating for one or two generally available at the bar.
La trainera for fresh fish from the north.
St. James for the best paella. And arroz Negro.
Cafe de la opera and taberna del alabardero.
Platea, the movie theater turned tapas extravaganza in Calle Goya.
Lavapies neighborhood: great traditional restaurant that serves cocido next to Tirso de Molina subway.
Mercado de San Miguel. Full of cute tapas places and food merchants.
Cerveceria Santa Barbara. The type of beer they sell is very special, the shrimp are to die for. Order berberechos, and get their chips.
La Castela. Traditional tapas place.
Ultramarinos Quintin.
Casa Gonzalez.
Chocolateria San Gines. The classic churros place, industrial scale, open 24h.
Chocolat. Calle Sta. Maria 30. Excellent chocolate con churros.
Microteatro por dinero. Super cool concept and execution– 5–15 minute plays running continuously throughout the evening, staged in a former brothel.
london
10 Greek Street. Cute place in SoHo with modern Italian-ish food, Aussie chef, nice short menu.
Terroirs. Super-popular place in Covent Garden serving a few nice small dishes and good wine.
barrafina. A couple of doors down from Terroirs is a brightly lit, fastidiously clean Catalan bar with a long, stainless steel bar, and lots of delicious things.
notes. This artisanal coffee place in Covent Garden is pretty serious, and makes fancy stuff like shakerato.
belgrade
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Saran is a very good fish restaurant in Zemun, a town on the banks of the Danube which has been engulfed by Belgrade (though it still retains a very local character). The freshwater fish is best, as this is local and fresh.
Stara Koliba, also on the river, looks promising. Reservations needed.
Vuk, which means Wolf, is a very old-school place in the old city. The food was good and kept coming. Meat, meat, meat! This is best enjoyed on the outdoor patio.
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