Michelin Restaurants

Housed in a century-old villa in the Dongshankou old town of Guangzhou, restaurant Yong, owned by vessel collector, investor and Sichuan cuisine master Lan Guijun, has become a veritable treasure-house of culture and gastronomy. Through refurbishment and landscape redesign, the building evokes an aura of yore as if we were going back in time while enjoying Master Lan's cuisine. It is heart-warming to see the time-honoured and almost forgotten oriental aesthetic come alive again.

"Coming to Japan was not part of the plan," says Chef Lionel Beccat at the French restaurant Esquisse in Tokyo. Chef Beccat was born in Corsica but moved to Marseille with his family at the age of four. As a major port on the Mediterranean coast, the city of Marseille is a fascinating multi-cultural melting pot in its own right. "Marseille defines who I am," he says, with a calm, slightly melancholic temperament but his eyes shining stars of wisdom.

At the Michelin two-starred modern Singaporean restaurant JL STUDIO in Taichung, Singaporean Chef Jimmy Lim Tyan Yaw has re-imagined traditional South-East Asian cuisine with unique flair and a deep desire. Having been refining his approach to traditional cuisine, Jimmy’s colourful but unconventional dishes are a delightful departure from cooking’s new minimalism.

I have known Chef Hiroyasu Kawate of Michelin two-starred restaurant Florilège in Tokyo for many years. He is a champion of nature and connects his cuisine with it; even “Florilège” means a collection of beautiful poems like flowers. He is a master of using a single ingredient in a variety of ways, fusing simplicity with sophistication, and intuitively applying delicious flavour combinations to bring out the best in each ingredient.

Japan's only Michelin three-starred Chinese restaurant, Sazenka, aims to showcase the essence of Chinese cuisine with the splendid ingredients in Japan. The experience was truly flawless and full of pleasant surprises. The veritable three stars has made Sazenka the most convincing and worth-visiting restaurant on this trip to Tokyo.

When I returned to Tokyo as soon as Japan reopened after three years of Covid, I felt quite excited the moment my plane landed at Haneda Airport. To celebrate my other half's birthday, we decided to leave some time for catching up, but the stomach was reserved for the restaurant where we had wanted to go to for years.

More Than Just Fish and Chips: Must-visit Restaurants in London

The impact of covid on the UK people's life has become trivial as they can continue to live and work as usual even if they test positive. For the country's F&B industry, rising prices are not a problem for fine dining restaurants, some of which, however, have had to reduce the number of tables due to staff shortages, making it even more difficult to book at popular places.

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.

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.

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