Simon Napier-Bell: Eating Out

In the 70s I lived in Paris and came to London on Tuesday mornings. By going back on Thursday evenings I kept ‘non-resident’ status and avoided tax on foreign earnings.
Instead of being careful with the money this saved me I blew it at weekends by eating in all the best places. Amongst them was the restaurant at the Plaza Athene, one of the most elegant rooms in Paris. It's now one of three run by Alain Ducasse, the others being the Essex House in New York and Louis XV in Monte Carlo. This year I didn’t eat at either of the others but I managed to dine at the Plaza Athene.
I was invited by a friend, Thierry Gerard, someone I knew in London in the 80s - a wonderfully optimistic writer of film and TV scripts which were forever being rejected. Now, he’s come into a fortune, but not from selling a script. He won the lottery, a huge American one, and he isn't holding back on spending it either.
“I’m seventy-five,” he explains. “It would be impossible to blow it all even I live to be a hundred.”

At the Plaza Athene nothing had changed except the chandeliers which were now incorporated into 'a gouache of ten thousand hanging crystals'. But there was an air of pretention I didn't recall from previous visits. The staff semed a touch smug, but I couldn't put my finger on it really. Just a feeling.
Never mind, this was Thierry's evening and he insisted on ordering for both of us. It was his quid pro quo for standing me dinner and he gave me no choice in the matter. He chose oscietra caviar with langoustine, saddle of lamb, a cheese selection (possibly the best I’ve ever had) and a magically good rum baba - all of it exquisite to the last mouthful. But oh, those wines…
Pouilly Fume, Cuvee Silex, 1998, and Chateau La Mission Haut Brion 1989.
Thierry paid the bill and I didn’t ask how much. But considering the incredible bottle of Bordeaux we’d drunk it must have cost him over a thousand pounds.
I found myself thinking, "Maybe Thierry's money isn't going to last quite as well as he thinks."

Bali By The Sea
Honolulu

Hilton Hotel
2005 Kalia Road
Honolulu
Hawaii
USA

Phone: +1 808 941 2254

When we walked into ‘Bali by the Sea' it was empty, something Yo always hates.
"Let's go to the Italian down the road," he suggested.
We'd been there the night before and it was fun, with great pasta and jovial good-looking waiters. But because this room was interesting, we stayed. It was unusual, with extravagant fabrics and soft-furnishing but no glass in the windows. A sea breeze instead, and the sound of waves from the beach outside.
The wine-waiter made a good start by suggesting Californian Gerwurztraminer, a wine that's steely and dry in Alsace, but in America is usually sweet.
"But not this one," the wine waiter promised.
He was right. It went so perfectly with the yellow fin tempura that I thought we were in for a culinary evening we'd talk about for weeks. But emboldened by his success he then decided to give us a masterclass in American reds.

"They're all too fruity," I grumbled. "Out of balance. Not enough tannin."
"Not if you go up enough in price," he insisted.
But the prices he wanted us to go up to were absurd. Better to stay with what I knew from France.
The evening finally burst into life when Yo started telling me about his most recent client. Prior to refurbishing the man's apartment he'd had to demolish it. He now proceeded to demolish the man's Thai boyfriend too. Then he told me about pee mapraw.
"Coconut ghosts," he explained. "Ladyboy prostitutes who work under the palm trees on Pattaya's seafront."
The next day I'd almost forgotten the food and wine but I could clearly remember the atmosphere of the room and the enjoyment of sitting there late into the evening with Yo.
The gossip, the breeze, the sound of the waves, and finally the Armagnac.

Bambuddha Hut
Ramsgate

14 Harbour Street
Ramsgate
Kent
England

Phone: +44 (0) 1843 586 865

Bambuddha Hut serves Nonya cuisine, a style developed by Chinese living in Malaysia; spicy, sharp and surprising. In the hands of an expert it's truly delicious and Alec Ewe is just such an expert.
Eighteen years ago he was my boyfriend and couldn't cook at all. Nor did he need to - our relationship consisted almost entirely of eating out at the best places. He had an excellent palate. One night at the Inn On The Park I ordered 1934 Epenot Pommard, telling the wine waiter to decant it and hide the label. Then I asked Alec to taste it carefully and tell me what he thought.
“How much did it cost?” he asked.
“That's irrelevant,” I told him. “Judge it on taste alone".
"But I'm Malaysian," he complained, "wine isn't part of our culture - to assess its deliciousness I need to know what value YOU put on it.”
I frowned, so he grudgingly took a sip.

"Tastes of bananas," he said
I was incensed. I'd just paid £300 for the wine and he refused to treat it with proper consideration.
But the next day, when I looked it up in a wine book the first comment I saw was ‘hints of bananas’.
Alec runs Bambuddha Hut with his partner Jo, who's from Holland. The Malay/Chinese food is superb - sea bass barbecued in banana leaves, Nonya chicken with ginger and brown bean sauce, jasmine fried rice with tiger prawns.
When I raved about the place, friends asked, “Is it worth driving there from London?”
It is, providing you have somewhere to stay afterwards. Or you can do as Yo and I did - drive down for Sunday lunch, then stroll along the beach for an hour to work it off.
In our case with Alec and Jo and their two dogs.

