Top 10 Dishes of 2019
2019 was my first year living in Europe and I did a pretty good job of getting to as many bucket list restaurants as possible - I made it to 16 three Michelin star restaurants in total, running the gamut from classic French cooking to hyper-local New Nordic. Visting these restaurants taught me a lot about what I like but also how important ingredient quality is. This theme is prevalent throughout my favorite dishes of the year - time and time again the best things I ate were those rare occurrences when the best of the best products intersected with a kitchen operating at the peak of their powers.
#10: Duck with sweet and sour sauce and cabbage at Troisgros and Ouches, France
A sublime piece of duck. Fantastic spiced skin featuring coca nibs and served with an incredibly well balanced sweet and sour jus. Duck with a pan sauce is always a win for me and this was a variation of that winning recipe at the highest level. The only thing preventing this dish from ranking higher on the list is because, outside of the duck and jus, the plate was a bit of a flop - it came with a marmalade substance that was so flavored with dijon it obliterated everything else and a bit of rather unassuming cabbage. Nevertheless, the duck was so good it was among the favorites of the year.
#9: Grilled white asparagus with sumak, miso caramel, and hollandaise at Victor’s Fine Dining in Perl, Germany
In the spring of 2019 I went on a bit of a Michelin star tour through Europe - central France, San Sebastian, and the Germany/Luxembourg area. Given it was in peak season this meant I ate a lot of asparagus. Of those many asparagus dishes, none stood out more than this version from Christian Bau at Victor’s Fine Dining. Top-quality asparagus, pristinely grilled and served warm with a genius pairing of caramel made suitable for a savory course by balancing it out with miso. Chef Bau’s immense talent was on full display in this dish where he somehow made the flavors both comforting (asparagus with hollandaise) and exciting (pairing it with Miso caramel) at the same time.
#8: Langoustine and curry at Cheval Blanc
Given how I loved the meal I knew I had to have a dish from Cheval Blanc in my top 10 but I had a hard time picking which one, a testament to just how consistently high the standard of each dish was on the tasting menu. I ultimately went with the langoustine dish which was a classic flavor combination but showed off great finesse from the kitchen. The langoustines were top-notch and a bit of granny smith apple was smartly added to bring a welcome bit of tartness. On par with the curried langoustines at L'ambroisie.
#7: Truffled french toast at Frantzen in Stockholm, Sweden
This dish has been covered ad nauseam on the internet and has been on the Franzten menu since 2008 and for good reason. Chef Björn Frantzén does not go for subtleness with this dish and instead opted to punch you in the face with flavor. Fried brioche, hollowed out and filled with caramelized onions and vacca rossa parmesan cheese, topped with a precariously balanced stack of truffles and a few drops of 100-year-old balsamic vinegar to balance out the richness. World-class comfort food that anyone can appreciate.
#6: Teardrop peas at Azurmendi
Teardrop peas, found mainly in the Basque countryside where Azurmendi is located, are nicknamed “green caviar”. This name comes from their appearance, mouthfeel, and high price ($350/lb). Eating these peas really does have a similar sensation as caviar, the small pearls bursting in your mouth but with a spring sweetness in lieu of the pronounced salinity you get in good caviar. Another simple dish that let the natural beauty of the main ingredient lead the way.
#5: Seared foie gras with white chocolate and sweet corn cream at Atari Gastroleku in San Sebastián
San Sebastian has more three-star restaurants per capita than anywhere else in the world but the single best thing I ate on my visit came from one of its many old town tapas bars. Beautifully seared foie gras with a subtle sweetness coming from the corn and white chocolate sauces and great textural contrast from the corn crumble and fried brioche. Combining all of these elements resulted in the perfect bite. As an added bonus the dish only cost €5.5 - I think in the US a similar style plate would cost around 4x that. Yes, I came back twice and in total ordered four of the plates in the 3 days I was in San Sebastian.
#4: Scallop at Koks
Served in the shell and raw, the scallop was so fresh you could still see the muscle moving ever so slightly when they brought it to the table. I actually can’t even remember what this was served with - some sort of herb cream? What I can, and will remember for a long time, was the scallop tasted of the ocean and had the best natural sweetness of any scallop I have ever had.
#3: Truffle Souffle at El Cellar De Con Roca
What a dish. A truffle "perimeter", truffle oil, truffle foam, with veal oyster blade at the bottom. Not a classic souffle but it actually had the textures you expect - a bit of firmness from the thick truffle slices on the exterior and an airy, light interior from the foam. We had this in February, the peak of winter truffle season, and the kitchen smartly let those prime truffles shine.
#2: Veal, peas, and morels at Hotel De Ville
One of the first times I had veal was at Guy Savoy in Paris some years ago and I thought I did not care for it. It was on the dry side and lacked flavor - I assumed this could not be the fault of the kitchen and must be inherent in the meat. Turns out it was just overcooked.
No such issues were found in the Hotel De Ville Crissier veal dish which was one of the best meat dishes I have had. The veal was tender and, like all of the dishes in the tasting menu, the sauce was world-class. Particularly good was a morel cream sauce served on the side that was absolutely bursting with the taste from the seasonal mushroom. French cooking at its best (even if in Switzerland)
#1: Langoustine at Koks
This dish, like the scallop from Koks earlier on my list, showed that the quality of ingredients is important above all else. The langoustine at Cheval Blanc was surely a more clever dish but it hardly matters when the Langoustines at Koks, sourced locally from the Faroe Islands, were clearly the best example of the shellfish I have ever encountered. Why these are not imported across Europe so they find their way to three-star tables in France and Germany I have no idea - these specimens were clearly better than their more common Brittany counterpart. Koks must have known they were working with an amazing product as they treated it simply, serving the heads raw so you can suck the juices and the tails lightly grilled with a bit of carrot.
We enjoyed them so much we went to Etika, a sushi place on the Faroe Islands owned by the same restaurant group as Koks, the next day to order a half dozen langoustine sashimi. They were almost as good as the ones at Koks and nearly made this top 10 list.