A Fine Dining Journalhttps://miseenscene.blog/https://miseenscene.blog/review/tomy-co-2024-08/https://miseenscene.blog/review/tomy-co-2024-08/Tomy & Co is Tomy Gousset's one star house in the 7th, where a résumé built at Le Taillevent, Le Meurice and Boulud runs at gastro-bistro scale. Lunch on the last day of the Paris Olympics, and the second Olympic menu in two days: three courses inside an hour, a Georgian grape grown south of Nîmes, and a sweet Austrian Merlot.Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/gymkhana-2024-05/https://miseenscene.blog/review/gymkhana-2024-05/Gymkhana is the JKS Restaurants stage in Mayfair where the Sethi siblings won two Michelin stars for classic Indian cooking, the first in London to do so, without softening the spice for European palates. A first Indian meal that ran hot and heavy, with an excellent kid goat keema and muntjac biryani.Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/l-ambroisie-2024-08/https://miseenscene.blog/review/l-ambroisie-2024-08/L'Ambroisie had held three Michelin stars since 1988 and ran on à la carte alone, until the 2024 Paris Olympics produced the one course menu in its forty years. A last-night dinner in Bernard Pacaud's dining room, and the closing phase of his three-star era: the langoustine and the sea bass at their peak, and a parting glass of Chartreuse poured by a Korean chef.Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/forum-restaurant-2024-09/https://miseenscene.blog/review/forum-restaurant-2024-09/Forum is the Causeway Bay institution where the late 'abalone king' Yeung Koon-yat turned a single dried-abalone dish into a three-Michelin-star name. A solo dinner through its set course: uneven in places, but with a stuffed chicken wing and a foie gras wonton that justify the visit, and a wine service that outclasses the room.Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/common-era-2024-11/https://miseenscene.blog/review/common-era-2024-11/Common Era is the Seoul research lab of JP and Ellia Park, the couple behind New York's Atomix, a space less for a finished dinner than for studying where Korean food comes from and where it goes next. An early-days visit in late 2024: uneven on the plate, but a concept with real promise.Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/septime-2022-08/https://miseenscene.blog/review/septime-2022-08/At Septime, the eastern-Paris landmark of bistronomie, chef Bertrand Grébaut set a course of restrained, product-driven, occasionally startling plates against an all-natural wine list. A meal built to be thought through rather than simply enjoyed.Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/kasahara-2026-06/https://miseenscene.blog/review/kasahara-2026-06/At Kasahara, the hidden Kagurazaka counter that tops Tabelog's national yakitori ranking, chef Kasahara Yujin grills a bespoke Takasaka-dori over binchotan with a precision of texture and salt that reset my sense of the genre. My best yakitori yet, and the closing meal was no afterthought.Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/vinho-2025-06/https://miseenscene.blog/review/vinho-2025-06/At Seoul's one-star VINHO, chef Jeon Seongbin and Michelin-awarded sommelier Kim Jinho treat wine as a co-author of the plate rather than an accompaniment. Ten pairings trace a Korean contemporary dinner of real balance, closing on an Australian lamb that ranks first among the mains I have eaten in Korea.Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/hommage-2025-02/https://miseenscene.blog/review/hommage-2025-02/Chef Noboru Arai's Asakusa fine-dining room, two Michelin stars since 2018, where a French-trained native of the neighborhood builds his cooking around top Japanese produce. A meal of real balance and ingredient harmony, with a few honest shortcomings in the cooking of the proteins.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/ao-nishiazabu-2024-12/https://miseenscene.blog/review/ao-nishiazabu-2024-12/A Nishiazabu counter that ranks as the current number one in Japanese-French on Tabelog, built on fish and seafood from Japan's finest suppliers, each named on the menu. Twenty months on, a near-complete return where the produce does the talking.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/bar-triad-2023-12/https://miseenscene.blog/review/bar-triad-2023-12/A group venue of Ebisu's celebrated Bar Trench, reached by a private elevator to the fourth floor. Herbal-liqueur depth and a playful taste map that lets anyone order by flavour, not by name.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/the-sg-club-2023-12/https://miseenscene.blog/review/the-sg-club-2023-12/The Tokyo home base of bartender Shingo Gokan, themed on the 1860 Japanese mission to America. A casual Guzzle upstairs, a spirit-forward Sip in the basement, and cocktails as inventive as they are precise.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/burger-police-2023-04/https://miseenscene.blog/review/burger-police-2023-04/Two visits, in April 2023, to a Himonya counter where a Michelin Italian chef rebuilds the hamburger around wagyu, salt, and butter, and the appetizers quietly steal the show.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/bawi-pastabar-2023-05/https://miseenscene.blog/review/bawi-pastabar-2023-05/Bawi Pastabar in Seongsu, now closed, was the root of Korea's fresh-pasta-bar wave, a counter where chef Kim Hyun-jung folded a Japanese touch and Japanese precision into course after course of Italian pasta. A first visit in May 2023, set down three years on.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/antica-trattoria-2024-02/https://miseenscene.blog/review/antica-trattoria-2024-02/Antica Trattoria was a small, homeland-minded trattoria in Seocho, now permanently closed, where a chef who hand-made his own fresh pasta brought a purist's Italian cooking, and a brief taste of Italy itself, to Seoul.