2023’s Best Restaurants and Eats, International
It's beginning to look a lot like listicles
Last week, I looked at 2023’s Best Restaurants and Eateries in the UAE. Now, we venture further afield. Check out the 2022, 2021 and 2020 lists.
The Categories Are…
2023’s Best Restaurants and Eats, International (this one)
2023’s Best Restaurants and Eats, United Arab Emirates (last week)
2023’s Supper Clubs and Collaborations
2023’s Best Bars and Wine Lists
2023’s Best Restaurants and Eateries, International
2023 saw me travel to Oman, Qatar, India, Maldives, the UK and Denmark. Regrettably, no trips to Italy or Portugal this year, mostly due to pregnancy constraints and unrealised house renovations.
Contenders to the final list are still worthy of a mention:
🇮🇳 NEW DELHI: the ever-popular and traditional Bukhara as a juxtaposition to the progressive, Japanese-Indian INJA — that lobster chawanmushi! (read a review here)
🇩🇰 COPENHAGEN: Alice Ice Cream and Coffee’s stunning baked pastries eaten casually on a nearby park bench; the iconic but, arguably, lapped Noma Vegetable season (read a review here).
🇶🇦 DOHA: PROVOK Asian Project (see review here) at the sublime Raffles Doha (a glimmering write-up here in FACT Magazines)
🇬🇧 LONDON: Enoteca da Luca, a frenetic Italian romp with an outstanding wine-by-the-glass menu.
Note: As before, I want to make sure these lists do not descend into lofty, fine-dining hit lists. Instead, when I think about where I ate abroad in 2023, these restaurants stand out as places I would return to blindly.
Here’s the list!
The Bradley Hare, Maiden Bradley. The Bradley Hare is that postcard utopia of British Countryside pubs. A compassionately restored property in a quiet village that also offers rooms to stay in (they do look special). A study in British modern countryside elegance where dogs warm up near fires, and the patrons proudly swill local ales and ciders. The concise menu focuses on what matters with no shortage of gutsy fare. Think beastly 28-day aged rib eye steaks with hunks of roasted beetroot and ivory horseradish sauce. Think garden-fresh courgettes with broad beans and goat curd. There are fist-sized halibut fillets with softly braised leeks in beurre blanc. Leave room for sorbets of local fruit or custard tarts with rhubarb.
The Bradley Hare, Church St, Maiden Bradley, Warminster BA12 7HW, United Kingdom, +441985 801018, The Bradley Hare’s Instagram.
Geranium, Copenhagen. A simply outstanding restaurant that cuts through trends and gimmicks to serve forward-thinking but classical dishes. A place for which superlatives were invented. There are very, very few restaurants where I’ve had such superbly executed dishes served back-to-back: the kohlrabi with caviar and smoked cream cheese or grilled squid glazed with potatoes. This Danish seafood restaurant exudes elegance, from its Nordic dining room to warm professional service. It is a former World’s No. 1 Restaurant serving a fine dining, tasting menu well worth the return journey to Copenhagen alone. Read a review about Geranium here.
Geranium, Per Henrik Lings Allé 4, 8. Sal, 2100 København, Denmark. +4569960020. Geranium’s Website.
Restaurant Juju’s, Copenhagen. Posed in an unsupposing location, Juju’s is a casual, creative restaurant with an unconventional Korean menu. It reimagines classical dishes spoken with a Korean accent and in a familiar tone. It’s as if the kitchen assumes you do not know about Korean food and offers you a gentle place to start through recognisable plates. The cosy interior and boulevard-style dining lean into the restaurant’s accessible nature. Munch on the chilli cucumber, nori vinegar fries and chilled green tea noodles as must-orders. The solid natural wine list stood out positively and without pretension.
Restaurant Juju’s, Øster Farimagsgade 8, 2100 København, Denmark. +4528749340. Restaurant Juju’s website.
OAK Restaurant, Bath. Have you ever eaten potatoes grown in the restaurant’s allotment and then rolled in a suave, smoked almond cream? What about if they’re pelted with plenty of chives and peppery radish rounds? OAK’s menu is deceptively simple and lends credence to ‘less is more’. Oh, by the way, it’s vegetarian and vegan only. Green Michelin-starred OAK Restaurant dols out simple plates that quietly challenge preconceptions. A titchy restaurant with enough space to swing the crates of fresh onions and flowers that the restaurant grows. A tight, eclectic wine menu boasting enough natural drops, pet nats and petrol-rich Rieslings to keep trend seekers quenched. Order the delightfully creamy, fermented cashew croquettes with weapons-grade aioli. It’s the kind of cooking that causes the most ardent carnivores to start shuffling their feet. You can read more about OAK Restaurant here.
