World's 50 Best Restaurants

[Agentm]

Ezards.. melb (have his cookbook and cook lots of his recipes)

Circa.. st kilda

Taxi... fed square

recommend thoroughly

flowerdrum has had it time.. but plenty of excellence came through the kitchen, we have a lot of talented chefs in australia now..

 

[adobee]

Sydney you cant be MACHIAVELLI in my opinion this rips all other sydney restaurants must have on your table -

Antipasto misto
Prosciutto and melon
Spaghetti Machiavelli
two minute steak

and you might just overhear a conversation with some hot tips of whats happening with other companies...

 

[drillinto]

Outstanding Achievement award
By Necia Wilden / The Age
August 28, 2007

THE man behind the only three-hat restaurant in this year's Age Good Food Guide has been clocking up significant achievements for some decades now. From gaining a Michelin star at his restaurant in France in the early '80s to celebrating the 20th anniversary of his acclaimed restaurant in Melbourne this year, Jacques Reymond has packed a lot into a career spanning 45 years.

Yet perhaps the most interesting achievement is also the most recent one. At an age when many of his chef-restaurateur peers are slowing down, Reymond in his mid-50s is at the height of his creative powers. For anyone who's visited his eponymous restaurant in Windsor over the past year or so, the proof is on the plate. Alongside the brilliance and originality has come a new sense of restraint as though, in common with all great artists, the chef has realised that it's what you leave out that makes all the difference.

Jacques Reymond, the man, has been in the game for so long it's easy to forget his contribution as a culinary innovator. He was one of the first to offer a degustation menu in Melbourne, at his newly opened Richmond restaurant back in 1987. He was probably the first chef in Australia to incorporate native ingredients into top-end dining, a practice he continues today. Similarly, his classically based cuisine embraced Asian flavours and textures long before it was fashionable. And his restaurant's rejection of entree-main in favour of "small plates" in 2002 has paved the way for countless imitators.

Along the way he's opened a successful cafe - Arintji in Federation Square - and mentored a first-class team at Jacques Reymond, including daughter Nathalie as sommelier and Chris Young as manager.

Exceptional creativity. Prodigious talent. An insatiable appetite for work. And - not to be underestimated - quite simply, a love of what he does. The Melbourne restaurant scene would be much the poorer without the master, Jacques Reymond.

 

[vvguru]

for big portion serving restaurants, you guys may find some on Australian Dining Out Reviews:

Melbourne List:

http://www.ador.com.au/restaurantlist.aspx?t=dining&i=9&c=1

Sydney List:

http://www.ador.com.au/restaurantlist.aspx?t=dining&i=9&c=2

 

[drillinto]

Top Aussie and Kiwi beers

http://www.ratebeer.com/Ratings/TopAussie.asp

 

[drillinto]

Michelin Guide 2008: For Good Restaurants in France

http://www.michelin.com.au/news/showNews.asp?ID=220

 

[qmanthebarbarian]

The food at this place is incredible!

http://www.veltlinerkeller.ch/

Excellent value for money too!

If you're in Zürich, stop by!

Lot of exclamation points in this post!

 

[korrupt_1]

yikes... looking at the price range for the Tetsuya's menu: A$40 to A$10,500!!!!!!!

$10,500 is like 2-3 months salary for some people!!!!

I wonder what a $10,500 dish is like like.... probably uncooked with encrusted diamonds, gold foil in a gravy base of fine light crude oil :


It seems that the more awards a restuarant gets, the higher the menu price. We have a local Restuarant in Adelaide - The Lion - that has won multiple awards for 'best restuarants' etc etc. Each time I go there, it gets more expense.

Does cost = quality?

 

[drillinto]

The New York Times, March 23, 2008

You Say Recession, I Say ‘Reservations!’
By MICHAEL BARBARO and CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY

THE collapse of a major financial institution is usually an occasion for hand-wringing and tut-tutting over potential job losses, lower consumer spending and missed mortgage payments.

In New York City, it’s also seen as an opportunity.

For many of the city’s middle class, especially those in the creative class, who have felt sidelined as the city seemed to become a high-priced playground for Wall Street bankers, the implosion of the brokerage house Bear Stearns raises a tantalizing possibility: participation in an economy they have been largely shut out of.

