Best Restaurants – Page 3 – Berkeley Square Barbarian

Esterhazy Keller, Vienna – our Review

December 30, 2017 2 Comments

We have just returned from our pleasant stay at Esterhazy Keller, located inside the wealthy Esterhazy family’s Viennese pied-a-terre, to this day the largest privately owned palace in town. In the olden days the Esterhazys were famous for their lavish parties which took place in this building complex (not underground, but in the large first floor halls, of course). The dress code was very simple: come naked. The emperor apparently was so pleased with these events that he rented a five-storey building just on the opposite side of the street, so that he would not have to go through the trouble of being driven to his main palace, ten minutes away, in his carriage. Being the boss of the second larges empire of earth at the time (after Russia) came with certain benefits. Viennese have never been very big on beer. At some stage the emperor even […]

Vienna restaurants

Cafe Demel, Vienna, our Review

December 30, 2017 1 Comment

Opened in the 18th Century and re-designed later in a neo-baroque style, this “Imperial and Royal Chocolatier and Patisserie” is one of the best places for food we have been to in Vienna. Without a reservation, we had to wait for nearly half an hour before we were seated in one of the less glamorous second floor rooms, but it was worth the effort. From the moment we arrived the service made us feel welcome (which is not a given for big city places, certainly not for Vienna). We ordered coffee while we were pondering over the menu. In the end we decided we had to try their Viennese schnitzel for €25.90 (including side salad) and another one of their signature dishes: Huhn-Nudel-Briesauflauf (soufflé of noodles with chicken and sweet bread for €16.50). The schnitzel was among the top three we’ve enjoyed. Large size, beautiful […]

Norway, Restaurants

Fine Dining at the North Pole: Gruvelageret

August 15, 2017 24 Comments

During our visit to Spitsbergen last weekend, Gruvelageret Restaurant in Longyearbyen (the capital of Svalbard, Norway) invited me to try out their 4-course fine dining menu with wine pairing. I was joined by my wife, Ms B. The restaurant, whose name translates into mining warehouse, sits 30 metres up the hillside, no more than 200 metres direct distance from Coal Miners’ Cabins, where we were staying (0.5km by car), but – being cautious (everyone seemed to think: overly cautious) people, we took a cab anyway. At least in winter, polar bears occasionally stroll around in this northernmost human settlement on planet Earth, and we didn’t want to end up as polar bear picnic. Like most structures in town, the building doesn’t look like too much from the outside (even though the whole building has a beautiful history and a lot of love and hard work went into it), but as […]

Norway, Restaurants

Ekeberg Restaurant, Oslo – our Review

August 15, 2017 17 Comments

Michelin Guide listed Ekebergrestauranten, ranking in the top 30 of 1,200 Oslo restaurants on Tripadvisor and regularly featured by gourmet publications as one of the best fine dining locations in town, invited us for dinner during our stopover in Oslo on our way to Spitsbergen last Friday evening. They offer innovative, at times adventurous, but not excessively experimental Scandinavian and European cuisine in very chic, spacious, bright dining rooms of a perfectly maintained 1920s functionalist (regularly erroneously labelled art-deco by reviewers) building. It is considered to be one of the finest of its kind in Europe. While being managed locally, they are part of Fursetgruppen, who own another 20 or so local restaurants, including the world-famous three Michelin starred Maaemo. On the ten-minute cab ride from the city centre with its magnificent opera house (40 minutes by train from the airport; the opera house is next to the station) up […]

Cotswolds, Restaurants

Fig, Chipping Campden – our Restaurant Review

August 8, 2017 12 Comments

During our visit to the Cotswolds last weekend, Fig restaurant, focused on fine dining and British cuisine, invited me to try their three-course dinner menu. I was joined by Ms B, my wife. The restaurant is part of the lovely boutique hotel Cotswold House and Spa, owned by Bespoke Hotels group, and located in the main building, a splendid Regency mansion that used to be home to the local Guild of Handicraft. Read our review of the hotel here. The dining room has large windows towards the magnificent park-like gardens of the hotel and exudes an atmosphere of grandeur and elegance. The maître d’ led us to our table and after brief deliberation, Ms B opted for hand-picked crab, yuzu, cucumber, and avocado as a starter, roast fillet of turbot, fregola, peas, broad beans, clams and Marsala as her main, and caramelised spelt, milk jelly, coffee ice cream, and honeycomb […]

You may also like

You may also like

You may also like

You may also like

You may also like