nsxtasy, where would Blackbird fit on this list, or did you leave it off because it's not deserving?

Thinking of dining there next time we're in town for Alinea, is why I'm asking ...

"Good to see Barrio Café."

Dined there twice recently ... a couple of good things (the guacamole is great, couple of yummy desserts), a couple of average items, one really bad dish ...

I think this place went downhill fast when Chef Silvana tried to open a high-end place elsewhere (that failed). They seem to have lost focus.

Honestly, if Barrio Cafe is on the list then it's a suspect list to me.

Haven't dined there but I saw this mini-review today (Friday) from Seftel in the Arizona Republic:

http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/dining/articles/20130327first-bite-binks-midtown-phoenix.html

I think you would have to waterboard Howard for a week to get him to say something bad about Kevin Binkley, but reading between the lines the veggie dishes are excellent, the deserts are good, but there are too many bland common entrees. And he thinks it's best to wait a bit until they get the service kinks ironed out.

Along those lines (waiting on a new restaurant to settle in) in the same paper he has an article "Don’t Go To Restaurants Right After They Open".

http://www.azcentral.com/insiders/how...

Have never dined at GE, so take that into consideration, but like you I will be in Chicago soon for dinner at Alinea and was looking for a 2nd restaurant for another night.

I also looked at GE because they received two Michelin stars, but when I checked on OpenTable I was really surprised to see how many unhappy customers they have. The OT reviews are rolled over every six months and you have to actually dine at a place to write a review, so they are all fairly recent and from actual diners (unlike, say, TripAdvisor or Yelp).

Anyway, anything over about 4.5/5.0 usually indicates that customers were pretty happy, but when the rating is, say, 4.2 or lower I start to shy off.

GE's rating when I first checked was 3.8/5.0, which is frankly awful. I've only seen one other place with a rating that low anywhere, so we decided to skip them (I just checked and it's still low, 3.9/5 ... it can change daily as the reviews from 6 months ago are dropped and new ones added).

For comparison, L20 (the other Michelin 2*) has a 4.7/5 rating and Grace (where we actually ended up reserving) has a 4.8/5 rating from recent customers.

For sure read the OT reviews (you can sort them by 'most recent' or 'lowest first') before deciding.

"Some of the Valley’s best chefs spend days preparing for Arizona’s premier food fest"

This is a Phoenix food festival held at the Art Museum featuring 75 restaurants, with 3,600 tickets available over two days (sold out already).

In addition to the festival overview the article has a more detailed write-up on how the chefs from three favorites from past years - Tuck Shop, Kai at Sheraton Wild Horse Pass and Hana Japanese Eatery - are preparing for the event.

http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/dining/articles/20130310devoured-restaurants-chefs-hana-tuck-shop.html

And Howard Seftel's write-up of Day One:

http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/d...

The list came out recently. Forbes (which took this over from Mobil a few years back) rates spas, hotels and restaurants on a scale up to five stars - similar to AAA Diamond rankings but a bit more exclusive (about half as many 5* restaurants, for example - just 28 this year).

The restaurant list seems heavily weighted to resort restaurants to me, compared to similar rankings from other sources. It generally tracks well with Michelin rankings in the three cities that Michelin still issues guides for, i.e., two of the three Michelin 3* and 2* restaurants in Chicago are ranked 5* by Forbes and the other is ranked 4*.

Arizona has one five star restaurant, Kai. This has been the case for the past several years.

Arizona has three four star restaurants this year - Talavera (Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale), CORE Kitchen & Wine Bar (Ritz-Carlton @ Dove Mountain) and PY Steakhouse (Casino del Sol resort). See what I mean about favoring resorts :)

Out of curiosity I checked to see the scores reviewers from Open Table gave these four, plus Shin Bay and Binkley's (Kai, Shin Bay and Binkley's are often considered the best the Phoenix area has to offer).

Here were the results for "Overall Satisfaction" on Open Table based on diner reviews the past six months, with 5.0 being tops:

Kai 4.9/5.0 121 reviews
Binkley's 4.8/5.0 153 reviews
Shin Bay 4.8/5.0 62

CORE Kitchen 4.7 for 50
Talavera 4.6 for 92
PY steak 4.5 for 57 reviews

So the Forbes 4* places all got lower diner ratings from OpenTable customers than did the Big Three in the Phoenix area, though 4.5 - 4.7 are still pretty good ratings.

Here's the link to the Forbes list of all the 4 and 5* winners in the US:
http://www.startle.com/about/awardwin...

Thanks for the write-up ... we will be at Grace and Alinea (3rd time) in a few weeks ... will be interested in seeing how successful Grant is at keeping it fresh.

You wrote: "Was the food better than Per Se, Daniel, or Jean Georges, to justify the extra efforts and risks involved? I don't think so."

I'm surprised at this ... after six trips to those three restaurants I felt the food at Alinea and Per Se was clearly ahead of the other two, with Per Se more consistently excellent from dish to dish but Alinea more creative in presentation. Pretty much a tie for me and my wife as to which of those two is our favorite.

JG was really tasty but a bit dated in style. Daniel has been hit or miss for us, with too many misses. I don't think Daniel deserves 3 Michelin stars based off the meals we've had there.

Agree with you about the advance tickets at Alinea though ... just saw another Chicago restaurant with this same deal and thought "no way".

Rubee, that was a nice write-up on Chef Johnson. Thanks for posting the link (did you write the article?).

My wife and I will be dining with Chef at Alinea in Chicago in April. I'm really interested to see how he takes to Grant Achatz' techniques and cuisine. I know he sneaks a little bit of molecular techniques in the wine dinners at times :)

Thanks ... really wanted to go to Sant Pau but she closes the first three weeks in May and that's when we'll be there :(

I know what you mean about Hayler, he gave El Bulli a 0/10 at one point, but here in the US my tastes and his seem to be pretty similar, with both of us rating Alinea and Per Se as the best.

So right now, after your post, I guess Akelarre is a 'go' but I am rethinking Arzak vs Mugaritz ... if this trip goes smoothly we'll likely return next year and visit 2-3 of the ones we skipped this year, making sure we time it so we can visit Carme's restaurant in Sant Pau.

Anyway, thanks for the input.

No dog in the fight either way, but out of curiosity I checked Alison Eighteen on OpenTable to see their ranking ... 3.8/5.0 overall, which is one of the lowest customer review ratings I've ever seen on OT.

I personally put a lot of stock in the OT ratings when researching potential new spots to try because 1) they are pretty recent (only reviews from the past 6 months are used) and 2) you actually have to eat there before you get to write the review. Compare this to, say, Tripadvisor, where reviews are seemingly kept forever and anyone can do a write-up even if they haven't dined there.

Anyway, sorry about the bad meal. A freebie return meal sounds gracious but it would still be another 2 hours of your time.

One more thing ... here's a link to a CH post I did last summer after the Halter Ranch wine series meal at Kai.

This was probably my favorite ... the wine - food pairings were exceptional for this one, especially the Syrah with the pheasant and wild game raviolis and the Bordeaux-like Meritage with the wagyu. After this meal I suggested to Chef Johnson and Frank (manager) that they add wagyu to the 'normal' menu and I was happy to see it added after the fall makeover.

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/856639

Bill, here's a link to last year's Wine Dinner Series. Probably they'll post the 2013 list for Italy soon (the one I linked to is from March 6, 2012, so I'm guessing early March for the new update). You can email Rosina and get a copy of the menus in advance once they are nailed down.

http://www.wildhorsepassresort.com/ka...

Bill, I know you enjoy good wines so I'll mention this in case you are not aware of it.

Kai has special Wine Pairing meals four times a year (I think it's the 2nd Tuesday of April, May, June July). They have a fixed menu, usually seven courses, with luxury food items and partner with a specific vineyard and serve that vineyard's wines with the meal, usually with the grower present.

These have been some of our favorite meals at Kai because they come up with a totally new menu each time and really kill it since they only have a limited number of things to cook, kind of like Per Se or French Laundry for a day.

So last year the wines were from Washington state with DeLille Cellars, Oregon with Elk Cove, Arizona with movie director Sam Pillsbury and his wines (Sam had a lot of good stories :), and Paso Robles (Halter Ranch, I remember that one because we stocked up on their 2007 Ancestor Meritage it was so good).

This year they are doing four different areas of Italy. We will surely make two of them, possibly three. Maybe we'll see you there.

We've dined at Kai 21 times the past three years, including twice since O'Dowd left. I never actually saw Chef O'Dowd at the restaurant in all those meals, he was more the executive chef for the entire resort, overseeing all the various food services. He obviously had major input into the menus at Kai but wasn't actually cooking.

The "new" guy, Joshua Johnson, has been there for several years as the sous chef and is the Chef de Cuisine now. I've talked to him several times at the wine tasting events etc and for sure the restaurant is in good hands with him running the kitchen. Pretty seamless transition.

Last time we ate off the regular menu (another time was the special Valentine's Day menu two weeks ago) we had the sea trout and the pumpkin/squash soup for starters, the foie gras and escargot for the 2nd course (everything on the 2nd course menu is really good), and we both had the wagyu for the main entree since it was a new item and we had eaten everything else on previous trips. Other main entree items we've especially enjoyed in the past were the lobster/scallops/shrimp dish, the buffalo tenderloin (which is always excellent) and the lamb.

Pretty rich fare, especially with foie gras and wagyu (took a couple extra days in the gym to work that off) but a great meal.

Go for it, it's still 'exceptional', I feel.

Our first trip to Spain, mainly for great food and art in Barcelona and San Sebastian. Will dine at El Cellar de Can Roca while in the Barca area but not sure where to dine near SS. We can visit two high end places while at SS.

Out of the four high end restaurants in the thread title which two would you favor? We like both classical cuisine (Per Se or French Laundry) and also molecular (Alinea), and are pretty experienced at Michelin 3* and 2* dining.

If I go by the Pellegrino “World’s 50 Best” list then it’s easy ... Mugaritz is # 4 and Arzak # 8 in the world (and we would have dined at 6 of their top 10 after this trip). But I don’t agree with their rankings of several places we’ve dined at, including one in their Top 10 that I feel is wildly overrated, so I’m leery about just going by their list and including Mugaritz.

If I go by the Michelin ratings, sub-ranked with Andy Hayler’s scores for the three stars, then Berasategui (7/10) and Arzak (7/10) would be slightly favored over Akelarre (6/10) and Mugaritz would be left out because it lacks the third star. {edit: I found a Mugaritz review by Hayler and he gave them 4/10} Yet there are many internet articles like this pair that enjoyed Akelarre more than Arzak ... http://gastronomyblog.com/2010/06/23/arzak-san-sebastian/ http://gastronomyblog.com/2010/06/04/...

So anyway, what do you say? Right now I’m leaning Arzak and Akelarre (or Arzak and MB) but am willing to be swayed.

Thanks!

Their current web site says "a fee of $75 for each 750 ml bottle with a limit of one bottle for every two guests". You can verify this by clicking on 'menus and stories' -> 'wines' from the main FL site.

I'm pretty sure it was $50 when we were there two years ago.

Thanks Gonzo ... I know he changes items regularly but I think I read somewhere that Duffy feels some of the courses like the carrot dish may become items people expect as part of the experience and will likely always be on the menu, like 'black truffle explosion' at Alinea or 'oysters and pearls' or those little creme fraiche cones at Per Se & French Laundry.

Looking forward to visiting this restaurant. Four days ago I had never even heard of Grace restaurant and would have never learned of it in time for this trip if not for Chowhound :)

Great report because you tried so many places. Thanks for taking time to write it up.

We are visiting Chicago in a few weeks, dining at Alinea (3rd time) one night and had hoped to dine at L20 the other night but they were closed, so we now have a table at Grace. Sounds like we dodged a bullet with that move.

We were probably going to try both the flora and fauna menus at Grace so I'm interested in your comment about the flora being better. I think we can mix/match so if I get the fauna can you recommend some items off the flora menu that I should substitute (I've heard the carrot dish is wonderful, for example). Which fauna items were especially deserving of being substituted out?

Anyway, thanks again.

Ah, first time I've even heard of Grace but, clued in by your post, I just checked out the usual web sites and it looks perfect for what we had in mind. The menu looks great. Thanks! This is precisely why I posted here on CH.

My wife is celiac (allergic to gluten) so she was pitching for Senza when she learned it was GF, but I think I can convince her to try Grace instead.

So it's probably Grace unless something else more appealing gets mentioned here in the next day or so.

Anyone know what it costs? I can't find a price anywhere on their web site, nor on OpenTable. {edit: this link says it's $185 ... http://chicago.eater.com/archives/201... )

Thanks for that rec ... recent sample menus look interesting.

Have reservations at Alinea in a few weeks and would like to dine at one more high end spot on this trip.

Initially wanted L20 for the 'plus one' (we dined there two years ago shortly after Gras left and wanted to try the new chef's menu) but unfortunately they are closed the one night we have available (Wednesday). A bit of rooting around on the OpenTable list of top Chicago restaurants and the Michelin 1 star list produced goosefoot or Tru or Senza as possibilities.

goosefoot looks ideal but to my surprise goosefoot is harder to get into than Alinea, with zero openings the next eight weeks.

So maybe Tru or Senza or something similar that the good folks on this board might recommend. Or is there a way to get a res at goosefoot?

We are looking for a restaurant with a tasting menu with small plates, not overly hip, not too old school ... French or molecular are fine. So places like Everest or Topolobampo are not really what we want.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

>> " I don't think Chef will not be around 10 October thru 14"

Reservation is for Oct 10 :( I think I'll try to get them to have Chef Humm sign a copy in advance (thanks golfer1) and just pick it up after the meal.

Thanks for posting the dates when he'll be gone. Last time we were there he was in Denmark doing something at Noma so we keep missing him.

Will be at EMP in about 3 weeks on our annual Glutton's Tour of NYC (Le Bernardin, EMP and Per Se on consecutive nights, 2nd time for each place).

A young local chef at our favorite restaurant is a big fan of Chef Humm's style and cuisine so I thought I'd try to get a personalized signed copy of the EMP Cookbook from Chef as a gift, if possible.

Anyone on the board tried this? Do they have copies of the book for sale at the restaurant or should we bring a copy? They seemed extremely accommodating last time we dined there so I'm guessing it's just a question of being there on the right day, but thought I'd ask around. I emailed them a few days ago but haven't had a reply.

Thanks.

Just a heads up for those who enjoy high-end dining and excellent wine pairings … from April through July on the second Tuesday of each month Kai serves a six course fixed menu dinner with wines provided by one of their suppliers. The final one this summer is coming up Tuesday, July 10 and the wines are from Arizona winery Pillsbury, which has been developed by a New Zealand filmmaker and winemaker.

I’ve been to a couple of these wine pairing events and really enjoyed them. The one in June was especially good, with wines from Halter Ranch in central California; I think that was the best meal I’ve had at Kai and we’ve been there probably 15 times the past 3 years.

Highlights were seared salmon served with a rosé, then a pheasant confit with wild game raviolis served with a tannic 2005 Syrah, and then wagyu (Kobe) beef tenderloin from Snake River farms that was served with Halter Ranch’s 2007 “Ancestor Estate Reserve”. This was an excellent wine if you prefer the less tannic Bordeaux-type wines (my favorite red wines), a blend with 44% Cabernet Sauvignon plus five other varietals (they grown 20 different grapes on their property, the winemaker told us). Really good wine pairings, especially the Syrah with the game and pheasant and the Reserve with the wagyu.

Three years ago I didn’t know what wagyu was but after having a slice at Alinea in Chicago it quickly became my favorite beef. I’ve eaten it at three Michelin three star restaurants (Alinea, Per Se and L20) and this particular serving from Kai was better than all but the Alinea preparation.

I’ll give you the full menu description of the beef (the other items also had similar ‘sides’):

Whole Roasted Snake River Kobe Beef Tenderloin
Mexican Vanilla Mashed Potatoes, Baby Snippet of Carrot,
Turnip Roasted Lobe of Foie, Truffle Glace de Viande

So wagyu beef, foie gras and truffle glace on one plate, with exceptional wine … this dish was the winner. (Yes, I was at the gym an extra 120 minutes the next week to burn off all this rich food).

In addition to these main courses there were several canapés served with a white wine in the bar area before the dinner formally started, then an amuse-bouche once we were seated, and, after the three main courses and a palette cleanser, an assortment of four cheeses and many, many chocolates served with a late-harvest Syrah dessert wine. And then some more chocolate in the car for the drive home, like that was really needed.

Sorry if this post sounds a bit spam-like but I’d selfishly like to see them fill enough seats to keep these going. Kai doesn’t seem to advertise these on their main web site; I only knew about them because we get their monthly newsletter. So if you like good wine pairings and fine dining this is a good chance to get both at Kai.

If you're going to be here Tuesday July 10 then for sure the best meal will be at Kai, where they're having a special fixed-menu six course meal with wine pairings from one of the best Arizona wineries. Kai has these special wine-pairing meals four times in the spring-summer from April - July. I've been to a couple and they were both outstanding. Kai is located on an Indian reservation south of the city (not far from where I-10 south and loop 202 intersect, at the Wild Horse Pass Resort).

If you can't make that particular date or don't want to drink a lot of good wine with your meal then Kai has a reasonable "Summer Special" three course meal for I think $65 -- an appetizer (I think gazpacho), their famous buffalo tenderloin dish plus a dessert. Kai is the only Forbes 5* restaurant in Arizona.

If you can't make Kai then Binkley's is probably the best option. You mentioned Napa ... chef Binkley worked at French Laundry for a while and you can see the influence in his dishes.

Note that both places close for parts of the summer. I think Binkley's closes in early July and Kai stays open thru July but closes for August and maybe early Sept (too lazy to look it up but those are roughly right). So they may not be open when you are passing thru.

When we stayed at Encore! we walked across the street to Bouchon for breakfast; had something different each morning (three days) and everything was really good. Highly recommended.

This gentleman has an excellent write-up on the breakfast options at Bouchon:

http://home.comcast.net/~lasvegasvaca...

>> BTW, what is the #1 in area?

Kai is rated tops by Forbes (the only 5* in Arizona) and usually OpenTable diners. I didn't mention it because it's on the other end of the valley from Binkley's (about an hour drive south) and because it's expensive, but it's really good.

Here's a link to the OpenTable "Overall" ratings, as often happens Kai and Binkley's are 1 and 2 ... http://www.opentable.com/best-phoenix...

Binkley's is definitely not Mexican but a good choice. Usually considered the # 2 restaurant in the entire urban area.

If it's a bit pricey for you then check out Cafe Bink, which is a more casual place owned by the same chef and run by his wife, who also a good chef, and the prices are a lot lower.

http://www.cafebink.com/

"Were you at meadowood when it was Joe Humphrey? Or within the last two or three years? Just wondering... =)"

February 2011 IIRC ... Christopher Kostow was the chef, I believe this was shortly after they were bumped up to 3 Michelin stars.

And not long before they raised the prices substantially :)

"We live about an hour south, and assume a weekend drive to make reservations in person is the best bet? "

I was told they no longer accept walk-up reservations made in person (60 days out of course). I was told by someone who worked in reservations that local inns would send worker bees to the restaurant to snag reservations for future guests and that this got out of hand, so to be fair they simply quit taking walk-up requests.

They close down for a while, I think around Christmas, and it can be much easier to get a reservation right after they open. We scored in early February one year, IIRC.

Meadowood is really good too, we hit both places back-to-back and the two most memorable dishes were from Meadowood, though of course the scope and ambiance were better at FL.