Few romanticize the nearly bankrupt New York of the 1970s or the recession of the late 1980s. But if the city suffers an economic downturn, as many now predict, there are fantasies of New York returning to a pre-Gilded Age, before the average Manhattan apartment cost $1.4 million, SAT tutors charged $500 an hour and dinner entrees crossed the $40 threshold.

Andre Anderson, 34, an account executive at TheDeal.com, a financial news Web site, would like to buy a Manhattan apartment with his girlfriend, but he said their combined incomes still make it nearly impossible to afford one.

Like many, he is rooting for what could be called a Bear Stearns discount, as newly unemployed financiers cut back on the buying binges that inflate the cost of life in the city.

“If there is greater good for everyone, is it worth a few people losing their jobs?” Mr. Anderson asked. “I think so. I hate to see people lose their jobs, but prices in the city have become ridiculous.”

From the Bronx to Staten Island, the disintegration of a bank known for its seven- and eight-figure salaries seemed to expose just how eager many New Yorkers are to release a little air from the city’s wealth bubble. Corey K. Cox, 32, who works at an equity research firm, hopes that the troubles for Bear Stearns workers may make it easier to buy a three-bedroom apartment or even a house in Brooklyn. His wife is expecting their second child in April.

“The environment right now is definitely more favorable to people who don’t make those Wall Street bonuses,” Mr. Cox said.

On Web sites devoted to New York, there was a healthy dose of schadenfreude.

“I am willing to risk a recession if it means tons of ibankers will be gone,” wrote one anonymous poster on Curbed.com, a Web site about real estate.

New York City has always been defined by the yawning gap between its haves and have-nots. But the last 15 years have witnessed the rise of a class of financiers whose salaries and bonuses have reached staggering heights. Over the last five years, the median compensation for a managing director working in investment banking rose from $650,000 to $1.37 million, according to Johnson Associates, a compensation consulting firm.

That is a pittance compared with hedge-fund managers. The highest-paid managers earned at least $240 million a year in 2006, according to the Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine, nearly double the amount of 2005 (and up from a minimum of $30 million in 2002).

Their pay ”” and eagerness to spend it ”” has encouraged the growth of a luxury market in everything from groceries to restaurants to spas to specialty boutiques. Witness the Marc Jacobs-ization of the West Village, the surging average price of a two-bedroom apartment in Harlem to $1.1 million, and the rise of $15 tubs of ice cream in, of all places, the Lower East Side, at Il Laboratorio del Gelato.

In a city where the median household income in 2006 was $46,480, it’s no wonder that many people are bitter.

Robert H. Frank, an economics professor at Cornell, has written about the phenomenon of Americans who feel impoverished because of the towering wealth of those above them. In New York City, he said, those feelings are compounded by the sense that much of the wealth at the top is derived from financial instruments that merely move money around.

“It’s one thing if people are adding value to society,” Professor Frank said. “But there is skepticism that this is all a shell game and these guys are not adding value, at least to the extent that justifies their salaries.”

Kathryn Lyon, 62, who works at a legal staffing firm, and her husband, who works for the city, have wanted to buy an apartment in Manhattan for the last seven years, but have felt priced out by the wealthy.

“The city has been so damaged by this wealth, and the middle class has been forced out,” Ms. Lyon said. “You’re holding on by your fingernails to stay in the city.”

“I love New York,” she added, “But there’s always the risk of the city being swallowed up by wealth.”

At the same time, the troubles at Bear Stearns and the rest of Wall Street may well create hard times for New Yorkers. Many of the 8,000 Bear Stearns workers in the city are expected to lose their jobs. Citigroup announced that it will lay off 2,000 employees, and more job cuts are likely at companies like Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs.

The trickle-down effect may allow people like Ms. Lyon to buy an apartment, but it could also make the city a far less desirable place to live. During the last prolonged slump on Wall Street, after the crash of the stock market in 1987, a combination of large job losses at banks, trouble in the credit markets and a glut of new commercial and residential real estate on the market (sound familiar?) battered the city .

Office vacancies soared. Housing prices fell, with bad loans leaving some buildings worthless. Crime surged. And tourism plunged.

