‘In principle, the essential ingredients are simple and straightforward: an inspiring kitchen; a great wine list; both on offer in a warm and welcoming atmosphere that customers will leave only with considerable regret. The challenge is to deliver each, in the right proportions, day in and day out.’
This is what I wrote a year ago and it remains as pertinent as ever, particularly as I look back over the restaurants that excited me the most in 2024. There have been very few ‘great meals’. I have not eaten at the Troisgros restaurant in Ouches in the eastern French countryside in 18 months and I have tended to ignore the most ambitious restaurant openings – partly, I must confess, due to a lack of enthusiasm on my part. I don’t enjoy being told what I have to eat and I don’t seem to have the stamina any longer to sit for three hours or more, however comfortable the chairs may be.
But I have eaten particularly well in some diverse cities across the northern hemisphere. Mumbai and Copenhagen in torrential rain; wonderful Turkish food in sunny Baltimore on the south-west coast of Ireland; and fried artichokes in the eternal city of Rome. I have met outstanding women serving food and wine with unique charm by the sea in Kinsale, Ireland, in Washington, DC, in Brooklyn, and while stuffing vine leaves in Mustafapaşa, Türkiye.
The requirements for running a restaurant, and cooking in one, spelled out in my first paragraph were brought home to me during a conversation in our own kitchen. I was the chef. The menu was Morecambe Bay potted shrimps; a fillet of venison; Stichelton cheese, and lemon posset and all the wines were old. A Silex 2002 from the late Didier Dagueneau, a 1957 La Dominique and 1956 Pape-Clément were among the dozen fascinating wines, of which Jancis will be describing in more detail on Christmas Eve, and of which I tasted not a drop (I was being operated on the following morning). There were nine of us, including one man who was a self-described, extremely enthusiastic cook. At home, it transpired.
He confessed, ‘I could never cook in a restaurant. I just don’t have the motivation. I love cooking at home, for my family, but I just could not transfer this passion on to a larger scale. But I am full of admiration for those who can.’ It is this commitment, the willingness to walk into an empty kitchen first thing in the morning and to start all over again which distinguishes the most determined restaurateurs and their teams from the rest.
This essential quality in cooks is hardly ever mentioned but was brought home to me by L’Escargot chef Martin Lam when I asked him once about the qualities he looked for in an aspiring cook. Was it taste, I wondered? Was it an ability to judge and combine flavours perhaps? It turned out to be neither of the these. It was the prospective cook’s hand/eye coordination which at this early stage would determine his/her professional future. If they had the right balance, they would be reliable and safe, Lam explained. ‘Service in the kitchen is fast and furious, and it can be dangerous at times, so this is the quality I look for at the outset.’
I am assuming therefore that all the restaurants that have shone for me share this essential ingredient and, as I write, one other common factor occurs to me: each of them makes me think, as soon as their name is mentioned, of their location. The sea breezes blowing off the Atlantic evoke the charms of Fishy Fishy and St Francis Provisions in Kinsale, Ireland.
In a queue with others for a swimming pool or ice-skating rink means I must be in another queue, this one for lunch at Les Grands Buffets in Narbonne. It was already almost impossible to snag a booking here, and then this year The New Yorker devoted an article to its charms. We got in only thanks to local connections. Sitting upright looking out at the traffic in Brooklyn will always evoke the distinctive appeal of the St Julivert Fisherie. The same situation in Mumbai evokes Indian Accent there.
France, as ever, figured heavily in 2024. There was the renewed charm of being squeezed in at Juveniles in Paris, where the overall tightness of space somehow manages not to inhibit chef Romain Roudeau, maitresse d’ Margaux Johnston nor the breadth of their wine list. And France continues to inspire British chefs, most notably Bruce Poole and Matt Christmas who have been cooking together now for over a decade at Chez Bruce, and more recently Iranian-born Elliot Hashtroudi at Camille near London Bridge (shown below).
The space in my diary usually occupied by mainland Spain and young Spanish chefs was this year taken by Greece and Türkiye. A few days in Istanbul allowed me to appreciate that this is the city for street food, both sweet and savoury. This was followed by two exceptional meals in very different circumstances.
The first was a sunny lunch at The Old Greek House in Mustafapaşa, a small town in Cappadocia. A photo of the sign outside reveals its history, an era when Greeks lived happily side by side with Turks.
Then there was the pleasure of sitting in the sunshine as several generations of the family who own it worked the floor. And finally there was the honour of being taken on a tour of the upstairs floors where I met the still sprightly grandmother as she stuffed and rolled innumerable vine leaves for that night’s dinner service.
It is almost 4,500 km (2,796 miles) from Cappadocia to Baltimore on the west coast of Ireland where I was entranced by the Turkish menu on offer at Dede, the brainchild of chef/restaurateur Ahmet Dede. The town’s former Custom House has been transformed and the food is astonishing: the yoghurt soup with a Turkish ‘brioche’ alongside and a fillet of John Dory on risotto with a lobster bisque and pea shoots were two dishes I will long remember.
Further south, in Kinsale, are two restaurants that I would happily return to again and again. The first is Fishy Fishy, owned by Martin and Marie Shanahan, where their kitchen not only bakes their wonderful Murphy’s stout soda bread served alongside butter that had been wrapped individually (NB to any restaurateurs reading this!). The second is St Francis Provisions, where we were very impressed by the cooking and wine list but most notably by the charm and warmth of restaurateur Barbara Nealon.
As well as missing Spain, I also managed to miss anywhere east of India but we ate exceptionally well in Delhi and Mumbai. At Delhi it was over lunch at The Chambers in the Taj Hotel and breakfast overlooking the harbour at that city’s Taj, plus exceptional dinners at Masque and Indian Accent. But I left my heart at the long-established Soam vegetarian restaurant, where I would happily eat as often as possible, distance permitting.
Restaurants are an expression of the individuals concerned and I would like to end by paying tribute to three restaurateurs in particular. To Aitor Martín who alongside his family of restaurateurs has established the entrancing Asador Goxoa on the island of Tenerife. Then to Washington, DC, to the low-key, fun and stimulating Queen’s English run by chef Henji Cheung (who claims to be an ‘aspiring retiree’) and his wife/sommelier and front of house, Sarah Thompson.
Finally, it would be back over the Mediterranean to The Venetian Well in Corfu. Here restaurateur Yiannis Vlachos has brought all the essential ingredients for a memorable restaurant together. Plus this restaurant has the added attraction of a most beautiful, historic setting.
France Les Grands Buffets, Narbonne; Juveniles, Paris
Greece The Venetian Well, Corfu
India The Chambers at Taj Hotel New Delhi and Indian Accent, Masque and Soam in Mumbai
Ireland Dede at the Customs House Baltimore, West Cork; Fishy, Fishy and St Francis Provisions in Kinsale
Spain Asador Goxoa,Tenerife
Türkiye Old Greek House, Mustafapaşa
UK Camille and Chez Bruce, London
US St Julivert Fisherie, Brooklyn, and Queen’s English, Washington, DC
Every Sunday, Nick writes about restaurants. To stay abreast of his reviews, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
