Meisl & Shadn offers traditional Austrian cuisine in an upscale and elegant setting with impeccable service and execution of the food. The soft pounding of the veal cutlets by the chefs in the open kitchen adds a showy element to this one of kind dining in experience in Vienna. If you only can dine at one restaurant in your visit to Vienna … this is the one.
Guy Savoy – Paris proves that in a culinary world that reveres burnt straw and foam you can still find restaurants that that deliver satisfying meals that leave you wishing you could have a second helping. Guy Savoy just keeps producing outrageously satisfying food from outrageously luxurious ingredients in an ambiance that shouts “this is a special occasion”. It’s expensive … but you won’t feel shortchanged because this is the meal of a lifetime.
Arpège – Paris, the creation of lauded-chef Alain Passard, offers an expensive garden-centric tasting-menu, often utilizing unique cultivars from the restaurant’s own garden. Arpège, which offers no a la carte menu, has garnered 3 Michelin stars but hasn’t fared so well in critiques by other professional or consumer reviewers.
Epicure features an 8-course tasting menu that is, as always, perfectly executed and beautifully plated. The ambiance, overlooking the garden at the hotel, Le Bristol, is unmatched in Paris. Experience a main-course dish a la carte for 125 euros. This is the most favored fine-dining experience in Paris by consumers garnering close to 6-stars on all consumer review sites.
Le Pré Catelan features an opulent ambience in a stately old building in one of the city’s most beautiful parks. The execution and elegant plating of chef Frédéric Anton’s 10 to 13-course tasting menu is beyond reproach, earning the restaurant 3 Michelin stars. There’s no a la carte menu but a 3-course lunch menu is available for only 140 euros, a bargain compared other restaurants in Paris boasting similar accolades.
L’Ambroisie has maintained a 3-Michelin-star rating continuously for more than 30 years yet isn’t much favored by contemporary, younger diners looking for a more innovative and less traditional menu. Yet the location, interior of the design of the restaurant continue to please the old guard. No tasting menu here. Just a short collection of a la carte offerings, immaculately executed and elegantly plated.