After winning Asia's Best Pastry Chef in 2020 for her fashion-inspiredfruit cakes, Tokyo chef Natsuko Shoji took home the Best Female Chef of Asia’s 50 best this year. Her restaurant in Tokyo, Été, caters up to six people a day so getting the reservation is no easy feat. Expect thoughtful service, beautiful dishes, and an array of pleasant surprises brought by Été. It would be unforgettably romantic to make a marriage proposal here. 

There could be times when a certain cuisine was washed away by the tide of the changing world, but its glory has been etched in the history for us to discover. Mountain and Sea House, a Michelin one star and green star establishment in Taipei, has reproduced exquisite Taiwanese flavours of the 1930s through its quality ingredients, cooking techniques and artistic presentation. Dining here was like a revisit to childhood memories, arousing long-buried flavours in mind, which I came to realise are always, at last, the best.

Born in Osaka, the birthplace of Japanese comedy, Chef Kunihiro Hagimoto brings with him a mix of Japanese rigor and humour, as well as Italian spontaneity, and has set up his own restaurant, INITA, in Taipei. In addition to sitting in front of the counter and enjoying the food, you can also enjoy the chef's stroke-of-genius wittiness in a multi-cultural ambiance.

Cantonese cuisine emphasizes techniques and there is no standard procedure. It usually takes years of hard work for a chef majoring Cantonese cuisine to master the essence of it. Chef Max Wo, a celebrated graduate from the famous fine dining spot Lei Garden in Hong Kong with over thirty years of culinary experience, has welcomed renowned chefs both from Taiwan and from other countries at Silks House in Taipei since he took the helm from 2019. It has not picked up a Michelin star yet but it is my No. 1 Cantonese cuisine restaurant in Taipei.

Located in the heart of Emilian Appennines, Trattoria da Amerigo was opened in 1934 in the fertile Samoggia Valley, perched in the middle of the Modena and Bologna hillsides. Half an hour's drive from the center of Bologna, the restaurant serves dishes that remain rustic but are characterised by refined techniques and an elegant master of time. It has always respected tradition and has been one of the few members of the Premiate Trattorie Italiane.

There is no pizza like Franco Pepe's. Nowadays everywhere is accessible, but the best pizza in the world still gets you on the road to explore the old, narrow, cobbled alleys of Caiazzo. For food travellers, it's always worth the effort.

It's been over three years since I last visited Reale, a celebrated restaurant situated in the remote town of Castel di Sangro nestled in the mountains of Abruzzo in central Italy. It is not a tourist town and takes about 1.5 hours driving from Naples. It is interesting that a world-famous three-starred Michelin restaurant is housed in a time-honoured 16th century monastery.

It might be a bit of a cliché, but the story started when a boy fell in love with a girl.