OAK Restaurant, 2 North Parade, Bath BA1 1NX, United Kingdom, +441225 446059, OAK Restaurant’s Instagram.
Osip, Bruton. Bruton is a village clad with esoteric independent shops, discerning good taste and a strong sense of self. Amid all this tweed and the roar of Chelsea tractors lies Osip, helmed by chef Merlin Labron-Johnson, who cooks a farm-to-table tasting menu sourcing home-grown and local ingredients. A tranquil dining room inside the restored ironmonger’s workshop sees clever cooking produced from Landon-Johnson’s imagination. A beetroot taco with beetroot mole and a dusting of grated venison heart, courgette soup light as a foam with the sweetest Cornish lobster berry jam and scallops wallowing in pools of a peanut satay made from its roe and a verdant Thai basil mole. A lemon sea buckthorn tart is crafted by the hands of someone with food as a love language. This is the most pricey of the restaurants in the area, but it is by far the most accomplished, with one Michelin star and one Green Michelin Star. Read a review of Osip here.
Osip Restaurant, 1 High St, Bruton BA10 0AB, United Kingdom, +441749813322, Osip Restaurant’s Instagram.
Rye Bakery, Frome. Can an entire restaurant make a list based on one dish? You bet it can, especially when I stood up and marched back to the cashier - pastry crumbs still on my face, mouth still chewing - to line up for a second helping of those mystical sausage rolls. And then I do it all a third time. Except that the third time, I ordered the vegetarian one purely in the name of science and journalistic integrity. And greed. Sheer blinding, gluttonous greed. It was those last two deadly sins that conjured Rye Bakery a firm place on this list. Ahead of Noma, ahead of Apricity (seriously, London, what’s the big deal with that place?! Get over yourselves!). Because what I’ll remember is how those sausage rolls made me feel in those moments, and all the best food does just that. The best food lives in our emotions and memories. There are two Rye Bakeries in Frome, but the one you should visit sits atop a hill in an old church where they serve outstanding sausage rolls (and other things) of the sweetest British porky goodness, encased in buttery pastry and served by people who probably got a double first in French with pan-pipe from Durham or Exeter. And thank God for that, because the benefit of such degrees means they have all the time in the world to create the very best sausage rolls under the sun; the result of pork and onions, or leeks and nuts, getting to know each other just long enough in a pan before being embalmed in life-giving pastry. Form an orderly queue, but leave me the last one.
Rye Bakery, Whittox Lane, Frome BA11 3BY, United Kingdom, +447925830852, Rye Bakery Instagram.
Alchemist, Copenhagen. Certain food circles will know that few words will put me off a restaurant like “family-friendly”, “all-day dining”, and - the most criminal of them all - dinner and a show. I harbour deep suspicions (so often realised as contempt) about any place that couples entertainment with food. Usually, neither succeeds and, often, the food relies on cruise ship entertainment (and your goodwill) for forgiveness. There are exceptions to the rule, and Alchemist is truly exceptional. It may be one of the top five restaurants I’ve ever visited. For over 6 hours, Pallavi and I waded through 50 courses or ‘impressions’ at Alchemist. Chef Rasmus intentionally provokes you; poking both you and society in the eyes, but what I admire the most about the astonishingly-young Rasmus Munk is the sheer audacity of Alchemist’s spectacle coupled with an unapologetic sense of purpose, whether it’s through political or societal statements or just by sucking a course off a rubber tongue, gouging a spoon out of a glass eye or chomping a rubber chicken leg inside of a cage. This was before we were dropped in a ball pit with a performing artist. The spectacle is nothing without the talent, and - wow - he’s got the goods to back it up. The wine list astounds. With two Michelin stars, it seems inevitable that the World’s No. 1 Restaurant will go to Alchemist at some stage.
The Alchemist. Refshalevej 173C, 1432 København K, Denmark. +45 31 71 61 61. Alchemist’s Website.
A year well spent!