olicollett

Good point that, there always seems to be extras, which considering how reasonably priced the restaurant already is! I'm already thinking about going back after looking at those pics and it's only been a few months

Hah - brilliant. £250 might make sense if it was in Paris, but London? Did they look at the price of any of the other top restaurants in the city? You could have the tasting menu at the Ledbury with matched wine for half of that, and I expect given it's a pop-up the service/setting isn't going to be as good. I'd rather save a bit more and go to the proper restaurant!

i'd give up after about an hour.. keep at it! I got a booking for the 13th Aug but i'm struggling to fill the other 2 spots at the moment so I might have spares if anyone would be interested.. I'm still waiting to hear back from some people though

Fitted a trip to the development kitchen in with the cricket this weekend - It was fantastic. I'll post more when I get the pics back from my mate's camera that I borrowed

Well, I think my lunch yesterday was the best meal i've ever had in london. I don't think there's another place in the city that can trump it right now! I'll leave the pictures as others have beaten me to it, just go there ASAP!

Blimey, sounds amazing. I'm not far from Chiswick so it would be rude not to..

Yep I think you're right with reconstituted, I think it's basically left in water so that it reabsorbs the moisture and reduces the saltiness. The texture seemed firmer than with fresh cod and it did taste salted, but it was the first time I had tried it like that.

I notice there's not been any posts for a long time on here - but the good news is, it's still an amazing experience. I get the impression that not a lot has changed here over the years - but then why would it? It was a very memorable experience and one I would gladly do again and again. The restaurant itself is in a wonderful setting - it's not the easiest place to find as others have mentioned and my satnav didn't seem to have a clue about the roads around there, but once you're in the vicinity it's easy enough. After sitting down we opted for the tasting menu - the menu itself is pretty big, and I expect if you dare you could add some extras. First to arrive was the hand churned butter on toast with some mushrooms. The butter was very salty, but with the slight bitterness of the grilled toast it was wonderfully balanced Next up were sea barnacles - something i've never eaten before but wow. I ended up making quite a mess but it was certainly worth it! The grilled palamos prawns made me wonder what people had been doing with prawns elsewhere. They must have been some of the juiciest, flavoursome prawns i've ever had. Again, the seasoning was generous, but spot on Grilled egg yolk followed with St George's mushroom, followed by some incredibly tender grilled peas Grilled anchovies had a wonderful smoky note, again seasoned perfectly Bacalao with grilled pepper is still on the menu, cooked perfectly like everything else The final savoury dish - Grilled beef on the bone. Some of the best beef I've ever had. As always the seasoning is brave but just right, complimenting the crust of the beef Wild fruit infusion with cheese ice cream was a refreshing dessert: Lastly, pane perdu with smoked milk ice cream. This reminded me of Heston Blumenthal's famous bacon and egg ice cream dish - unusual but good It should certainly be on anyones list of places to visit, and I can't wait to get back!

I've seen a few people comment on service - it's interesting to note actually that I read a blog from someone who went to both a few weeks after I did and had 60-70% of the same dishes and came to a completely different conclusion, and they were not very impressed by the service at Arzak. I did notice it seemed like one of those restaurants with a lot of regulars, but we certainly felt well looked after - The service certainly felt more "3 star" at Mugaritz though, which I guess is slightly odd. They certainly seemed to be in the restaurant

