9 Chefs on the Restaurants They Wish They’d Opened
There is a particular thrill that comes with discovering a new favorite restaurant, be it an undercover hole-in-the-wall or someplace that you find yourself turning to every time a celebratory occasion rolls around. For foodies everywhere, some of the best finds are whispered quietly through an energy-charged, word-of-mouth culture: Get in while you still can! While they still have that dish on the menu! Before it shuts down! Such is the beauty of the food industry, too, which finds itself in constant flux, surviving fascinations as varied as fermented teas with live bacteria to hybrid confectionary treats made in such limited quantities that consumers wake with the sun in order to secure them. Amidst all the openings, closings, and fleeting trends, the food world's inner circle is perhaps the steadiest source for recommendations of high-quality, can't-miss cuisine, which begs the question: where do chefs go?
Phaidon’s latest edition of Where Chefs Eat, out next week, has the answers—4,500 of them, to be precise. From local haunts to haute cuisine, each recommendation in the hefty guide is marked up with helpful tags like “worth the travel”, “open late night”, “bargain meal” and, simply, “breakfast” (because we will never live down our worldwide obsession with the most important meal of the day and its weekend-adjacent cousin, brunch). But what caught our eye most was the selection of restaurants these world-class chefs wish they’d opened themselves. From Boston dim sum and patisserie authority Joanne Chang to London-based restauranteur Yotam Ottolenghi, here are 9 chefs on the restaurants they wish they’d opened.
Sorellina
Recommended by: Joanne Chang of Myers + Chang, Boston
Joanne Chang of the Boston-beloved dim sum mecca Myers + Chang trained at NYC’s Payard Patisserie and Boston’s Mistral before opening her famous Flour bakery in Cambridge. The James Beard Award winner names Jamie Mammano’s Sorrellina, an Italian-Mediterranean restaurant that offers seasonal menus and an especially extensive wine list, as her top pick. To get to this Copley Square-central restaurant, guests are also encouraged to use its complimentary car service, available to all within metro Boston. For those curious about the atmosphere, Sorellina self-identifies as “chic, warm, elegant and stylish.”
Bras
Recommended by: Rene Redzepi of Noma, Copenhagen
Macedonian-Danish chef Rene Redzepi of the recently re-opened Noma in Copenhagen celebrates Nordic cuisine with a famed 20-course menu and airy, light-filled interiors. The place he wishes were his? Bras, in the small, appalachian commune of Laguiole in Southern France. The restaurant, which offers a grand experience with an adjoining hotel and tour of its natural surroundings, boasts three Michelin stars and comes recommended by 12 chefs in this guide.
La Quercia
Recommended by: Andrea Carlson of Burdock & Co, Vancouver
Vancouver’s Andrea Carlson lends her vegetable-focused food philosophy to a trendy, small plate-style menu at her restaurant Burdock & Co after cutting her teeth at the city’s Rancity Grill (once beloved and now permanently closed) and the more high-end Bishop’s. In another life, she’d have opened La Quercia, a slow-cooking Italian restaurant with sleek, woodsy decor that feels simultaneously warm and homey. “Family run and deeply passionate about Italian food, La Quercia naturally expands into a neighboring space with a wine bar,” Carlson notes.
Blue Hill At Stone Barns
Recommended by: Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana, Modena
Dan Barber’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns in upstate New York finds another fan in chef Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana, a three Michelin star restaurant in Modena, Italy known for its avante-garde twists on Italian cooking. The Hudson Valley-sourced farm-to-table menu at Blue Hill, also a favorite of the Obama family, has been a hit since its opening in 2004. For those who haven’t yet visited, expect to be a little more involved in the preparation of your food than you might otherwise be.
The Willows Inn
Recommended by: Katy Jane Millard of Coquine, Portland
Portland chef Katy Jane Millard worked at five Parisian Michelin-starred restaurants before bringing her golden touch to Coquine, her New American farm-to-table restaurant in the city’s beautiful Mt. Tabor neighborhood. She wishes The Willows Inn, on a remote island on Puget Sound, were hers. There, seafood and local fare are enjoyed over long hours in the saline air and brilliant sunsets.
Lei Garden
Recommended by: Janice Wong of 2am dessert bar, Singapore
Singaporean star Janice Wong, who incepted 2am dessert bar and its outposts, studied with nearly every pastry virtuoso in the business before going out on her own. Her wish-restaurant isn’t a sweet-oriented spot, however, but rather the city’s Michelin-starred Lei Garden known for, as Wong notes, its “modern, high-quality Chinese cuisine and exquisite decor.”
Jikoni
Recommended by: Yotam Ottolenghi of Ottolenghi, London
Restauranteur Yotam Ottolenghi loves Jikoni, a diner in London’s Marylebone neighborhood that serves the ultimate fusion mashup of Asian, African, Middle Eastern and English flavors. Filled with beautiful textiles sourced from various pockets of the world, this charming spot, owned by restauranteur Ravinder Bhogal, is a must-eat kind of place.
Osteria da Gemma
Recommended by: Kamal Mouzawak of Tawlet, Beirut
Kamal Mouzawek, of the Beirut-famous Tawlet, has long offered delicious Lebanese food from a kitchen that “serves no religion”—that is to say, one that celebrates all cultures. A restaurant he wishes he’d begun himself? The all women-run Osteria da Gemma in Roddino, Italy, which he describes as the place where "the best village cooks, gathered around Gemma, prepare traditional home-cooked cuisine."
Burnt Ends
Recommended by: Dharshan Munidasa of Ministry of Crab, Colombo
Sri Lankan-Japanese chef Dharshan Munidasa lays claim to one of Sri Lanka’s best restaurants, which focuses its menu on Sri Lankan seafood from the well-preserved grounds of the former 400-year-old Dutch Hospital in Colombo. While Munidasa has several other restaurants to be proud of on his roster, he wishes he’d opened Singapore’s Burnt Ends barbecue eatery, which offers Australian nosh from high tech grills in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood.