Jonathan Miller, the president and chief executive of Miller Samuel, a Manhattan real estate appraisal company, remembers appraising a studio co-op apartment in the now-exclusive Tudor City for $11,000 in 1990.

Even though he could afford to charge the studio on his Visa, he decided that it wasn’t worth the risk. “There was great concern whether many of these co-ops would remain solvent,” he said.

That’s why the troubles at Bear Stearns are a mixed blessing for New York’s lower ranks. The same masters of the universe who have made housing so expensive have beefed up the tax base, its sanitation services and its police force. They have, in many ways, underwritten the “new” New York City of the late 1990s and 2000s, defined by pristine parks and low murder rates.

Some Bear Stearns executives already are unloading homes. One of them called a Manhattan broker last week to put his town house up for sale. Ray Schmitz, an associate broker at Coldwell Banker Previews International who stood outside of Bear Stearns on Monday morning handing out business cards, said he received calls from two employees interested in selling.

But, at least so far, New York real estate prices show few signs of declining. The weak American dollar is encouraging thousands of foreigners to buy what seem like bargain apartments. “The condo market is not negotiable because we have Europeans throwing so much money at it,” said Darren Sukenik, an executive vice president for luxury sales at Prudential Douglas Elliman.

And don’t count on suddenly getting a next-day reservation at New York’s most popular restaurants. Waits for prime-time tables at Nobu are still four weeks, said Drew Nieporent, the force behind more than a dozen restaurants, including Rubicon and Tribeca Grill.

Even at the height of the ’80s economic downturn, Mr. Nieporent did not lower prices at his restaurants. But he did make one big concession: a B.Y.O.B. Monday at Montrachet.

Still, many New Yorkers hope prices decline. Even some on Wall Street.

Michele Kleier, the president of Gumley Haft Kleier, a Manhattan brokerage, received a call from a giddy client, a financier. The bidding war over a seven-room $4 million apartment had suddenly turned in the client’s favor. His rival, it turned out, was an executive at Bear Stearns, a once-glittering credential that might now hurt his chances with the seller and the co-op board

“It’s like an old Western movie where the vultures are gathering,” Ms. Kleier said between showings for multimillion-dollar listings.

 

[drillinto]

The Dish: Meat Pie
Sydney's Signature Snack Sums Up the Nation, in a Crust
By CHIP ROLLEY / Wall Street Journal / March 28, 2008

Along with the Sydney Opera House, a race horse called Phar Lap and, yes, that vitamin B-rich spread Vegemite, the meat pie is an Australian icon, whether gobbled at a "footy" game (Australian Rules football or Rugby League) or at a pie cart after a pub crawl.

Perhaps no other dish goes to the heart of Australia's sense of itself as a no-nonsense, egalitarian land as does the meat pie, a simple thick beef stew encased in pastry, usually served with a dollop of "tomato sauce" (ketchup). You can stand shoulder to shoulder with your mates and eat it with your hands. And it goes down well with an ice-cold beer.

The History

This is not to claim that the meat pie is an Aussie invention. Many cultures around the world have a version. It's said one variant can be traced back to ancient Greece. But in Australia, the pie really has hold of the national psyche. According to one mass producer of frozen pies, the country's 20 million people consume 500 million pies a year.

The Aussie version certainly traces back to the early English and Irish settlers (both forced and voluntary). By the mid-1800s it became a staple of pubs' "counter lunch." Pie sellers would push carts through the cities, stopping outside sporting venues and pubs.

The Setting

Meat-pie traditions vary across Australia. Football-mad Melbourne buys its pies from carts at the game. Adelaide likes them plopped in a bowl of pea soup -- the "pie floater."

But it's Sydney that has the nation's most famous pie cart, Harry's Cafe de Wheels. There's enough legend and lore packed into this one tiny establishment to make the meat pie an iconic Sydney dish. According to the citation listing it on the National Trust register, "a visit to Harry's is associated with the concept of being a true Sydneysider."

