A Guide To The World's Best Fine Dining Restaurants

In 1972, The hotel chef informed me he wanted a ‘fresh’, not frozen peacock. Frozen had been used for the hotel's six-course specialty dinner that required a two-day advance notice to order. After numerous calls to local farmers, I found one, and the gentleman said "Come on out, we will rustle one up." I pictured running all over the north 40 acres to capture the elusive bird. However, upon arriving at the farm, I saw a 60-foot cage eight feet high divided into six sections with an egg warming room and a Rolls Royce covered by a tarp. The farmer told me he had spent many years with several Maharajahs in India and brought back six breeds, including the white albino peacock. He gave me a brown paper bag which he poked a few holes in, grabbed a young peacock that would be tender enough, stuffed it in the bag, stapled it, and asked for $25. I returned to the hotel, where we laced the bird with truffles, champagne, Madeira and spices, then prepped the other five courses with the chef and waited to serve it to guests who did not show. However, singer and actor Tom Jones was due to arrive at 3:00 am the next morning, and I was asked to stay and carve the bird and offer three bottles of Dom Perignon in the Presidential Suite, compliments of the hotel, 20 hours after starting work that day.

Backwards Dining in New York in 2012 - While having cocktails at the bar before dinner at the Ritz on Central Park with our favorite bartender Celine, I had  ignored my girlfriend for far too long. This was caused by a long conversation with the restaurant critic from the New York  Post sitting next to me so the hotel's pastry chef, Anthony D'Adamo brought out almost every dessert on the menu to entertain my girlfriend. After this too sweet of a start to our evening, we decided to go through our dinner courses at different restaurants backwards from what we had planned. The next course of entrees was at Thomas Keller’s Per Se and we finished with appetizers at Daniel.

 My Aphorisms Related to Fine Dining
‘Just as a blue blazer will always exude timeless good taste, so may many classical recipes/dishes be worn on better plates.’


'A meal at a world class restaurant is like a mini vacation- the price is about the same and you should remember it for the rest of your life.'


‘In art, focus on finding the moments of 'inspired' brilliance that touch your soul’.


'Architecture is cooking's closest parallel in the arts by virtue of being a necessity, as well as a luxury, and an art and a science'.


'The 3 main principles of architect Frank Lloyd Wright that were most suited to early nouvelle cuisine development in America- ornamentation should be inherent to the structure, use indigenous materials and be progressive...... Progressive - keep pace with lifestyles that are changing  faster than ever at any time in history. The term recognizes America's fascination and belief in the future and the willingness of America to reach for the unknown by virtue of one of our fundamental ideals, the pursuit of freedom. However, this does not mean architecture or cooking should follow the petty whim of fashion but rather the movement of a period.'


Favorite Aphorisms of Others Related to Fine Dining
"Dining is and always was a great artistic opportunity" - Frank Lloyd Wright

"It is the critical spirit that creates, not blind imagination" - Oscar Wilde

"Food is one part of the experience. And it has to be somewhere between 50 to 60 percent of the dining experience. But the rest counts as well: The mood, the atmosphere, the music, the feeling, the design, the harmony between what you have on the plate and what surrounds the plate" ― Alain Ducasse



Favorite Personal Food Stories

During a trip to France in 1981, I had a six-course lunch with the Troisgros brothers, and then drove to Paul Bocuse’s restaurant for a five-course dinner the same day due to time limitations (2 of the top 4 chefs in the world at that time). During the same trip, after weeks of fine cuisine and wines, I went to the Eiffel Tower restaurant and ordered some simple roast beef and a Coke. The waiter responded, "Oh…you mean 'champagne Américain' monsieur," to which I had to tell him ‘"Tres tres bon." (too good). He then returned with the roast beef which was tough and did not look appetizing, so I replied "Oh….la boeuf (beef) Francaise, ah oui (ah yes)?" The waiter responded  "Touche monsieur" while looking at the plate and knowing that French beef was usually not as good as American beef back then.