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/ikki-2023-08/https://miseenscene.blog/review/ikki-2023-08/ikki is one of the elevated izakaya that helped make Hapjeong a destination, a modern room where a chef trained in sushi omakase cooks with care and slips in distinctly Korean touches, from a Hwayo highball to live local fish, that you would not find in Japan.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/seirin-2024-12/https://miseenscene.blog/review/seirin-2024-12/My first regional food trip in Japan was to Hamamatsu in fugu season, to a Tabelog Gold restaurant that built an entire course around one giant wild fugu, and warm hospitality and a surprisingly gentle bill made it stay with me.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/noura-2025-01/https://miseenscene.blog/review/noura-2025-01/The last meal of my Tokyo trip was a casual French bistro behind a two-star in Asakusa, and a few of its dishes were better than what I have had in France itself.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/ling-long-2025-05/https://miseenscene.blog/review/ling-long-2025-05/When Asia's 50 Best Restaurants was announced this past March, there was only one restaurant I cared about: LING LONG.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/aramaki-2025-01/https://miseenscene.blog/review/aramaki-2025-01/Ask around about what to eat in Japan, or in Tokyo specifically, and the recommendations lean toward yakitori more often than sushi.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/via-toledo-2025-11/https://miseenscene.blog/review/via-toledo-2025-11/Even now I half wonder what possessed me, because on each of those visits I went to real trouble to take careful photographs of a chef who, at the time, was not remotely famous.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/disfrutar-the-living-table-2025-10/https://miseenscene.blog/review/disfrutar-the-living-table-2025-10/The amaranth coral shattered crisply first, and the caviar, oyster, and codium piled on top burst all at once, so that my mouth turned into the sea in an instant.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/sushi-riku-2024-12/https://miseenscene.blog/review/sushi-riku-2024-12/The colour ran from pink into red, neither cloudy nor transparent, a gradient that resembled looking into deep ocean water.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/le-pre-catelan-2024-07/https://miseenscene.blog/review/le-pre-catelan-2024-07/The foie gras sauce, in particular, had been worked into a cream foam that landed lightly on the tongue while delivering a deep, almost unctuous body underneath.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/martin-berasategui-2023-09/https://miseenscene.blog/review/martin-berasategui-2023-09/Anyone who has planned a serious dining trip to Barcelona will know two restaurants there: the three-star Lasarte and the one-star Oria. Both are Berasategui's, and both take their names from this very neighbourhood, Lasarte-Oria.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/tonkatsu-narikura-2023-04/https://miseenscene.blog/review/tonkatsu-narikura-2023-04/Not one of them has fundamentally shaken my view that this is the single dish where Korea, on its own terms, has caught up.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/ao-nishiazabu-2023-04/https://miseenscene.blog/review/ao-nishiazabu-2023-04/What Ao's cooking demonstrates is what happens when the quality of ingredients is pushed to the very top of the scale: the flavour of the produce is not overwhelmed by the sauce, which is the central pillar of French cooking, but stands beside it and holds its own.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/oyatte-2026-05/https://miseenscene.blog/review/oyatte-2026-05/The halibut held a firmness and a chew that did not register as halibut at all, closer in texture to a good Japanese scallop or one cooked with only the lightest touch of heat. I do not recall ever encountering this level of cooking precision in a dish from a Korean chef before.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/via-toledo-2023-05/https://miseenscene.blog/review/via-toledo-2023-05/I had been in conversation with the chef well before any of his television exposure, and his attachment to Naples was already evident in those exchanges.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/soujiki-nakahigashi-2024-12/https://miseenscene.blog/review/soujiki-nakahigashi-2024-12/Only after the reservation did I discover that the restaurant held a Michelin Green Star and leaned heavily toward vegetable-driven cooking. A small note of regret followed, the suspicion that an impulse choice might turn out to misalign with my own register. The worry, in the end, proved misplaced.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/l-avant-comptoir-de-la-mer-2024-07/https://miseenscene.blog/review/l-avant-comptoir-de-la-mer-2024-07/My trip to Paris in July 2024 was built around the Olympic Games. The days ran on the schedule of events at one venue or another, and meals had to fit themselves into whatever gaps remained. That may be why I found myself drawn that summer toward local wine bars and seafood places rather than Michelin restaurants.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/le-gabriel-2024-05/https://miseenscene.blog/review/le-gabriel-2024-05/The news reached me on a weekday afternoon in mid-March 2024. One restaurant in Paris had moved from two stars to three: Le Gabriel. My European trip the following May had its final night in Paris.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/wing-2024-09/https://miseenscene.blog/review/wing-2024-09/The building at 198 Wellington Street holds The Chairman on the third floor, WING on the twenty-ninth, and VEA on the thirtieth. I visited all three during the same trip. What follows is what happened twenty-six floors above.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/fukahireya-2025-01/https://miseenscene.blog/review/fukahireya-2025-01/The chef asked at the counter whether I wanted it grilled or steamed. I chose grilled, and it was the right call. It was the best thing I ate that evening.