I realised Mugaritz was going to be quite different to Arzak - but I was looking forward to something different. I knew that opinions were a bit mixed but I figured it can't be considered one of the top restaurants in the world for nothing! First of all, we had to find the place. Thankfully my somewhat inconsistent Audi sat-nav was well behaved - despite it being confused by various new roads which have been built around San Sebastian - and we arrived well in time giving us the opportunity to admire some of the scenery. The new kitchen: The man himself: One problem I did have before the meal was that I was unable to have any wine due to having to drive back to the middle of france after the meal. Not the end of the world, but I do like my wine! First up we were presented with some snacks - the familiar edible stones which I enjoyed (pictures don't do them justice, they even feel like stones!) along with some crisp focaccia and a legume beer with olives, tapa beans and thyme: Beans or olives?: Not all is as it seems at Mugaritz that's for sure After the snacks, the dishes arrived. First up some white asparagus with chrysanthemum petals - very nice but it didn't top the white asparagus I had at Etxebarri. Next was one of the highlights for me, crunchy morsel of salted roe and tear peas - a wonderfully simple yet brilliant dish that reminded me of Noma: Homemade mozzarella with whey emulsion infused with rock tea was nicely balanced, but the hazelnut and bean stew left me a bit underwhelmed: Next up was a DIY dish - fresh herb soup with spices, seeds and fish broth. Tasty and fun: Pork noodles with "arraitxiki" extract was odd - I think it was basically strips of subcutaenous fat and skin that had been cooked at a low temperature. It was quite gelatinous but tasty, although i'm glad there wasn't too much of it! Next up was a dish called "Shhhh... cat got your tongue!". They mentioned that there were 3 ingredients - one being onion, and we had to guess the other two. One was obvious - garlic, but the other was apparently beef tongue. The dish itself was OK but for me it didn't seem like ther was a great deal going on: Fillet of hake with milky reduction of cabbage sprouts and luscious citrus spread was nice, although I think they could have been more generous with the citrus spread: Now the next dish really did baffle me somewhat. "Rich ossobuco with toasted lobster emulsion" - but not all is quite as it seems, as you will probably realise from the picture! It was certainly rich and gelatinous, especially with the lobster emulsion. The problem was, there was nothing acidic to cut through the richness at all - which left me thinking the dish was somewhat ill-conceived: To follow up, another rich dish - this time Iberian pork tails with crispy leaves and toasted sweet millet oil. This might well have been a bit much for some, but I felt it was a far better dish than the last: The first dessert was a cup of chamomile dressed with cocoa nectar and candied fruits - very nice: We finished with the broken walnut dessert pictured above and then some small ice cream cones, called "nails and flowers": Overall it felt very hit and miss. Some v nice dishes, but a few fell short of the mark for me and certainly were not up there with the standard of dishes at Arzak.

Thought i'd finally get around to sharing my thoughts on my trip to San Sebastian over Easter. In short - I had a very similar experience to ScottyBoy - most of the Arzak dishes were the same (albeit with a few exceptions) and I had a far better experience than I did at Mugaritz. Arzak was one of those meals where everything hit the spot and I loved the atmosphere there. Elena came over to chat during the meal and was telling us about her recent trip to London for the top 100 restaurants do - not only is she an incredibly gifted chef, she's an amazing host too! Onto the food, I'll post a few pics of some dishes that ScottyBoy didn't mention. Lobster Coralline Dusted Egg & Mussel Sole with Head Cheese Chocolate, Spinach and Parsley (a combination i've not had before, but it was really rather good!) Pistachio & Beetroot stone Another good thing about our trip, they let us each have a different option from the tasting menu so we got to try a lot of different dishes! We spoke to a couple in a pintxos bar later on in the trip who also loved their meal there. They also mentioned a couple of amusing things - one being someone on another table taking pictures with their SLR complete with an enormous flash gun. After the first shot and some stares, thankfully they stopped - can you imagine that whilst you're eating? The other thing was that they saw a couple come in for a lunch who ordered a bottle of Chateau Petrus, had it decanted, drank half a glass each, finish their food and then leave - without hardly touching the wine! I would have at least had a sniff of one of the glasses..

Best fine dining being the larder on goose gate, but best "michelin" being Sat Bains? Not sure what you mean by that. As far as I'm concerned for fine dining in Nottingham there's Sat Bains, and then everyone else some way behind - it's not that the others are poor, but it's one of the top restaurants in the UK. Haven't eaten at many of the others though, is the balti house that good? Most of my mates used to rate Kayal as the best but I never got to go, I'm planning on going in July though.

Had similar thoughts Cheekymunkey 4 of us went last night - The first thing that surprised me was that the menu seemed very much a standard 3 course type affair. I noticed there was a note at the bottom saying you could make a tasting menu from the starters if you liked, but there wasn't that many that stood out on the menu compared to the mains. I ended up going with the quail with chicken liver which was excellent, followed by a main course of ox cheek & tonuge. The ox cheek was rather dissapointing - it was incredibly tender but it didn't have a great deal of flavour. The cote de boeuf that 2 of my friends shared was more impressive (and contrary to the above, it was pretty big!) and I quite enjoyed the pork. For desserts we were offered to sit at the dessert bar, but given there were 4 of us we couldn't really see it working very well given we'd have to sit in a row, so instead had them at the table. The tiramisu was nice, but the berry cheesecake was a little dissapointing - I found the ginger a bit overpowering. What did annoy me though was when we had finished our mains, a couple came and sat at the next table and upon delivering the menu, he explained that you could have half portions of the main courses for half price etc. and create a tasting menu this way. We didn't get anything like this - the menu was just given to us with no explanation, and they didn't exactly make it clear on there what the situation was. It's a shame as I certainly would have liked to have tried some of the other main courses. So overall, a bit hit and miss. And I didn't really get the whole golden key thing either!

Great report Harters Can't wait to return - I think Sat Bains is one of those restaurants that raises big questions about various guides/lists! The only restaurant I rate higher in the UK right now is the fat duck, and there's few i've eaten at outside of the UK which are as good!

