Three chefs from the L’Air du Temps group of restaurants which have restaurants in Brussels have teamed up with The Hotel Brussels to offer safe dinners at the hotel given that the restaurants in Belgium remain closed. From March 25 to April 24, chefs Valerie Borriero of San Sablon, Toshiro Fujii of restaurant Toshiro and Kevin Perlot of restaurant VerTige will take turns taking over the kitchens of The Hotel Brussels to share the values and vision of their Brussels restaurants. Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday, they will each offer a 4-course menu with wine pairing that can be enjoyed in the comfort of a room that has been transformed especially for the occasion into a private restaurant. Guests will upon arrival receive two keys. While one opens the door to their room, the other gives them access to one of the Deluxe Panorama Room which offers breathing views over the Belgian capital. The event called Side by Sight will start of March 25. The first chef will be Kevin … [Read more...]

A Sicilian restaurant is sending a taste of Sicily directly to the homes of people in Europe and further afield. Il Consiglio di Sicilia, a happiness-driven restaurant and an acclaimed seafood restaurant in Donnalucata in Ragusa has launched two new special deliveries called Let’s Cook Together and Chilled Out. Roberta Corradin said that this is a time of instability and isolation for so many. “We are really missing our guests at least as much as they are missing us. What this pandemic has shown us is that the care and the love we feel for each of them has actually come to define us. We want to send more than food to the table of our guests and friends. We want to share with them the joy in our hearts,” said the co-owner of the restaurant and wife of chef Antonio Cicero. Antonio on the other hand said: “We are part of a community that relies on us and on which in turn we rely on them. It is a passionate, cheerful and supportive community. The purpose of these boxes is not just … [Read more...]

Billy Wagner of Nobelhart & Schmutzig in Berlin is provocative. He doesn’t shy away from admitting it. In his restaurant, you are asked to not use your phone to take photos, message or whatever. So when he calls the Michelin intransparent that is an understatement but he goes further. He says that when it comes to sustainability, lack of transparency needs to end. He goes to call the green leaf unsustainable saying it promotes marketing rather than action. In an Instagram post, Billy Wagner said he was proud but also annoyed to have been given a Green leaf together with another 18 restaurants in Germany. “I am annoyed because the Michelin sustainability emblem is intransparent, misleading and not sustainable. I am quite aware that calling Michelin intransparent is like calling me provocative. It is a given. We all know that’s Michelin works in mysterious ways. Inspectors are anonymous. They taste our food, our service like any other guest. That is the Michelin guide and … [Read more...]

BRUSSELS: Restaurants have been closed since the end of October and for the time being there seems to be no indication of when they will be allowed to reopen. However, a leading hotel in Brussels has teamed up with young and upcoming chef Kevin Lejeune of restaurant La Canne en Ville to offer a dining experience within the hotel throughout the month of March until Easter. The initiative is a collaboration between Steigenberger Wiltcher's and Gault and Millau young chef of the year Kevin Lejeune. The chef and his team will elevate room service to a real evening 'as if you are in a restaurant'. Many of the rooms on the first floor of the hotel have been converted into individual dining rooms so that residents of the family rooms and suites can enjoy a stay with their family or as a couple without having to dine next to their bed. The maitre d'hotel of La Canne en Ville (Kevin's restaurant) will welcome guests throughout the month. A four-course menu will be served following … [Read more...]

GALWAY: JP McMahon, the chef of Michelin starred restaurant Aniar as well as founder of Food on the Edge has announced he will host an eight-week cookery course for kids aged between 8 and 16 starting 10 April. The course will teach children some crowd-pleasing and family friendly food such as lasagna, pancakes, bread and even roast chicken. The classes will be held virtually via Zoom each Saturday morning from 11am to 1pm. Budding young chefs can pre-book to attend the full course that is priced at EUR 250 or choose to attend individual classes for EUR 35 per session with ingredients list and required tools shared in advance. Students have the option either to cook together with JP or else to tun into the class later and putting the learnings into practice on their own when the course has finished. With lockdown restrictions making it difficult for kids to attend their usual extra-curricular activities, JP's virtual course gives kids an entertaining, interactive and … [Read more...]

The city of Amsterdam will host the 5th The Best Chef Awards that will take place on September 13, 14 and 15. Under the slogan ‘Back to Live. Back to Reality’, the awards will take place after the virtual 2020 edition and the events in Warsaw in 2017, Milan in 2018 and Barcelona in 2019. “Last year didn’t stop us. We actually worked harder to adapt and provide chefs and restaurants all over the world with a platform to stay connected and share information with each other and with the public. Our big hope for this year is for our community to be able to meet in person again”, Joanna Slusarczyk, one of the creators of The Best Chef Awards said. This year’s event includes Food Meets Science, Area Talks and a few new activities which end with the grand Awards Gala that continue to honour the many talented chefs that create the best food experiences around the world. The format for the year is being changed. Starting from 25 February and for 100 days, the Best Chef will announce … [Read more...]

HONG KONG: Eight star chefs joined Feeding Hong Kong earlier this month to discover the brutal reality faced by more than a million people in the city. With seven Michelin stars between them, the chefs learnt why food insecurity has condemned a huge swathe of the city's population to have little or nothing special to eat at Chinese New Year, a time that usually celebrates prosperity and abundance. Every day, 3,600 tonnes of food waste are sent to landfills in Hong Kong, while more than one million people live in poverty struggling to afford nutritous meals. At the Feeding Hong Kong's Yau Tong headquarters, the eight chefs taking part were Vicky Lau from TATE Dining Room, Vicky Cheng from VEA, Nate Green from Henry, Agustin Balbi from ANDO, Grégoire Michaud from Bakehouse, Jowett Yu from Ho Lee Fook, Uwe Opocensky from Petrus and Olivier Elzer from L'Envol. First they learnt how Feeding Hong Kong support the supply of 250,000 meals per month, before they then helped to pack … [Read more...]

HONG KONG: Chef and restaurant owner Vicky Lau is the first ever Asian female chef to clinch two Michelin stars for her restaurant Tate, a restaurant that breaks the boundaries between French and Chinese cooking. She was awarded the two stars for her restaurant earlier this week together with L'Envol in the St Regis Hong Kong which is under the guidance of French chef Olivier Elzer. There were no new three Michelin stars when the tyre company released the guide for Hong Kong and Macau this week. With these new additions, Hong Kong is now home to 12 Two Star restaurants, while Macau has 6 venues in the Two Star category. All 7 restaurants in Hong Kong and 3 restaurants in Macau continue to retain their coveted Three Star ratings. “We are honoured to receive this milestone accolade. This has been our long-term dream and we could not be happier forthis achievement, especially during these difficult times. In the future, we look forward to joining forces with like-minded … [Read more...]

SINGAPORE: Argentinian chef Mauro Colagreco, whose restaurant Mirazur is ranked 1 in the world according to the World’s 50 Best is launching CARNE, an innovative hamburger bar in Singapore next month. This is CARNE's first international opening. CARNE was born five years ago when Mauro set out to show the world that a hamburger chain could operate respecting the pillars of sustainable gastronomy with the highest quality. From that moment, he has been working with his team day by day to offer the best product changing the paradigm of mass food production. The first CARNE was opened in Mauro’s hometown of La Plata in Buenos Aires in 2016. Other openings across Argentina followed. In 2019, CARNE became the first hamburger chain the world to become a certified B corporation, a triple impact certification (social, environmental and economy) for businesses committed to doing better in the world. Colagreco’s premise is that the best dishes are made with simple, noble, high-quality … [Read more...]