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/belcanto-2023-10/https://miseenscene.blog/review/belcanto-2023-10/A personal rule for this trip held that pairings would be ordered wherever possible. At Belcanto's Chef's Table, watching Avillez check every dish and adjust sauces mid-service, the pairing became secondary to the spectacle of a kitchen operating at full commitment.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/sadang-heuksando-hongeo-2024-12/https://miseenscene.blog/review/sadang-heuksando-hongeo-2024-12/Someone at the table said, half-joking: where are Korea's fine dining chefs while this exists in a neighborhood restaurant in Sadang? Having spent time at three-star restaurants across Europe and Asia, I found the question harder to dismiss than it sounded.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/akelarre-2023-09/https://miseenscene.blog/review/akelarre-2023-09/This is a restaurant with two moments of genuine force: a plate of foie gras and a lamb main. Either alone would justify the visit. What runs between them, however, did not hold to the standard three stars implies.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/via-toledo-2023-02/https://miseenscene.blog/review/via-toledo-2023-02/Before Culinary Class Wars made him the most talked-about chef in Korea, Kwon Sung-joon was running a seven-course caviar collaboration dinner for six people in a room that felt like a studio. I had no idea what was coming.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/sazenka-2024-11/https://miseenscene.blog/review/sazenka-2024-11/One of only two restaurants in Japan to hold the triple crown across Michelin, Tabelog Gold, and World’s 50 Best. A first visit, a first three-Michelin-star meal in Japan, and a first proper encounter with dazha xie, all on the same day.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/bar-leone-2024-09/https://miseenscene.blog/review/bar-leone-2024-09/Bar Leone topped Asia's 50 Best Bars in its debut year. I went twice, got soaked both nights climbing the hill, and missed the mortadella sandwich both times. The bar more than made up for it.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/maison-lameloise-2024-07/https://miseenscene.blog/review/maison-lameloise-2024-07/Maison Lameloise has held a Michelin star since 1926, the year the Guide first awarded them. Nearly a century later, under Éric Pras, the third star remains, and the Burgundy wine pairing alone is worth the detour to Chagny.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/maz-2024-04/https://miseenscene.blog/review/maz-2024-04/MAZ is the Tokyo outpost of Central, the Lima restaurant that topped the World's 50 Best in 2023. Nine courses climb from ocean floor to Andean highland, built on Japanese ingredients and Peruvian philosophy, and the two meet most clearly in the sea.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/ikoyi-2024-05/https://miseenscene.blog/review/ikoyi-2024-05/iKOYi does not call itself a fusion restaurant, and the food makes the case for that refusal. Built on British ingredients with West African spices and Asian sensibility woven through, it is one of London's most original cooking propositions.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/el-celler-de-can-roca-2023-09/https://miseenscene.blog/review/el-celler-de-can-roca-2023-09/A meal built around a single reservation, designed from the beginning around one table in Girona. Four and a half hours, thirty courses, and the finest wine pairing of my experience.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/txispa-2025-10/https://miseenscene.blog/review/txispa-2025-10/Seven months after opening, Txispa earned a Michelin star and entered the World's 50 Best at number 85. Set 200 meters from the legendary Asador Etxebarri in the Axpe valley, it is where a decade of training under Bittor Arginzoniz becomes something entirely its own.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/le-taillevent-2022-08/https://miseenscene.blog/review/le-taillevent-2022-08/Founded in 1946 and a three-star institution for over three decades, Taillevent remains one of Paris's most storied grandes maisons. A first visit that arrived before I fully understood what I was walking into — and proved more than I was ready for.Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/the-chairman-2024-09/https://miseenscene.blog/review/the-chairman-2024-09/The Chairman opened in 2009 with a philosophy that has not changed: no factory-made sauces, no shortcuts, no flourish for its own sake. Eighteen years after my last visit to Hong Kong, it was the first restaurant I went to, and the right choice.Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/sushi-saito-2024-04/https://miseenscene.blog/review/sushi-saito-2024-04/Sushi Saito has been a members-only counter since 2019, when it withdrew from the Michelin Guide rather than continue accepting public reservations. The reputation it built before that withdrawal, and everything that has accumulated since, makes it one of the most coveted seats in the world. An invitation to a private group dinner in April 2024 brought me there, and it remains my finest experience of sushi.Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/mosu-2023-05/https://miseenscene.blog/review/mosu-2023-05/Mosu was my first Michelin three-star, and it remains one of the most considered meals I have eaten in Korea. The kitchen sits open to the dining room with almost no barrier between cook and guest — a transparency that turns out to be entirely appropriate for food this honest about its intentions.Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://miseenscene.blog/review/plenitude-2024-05/https://miseenscene.blog/review/plenitude-2024-05/Housed on the second floor of the Cheval Blanc hotel at the foot of the Pont Neuf, Plénitude received three Michelin stars without passing through one or two — a distinction that alone makes it one of the most anticipated reservations in Paris. Chef Arnaud Donckele's philosophy places sauce at the centre of French cuisine in a way that is not merely technical, but almost literary.Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT