Automata, Sydney

I can always rely on the Meat and 2 Veg to be brutally honest when it comes to food. Fine dining is not really his bag – he’s more of a, well, meat and 2 veg kind of guy. The problem, he readily admits, is that he can’t help letting the price influence his opinion.  In his words: “if it’s expensive, it has to really make my balls tingle”. Which is why I can be completely objective when I say that Automata, where one of my best mates is restaurant manager, was by far the best meal we had in Sydney when we visited over Christmas and New Year. His balls were tingling from beginning to end.

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Short & Sweet: Ellory

Style: Modern European

Budget: Depends how greedy you are. Around £100/head if you want to do it properly, i.e. all the dishes you want, a nice bottle and some aperitifs and digestives. Good value for money at this level.

Venue and atmosphere: Michelin-starred restaurant without the ponce or hefty price tag. Converted warehouse space with minimalist design that somehow manages to feel warm and unpretentious. 

Service: Manages to strike that perfect balance between friendly and efficient, casual and knowledgeable. Ask questions – they are very willing to help and you will be expertly guided towards good decisions. 

Food: The dishes at Ellory appear deceptively simple, but there is clearly a lot of thought behind the combinations, which both surprise and delight.

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Short & Sweet: The Ledbury

Style: Modern European, fine dining

Budget: Very expensive (£600 for two, though we did drink a lot)

Venue and atmosphere: Inviting and elegant dining room with soft tones and plenty of natural light. White tablecloths and silver service but not too stuffy. 

Service: This is the kind of place where they read what kind of people you are and what service you want and behave accordingly. We were clearly there for a good time and they gave us one. Our waitress talked, joked and laughed with us. When my cousin wanted to swap one of the tasting menu options, they just brought it as an extra course. When it came to cheese, they saw we’d been having a few craft beers and suggested a beer matching instead of wine. Nice touch.

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Nahm round 2

As well as eating the street in Bangkok, I also treated myself to one top-end meal at Nahm, David Thompson’s restaurant. Thompson is an Australian chef who has earned himself a reputation as one of the world’s leading experts on Thai cuisine. His book Thai Food is referred to in my family as the ‘Thai Bible’, an encyclopaedic tomb on Thai food, history and culture, including over 300 recipes.

I went to his restaurant in London several years ago and was disappointed, but my experience at Nahm, Bangkok could not have been more different. I wonder whether this is because I left the chefs in charge of the menu choices.

The tasting menu at Nahm comes in three parts, canapés followed by the main meal – a dish from each section of the main menu served ‘family-style’ for the whole table – and then dessert. In this instance I was the whole table and, as before, I found myself wishing that they would westernise this part of the meal and serve it in stages. I do understand though that Thompson’s aim is to educate diners about authentic Thai cuisine and one part of that is the custom of sharing dishes.

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Amassive lunch

An understatement. This was the very longest of languorous lunches in the history of the world. Or at least in the history of my world and that is not insignificant; in my 30 years on this earth I've had my fair share of long and languorous lunches. My sister and I arrived at Amass restaurant at 12 o’clock and left at 5.30pm. Five and a half hours of lunching is a new record for me.

The 2013 opening of Amass restaurant in Copenhagen was much anticipated, making headlines around the world.  Head chef and owner, Matt Orlando, has worked with the likes of Heston Blumenthal, Raymond Blanc, Thomas Keller and Rene Redzepi. He was sous chef and, most recently, chef de cuisine at Noma, number one on the world’s best restaurant list.

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