Best Meals:
1.) Willows Inn (Lummi Island)
2.) Yam ’ Tcha (Paris)
3.) Atelier Crenn (San Francisco)
Favorite 2013 Restaurant:
State Bird (San Francisco)
New York:
2013 has to be one of the best years ever for restaurant openings with Alder, Betony, Charlie Bird, Contra, Fung Tu, Estela, Luksus, Pearl and Ash, Sushi Ko, Sushi Nakazawa, and The Elm all opening this year.
Los Angeles:
Finally a few good restaurants. Alma in particular is outstanding.
Per Se, NYC
Atelier Cren, SF
Spiaggia, Chicago
JD
Urasawa. A couple meals were perfect.
Other highlights were masa and JR in Vegas.
They do “fusion” right!
Tetsuan (Tokyo) and Wa Yamamura (Nara)
Xibei Restaurant (Shenyang)
Restaurant Relae and Restaurant Melee (Copenhagen)
Le Moissonnier (Cologne)
Alte Pfarrey (in the Pfalz)
Pago (Salt Lake City)
David Chang’s Bo Ssam (my house)
Too hard to choose among the following for high-end restaurant dining:
Mugaritz (San Sebastian, Spain)
Etxebarri (Basque region, Spain)
41 Degrees (Barcelona, Spain)
San Marco (near Torino, Italy) - white truffles elevated this meal from just outstanding
Maccarina (middle of nowhere Hokkaido, Japan) - best French food of my life
Nakamura (Kyoto)
Miyamasou (in Miyamasou ryokan near Kyoto ) - overall dining experience was perfection
So many other great meals at all levels in restaurants and at home… It was a year of eating well.
It was a good year, highlighted by a trip to Catalonia so…
Cellar Can Roca
Compartir
Brushstroke
Hisop
Moments
Marea
Atera
Ok - These are all going on my must visit list. Perfect since Japan and Spain are both on my short lists of trips next year. Thank you!
The Chef/Owner trained at L’Astrance and to me her cooking is primarily french. Personally I do not think it is fusion. However it is great and the tea pairing is a wonderful change of pace from wine.
Can’t think of more of a love-hate place in L.A… They got some big props from a national mag but a lot of the locals think it blows.
Like some others, I didn’t travel near as much this year, and while we did a lot of local wine dinners locally, we didn’t do them at real gourmand spots. My two top meals were probably my wife’s birthday and my birthday. Her’s was at Restaurant Martin in Santa Fe. I expected it to be tasty, but we had something like eight dishes. The worst one was still very good, and almost everything else was just outstanding. My birthday was a home extravaganza that my wife did and included a medium-sized group of great friends.
Did somebody say Louie Mueller beef rib???
Robert
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE put Elkano and Ibai on your San Sebastian list. Mugaritz was “good” and a must hit for anyone that is interested in this sort of stuff. At the end, however, Extebarri, Elkano, and Ibai were 1/2/3 for the meals. We even went to Elkano twice! The roast turbot is insane. (and their bubbles list is awesome)
I think we replied to Robert in a separate thread about alma 
Charlie - You and I (any many others) clearly have different restaurant preferences. If I recall correctly you did not like State Bird either which is crazy because every person I have ever sent there loves it and I see top chefs in there all of the time. I couple of months ago I was sitting next to Daniel Boulud.
I think you referred to a fine dining experience regarding Alma - that is completely the wrong way to look at restaurants like Alma and State Bird. To me these are casual restaurants that you can eat in regularly without the pretense of fine dining yet they are serving extremely high quality food. This trend started in Paris with Yves Camdeborde (Le Comptoir) and then was taken to another level by Inaki Aizpitarte (Le Chateaubriand). It then spread to NYC followed by San Francisco.
I will say that if Alma was in NY, Paris or San Francisco it would not have been named the #1 new restaurant of the year by Bon Appetite. It is good and unique for LA but it would be viewed differently in other major cities.
I do look forward to trying Q Sushi!
I was underwhelmed by Extebarri when I visited in October. It was fine, but nothing more to me. Didn’t get the “tomato,” which seemed like I was eating a plain tomato out of a can. My steak at Rekondo in San Sebastian was equal to the steak at Extebarri, and the wine list of course was far better.
Lunch at Landhaus Bacher (Mautern, Austria) was the clear #1 meal of the year and maybe a lifetime. This meal was surrounded by other top restaurants and really stood out.
Dinner at Taubenkobel (Schützen am Gebirge, Austria)
Dinner at Bovio (La Morra, Italy)
Dinner at Chapter One (Dublin, Ireland)
Lunch at Steirereck (Vienna, Austria)
Best of the rest… Franklin BBQ (Austin, TX), Pig’s Ear (Dublin), Dinnings (London), St. John (London).
I didn’t not “like” State bird. I just didn’t understand why it was so popular. It just seemed like any other small plates restaurant to me. Food was good, but I didn’t understand the fervor. I think Alan and Glenn agreed with me.
I don’t think there’s anything unique about Alma. It’s like every other new restaurant of its type in LA. I just don’t think the food is good and the service is shitty. It being a casual restaurant doesn’t excuse it from those issues. I know I’m definitely not the only person with a strong opinion against Alma. I’ve gone multiple times and each time I go, the people I go with state they’ll never go back. A restaurant that opened recently that I think is similar to Alma is Orsa and Winston. I really enjoyed that place. Same “casual fine dining” but with super attentive service and inspired food.
Also I don’t think Q sushi is worth it. $165 starting is steep for what they were serving. Better off at Zo, Mori in that class of sushi. I liked the service and the friendliness of everyone I just didn’t think the chef’s cutting ability was up to par and the quality of the fish and lack of courses were worthwhile at the price.
Just one man’s opinion 
Yeah as I said, I know few local foodies that like Alma, and quite a few that downright diss it. Now they’re making themselves more “unique” by going to a tasting menu only. They might refine some of the dishes, but most likely this move is not going to help them at all. Given the unusual nature of the preps and the inconsistency that most people see in the dishes, disabling people from choosing which dishes work for or sound appealing to them is risky. If you were one that found a few of the things to your liking, but disliked some others, you are surely going to be less likely to go for what they call a “curated experience”. Once the “best new restaurant” buzz wears off, I bet they struggle.
The food is not only not good, it is boring. In my strong opinion, of course.
I haven’t been to Orsa and Winston yet. I really like Josef Ceteno. When he was at Opus it was one of my faves. I took a peak in and looked at the menu. It kind of reminded me of Trois Mec. The courses looked very small. I can’t imagine being full on the five-course menu. Which meal did you order Charlie?
I guess I’m an oldster. I like a casual vibe but not the casual room/appointments. Some of these places aren’t my idea of where I want to have a $100+ per, plus/plus dinner. I like better chairs, tables and tableware. Of course I also have to diss them for the undesirable $35 per bottle, one max corkage policy. I also think it’s another oddly crafted winelist that looks like someone trying to make their mark crafted, with the requisite hipster oxidative whites. The mark-ups are all over the place. Some of the lower tiered stuff is really marked up, and some of the higher priced stuff not terribly so. Not a horrible list but if one is going to be so corkage unfriendly they should have a broader list, especially with food that is not really region specific.