Harry's, originally a mobile canteen made from an old army ambulance, was established in 1938 by Harry "Tiger" Edwards, a gambler and erstwhile taxi and fruit-truck driver. Mr. Edwards left to fight in World War II, but returned to re-establish the business in 1945. Harry's has been in continuous operation along the same road ever since, under a series of proprietors. It's now a permanent building between the Finger Wharf -- home to some of Sydney's trendiest nightspots -- and the Garden Island naval shipyard.

Harry's draws cabbies, businesspeople, musicians and tourists, and its location ensures a steady traffic of sailors. Lots of celebrities, including Olivia Newton-John and Frank Sinatra, have dined here.

The Judgment

However iconic Harry's is, though, not everyone thinks its pies are the best. Its filling can be more saucy than meaty.

But it's not bad, and the meat is truly beef. That's an issue now for some pies. Australia's standard was tightened last year to require that a pie be 25% "meat flesh" by weight to qualify as a "meat pie." By specifying "meat flesh," the standard now excludes, for example, snouts. Still, what remains is a very elastic definition. If it's beef you want, look for "beef pie" or "steak pie."

The "chunky steak" pie at Pie Face, a relatively new chain of "designer" pie cafes founded by designer Betty Fong and former banker Wayne Homschek, who have a clothing label called Paablo Nevada, is meatier than Harry's, and (it must be said) tastier.

Since Sydney went irretrievably gourmet about a decade ago, there has been a continuing effort to "tart up" the humble meat pie. Chefs have mixed fresh herbs, exotic spices, mushrooms, even truffles into the filling. The zenith so far can be found at the Boathouse on Blackwattle Bay in Glebe: a snapper pie (made with white truffle oil) that carries a price tag of about US$40 -- though it does come to your table on a cart.

But for those wishing to indulge in a gourmet sensation that retains something of the simplicity of the traditional, the beef pie at the Bourke Street Bakery may be the ideal. Its filling is a rich and thick stew of beef flavored with fresh garlic, thyme and a little malt vinegar, according to co-owner Paul Allan. "And we use butter in the pastry, not pastry margarine," he adds. If you're not lucky enough to grab one of the two or three seats in his tiny corner shop, you'll be tucking into the beef pie out on the pavement.

The Sources

Harry's Cafe de Wheels

Cowper Wharf Road, Woolloomooloo, Sydney (corner of Brougham Street, between the Blue Hotel at the Finger Wharf and the entrance to the Garden Island Navy Shipyard.)

61-2-9357-3074

Meat pie (with or without tomato sauce) about US$3; tiger pie (beef pie topped with mashed potato, peas and gravy), US$4.80.

Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 a.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 a.m.

Pie Face

Ten locations (and counting) around the city, from Potts Point (23 Darlinghurst Rd.) to Parramatta (Westfield shopping mall, K546); see www.pieface.com.au for more. Gourmet pies include Thai chicken curry and spinach, sundried tomato and ricotta, but you can't go wrong with a classic chunky steak.

Chunky steak pie, US$3.80.

The Bourke Street Bakery

633 Bourke Street (corner Devonshire Street), Surry Hills.

61-2-9699-1011

Monday to Friday, 7 p.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Beef pie, US$4.30.

 

[moneymajix]

Tetsuya's


Down memory lane.


I went to Tetsuyas when it was in the inner West.
$85 for the degustation.

I went to the city location a few years ago and the degustation was around $200.


Checked out the website tonight and the degustation is $195 (10 courses).
http://www.tetsuyas.com/index.html

I thought it would have surely gone up!


:kebab

 

[MRC & Co]

What is the service like at Tetsuya? Good management?

 

[moneymajix]

MRC

From my experience the service was very good at Tets. Understated and efficient.
Last time was a few years ago but I imagine it would still be good.

 

[Aussie2Aussie]

If your in New York, try La Goulue Restaurant on Madison Ave. Get an outdoor seat and watch the world go by. Might not rate as one of the World's 50 Best Restaurants but the food was great and location and atmosphere unbeatable.

One block from Central Park and Park Ave.

 

[prawn_86]

Aurum in Singapore.

They have like a medical/scientist theme and their food is 'molecular gastronomy'. Meaning same ingredients as everything, just arranged differently. IE - an omlette done as a mousse.

Very interesting...

 

[drillinto]

World's 50 Best Restaurants - 2008

http://www.theworlds50best.com/2008_list.html