I literally just got back from San Sebastian. Aside from the obvious, I'd highly recommend: Zeruko - A new, highly innovative pintxos bar in the old town. You have to try the smoke cod & the squid souffle. It's good fun too. There's tons of other deccent Pintxos bars as i'm sure you know as well! Kaia-Kaipe & Elkano - Over in Geteria up the coast, these are both fantastic for fresh, whole fish. We went to Kaia and had a whole turbot between two of us. It was some of the nicest fish i'd ever eaten - cooked whole over coals to perfection. I also went to Arzak, Etxebarri & Mugaritz. If you have to chose between Arzak and Mugaritz, personally I'd recommend the former. Mugaritz is certainly innovative and in a fantastic setting, but for me a few dishes failed to shine and overall it was a bit of a letdown given the high hopes I had - I'll write a full report up later when I get the chance.

It does seem odd though that the likes of St John can remain, but the French Laundry can not! I've been wondering how the list comes together - in my mind, to come up with such a list, you would do a process roughly as follows: 1) Come up with the top restaurants in your region. 2) Get together with judges from the wider region (guessing Continent here) and repeat process 3) Finalise the list, perhaps with a vote from a cutdown list of restaurants worldwide With the above process, I would have thought you would eliminate a lot of odd-placed restaurants in the first round, whilst giving restaurants out of capital cities that are lesser known a better chance. I've no idea how the current process really works - if it is like above then fair enough, but if it's a case of each region drawing up their favourites worldwide and then counting the votes, then it would go some way to explain why many restaurants miss out.

Ignoring the "world" aspect of this list, I've just been whinging on the Guardian about the UK restaurants. Does anyone agree that these are the top 10 restaurants in the UK? 1. The Fat Duck 2. The Ledbury 3. St. John 4. Hibiscus 5. Hakkasan 6. Zuma 7. Nahm 8. Le Gavroche 9. Bar Boulud 10. Marcus Wareing I think 1, 2, 4, 8 & 10 deserve to be up there, possibly St. John as well, but the rest? Can't say i've visited Hakkasan or Zuma due to the bad reviews i've seen, but quite how a judge could go to Bar Boulud and come away believing it to be a superior restaurant to somewhere like Sat Bains is beyond me. I don't think they are even the top 10 restaurants in london, and I can't believe many people would agree that all those restaurants deserve to be there ahead of any outside of London. Which does make me wonder - if I don't agree with half of the UK restaurants in the list, does it make any sense to use this as any kind of a guide for restaurants to try elsewhere in the world?

Interesting about the beef royale - I went again on thursday and it wasn't on, the time before that I went (think I mentioned above) they were having issues, I wonder if they are still to be resolved? Would be a shame if that's the case? With regards to the cost of the chef's/private dining tables, is that including food? If so that's not too bad, if it is without food that seems a bit steep!

Blimey, they took 5000 reservations today apparently! I got a table for may, looking forward to it There are apparently lots still available

David - If you haven't already, I'd definitely give the lunch menu a go. At £50 inc. 2 glasses of wine it's a good deal imo, and they don't skimp on portion sizes like some lunch deals - we were unable to finish our desserts/petit fours!

Yup I think it'll be much better visiting in a year after the initial hype has died down

Wow, what a guy... So, its okay for him to fish for and kill endangered sharks for sport, but its not okay when others want to eat them? Why is he even lecturing others what to serve when he was serving endangered animals after his campaign? If he wants to do something, why not focus on the endangered fishes and animals that he serves at his restaurants and which his audience eats instead of going after a chinese delicary that he and his eaters weren't going to eat in the first place. It must be so much easier and convienent to lecture others about what not to eat instead of looking in the mirror. Is your post directed at me or just a general rant at Ramsay Yes, Ramsay does appear to have been on shark fishing trips in the past, and he should have mentioned this in his show. With regards to endangered fish/animals that he serves, what ones in particular were you referring to? Just had a quick look through the menus on RHR & Claridges but nothing in particular stood out

I just booked online - had no trouble at all, just timed it right and got a saturday night no trouble

I've tried twice - first time it wasn't too painful, about 30mins of calling, but the second time I spent an hour and a half trying to get through, and when I did get through everything was gone Going to try again this year to go back, I'm hoping that Dinner will reduce some of the attention but I guess it's perfectly possible it'll make it even more difficult!

The email did crack me up: "From just £745" A suite at a top london hotel isn't cheap, but taking away the book & restaurant credit of £200, £500 doesn't strike me as cheap! I can't see Dinner being a 3 star at all - it's just not geared up that way. 2 star could be a possibility though.