Le Banyan
Bangkok

59 Soy 8
Sukhumwhit
Bangkok
Thailand

Phone: +66 (0) 2 253 5556

It was a shock last year to discover I'd reached the ancient age of 66.
On my birthday, to calm myself, I decided on a treat. Yo and I hot-tailed it to Bangkok to a place we'd been recommended - Le Banyan, a French restaurant that specialises in pressed duck.
The previous time I'd eaten pressed duck was at La Tour d'Argent in 1978. It was memorable for the arrival of a gaggle of French studs accompanying Liza Minelli who was dressed in a topless evening gown. What might have started a rumpus in New York hardly caused a ripple in Paris, so somewhat disappointed Liza's party settled down to their dinner. Ten minutes later the calm was shattered by a piercing scream. Lisa, as she'd lent over to blow into her soup spoon, had let a bare boob fall into hot consommé.
At the Banyan tree, there was no Liza Minelli to contend with, just a bunch of mafia types. As we finished our oysters one of them let out a thunderous belch.

Bruno, the owner, was mortified.
"Follow me, sir."
He led us to the other end of the room where we sat next to the silver duck press, a gleaming piece of culinary engineering.
To retain its blood, the duck to be pressed is first strangled (not at the table) and its legs removed. Once that was taken care of Bruno did the rest in front of us.
He sliced the breast, placed the pieces in a pan of red wine and put the carcass in the press. The juices that came out were added to the pan together with Armagnac, then some butter to thicken it.
Delicious, but hugely filling. And when we'd got through it, the legs arrived, crisply grilled.
Talk about full. But at least my birthday had been correctly honoured.

Biscotti
Bangkok

Four Seasons Hotel
155 Rajadamri Road
Bangkok
Thailand

Phone: +66 2 250 1000

Bookings by phone only

I can’t think of anywhere where Italian food is better than Biscotti, not even in Italy.
Last year the best meal I had there was when Yo and I went to Bangkok for some shopping and called Tom Foley and his friend Kim to join us for lunch.
"Something light,” we told each other, but at Biscotti that can be difficult.
Tom and I planned one glass of wine each but when the waiter arrived we heard ourselves saying, “Really, we might just as well share a bottle.”
Even though Kim and Yo were on soft drinks our bottle of Pinot Grigio disappeared in a flash, so when the food came (some posh pasta, a salad of soft-shelled crab, a risotto with foie gras) we ordered a bottle of Chianti to keep things going.
Tom’s father is a lord. And when Tom was younger he chose the robes he would one day wear for his inaugural speech in the House of Lords. And waited. _____

Twenty years later his father is still in good health and hereditary peers have been abolished. So Tom has to content himself with lengthy and amusing monologues over lunches and dinners.
Today's was about an ex-pat US doctor with whom he's developing natural medicines. "He's come up with a mosquito repellent you can spray on new-born babies."
It seemed a strange thing to do to a new born baby but then I remembered West Nile fever.
"Perfect for the US," I said. "You'll make millions."
We celebrated his forthcoming wealth with Biscotti's best brandy while the others shared a passion fruit frappe. Then we celebrated a few more times.
Tom and Kim only had to take a cab to their flat, Yo and I had to drive to Pattaya, hence Yo's teetotal stance.
He said I snored like a pig all the way.

Bluebird
London

350 Kings Road
London SW3
England

Phone: +44 20 7559 1000

Reservations by phone only

I've known Bruce McIlwaine nearly ten years and think of him as my Bluebird friend. There's something about the place that suits us. It's long been my favourite Conran restaurant, buzzing in the evening but quiet at lunchtime, perfect for a good long talk.
Bruce says I'm the only gay he's ever liked. I tell him he's the only chauvinst homophobe I'm prepared to put up with. Yet when we last lunched at Bluebird I found he also knew Francis, the frilliest of all my friends.
Thirty years ago they both worked in banks in Tokyo and Francis went riding at weekends with Bruce's first wife. Moreover, it seems likely it was Francis who goaded her into leaving him.
She's long gone now (and so's the second wife too), leaving Bruce with a host of chauvinist tales to tell over Bluebird lunches. More often than not we have a pagoda of fresh crustacea washed down with sauvignon blanc. Today it's Bluebird's fish pie with Chilean merlot. (Not one of my grand wine days!)

When he was 12, Bruce's mother took him into her bedroom and sat him down. "I'm not your mother," she told him. "I'm your grandmother. Your elder sister is your mother - she got pregnant when she was 15 and we had to keep it quiet."
No wonder Bruce has so much trouble with women.
Four years ago we had lunch at Bluebird after he'd married his third wife over the road at Chelsea town hall. But even with me as best man the marriage has gone down the tubes.
Now he's on the loose again and on the day of our lunch had a new problem to contend with. Around 4pm two young women turned up. Not only did they both lay claim to his affections, they were sisters. And neither knew (until that moment) of the other's involvement.
Another fine mess. But he had plenty time to solve it. Bluebird lets you stay till 6pm. For an old-fashioned, really long lunch, it's London's best.

Bofinger
Paris

5-7 Rue de la Bastille
Paris IV
France

Phone: +33 1 4272 8772

Bofinger is two things. Firstly - a tourist trap stuffed with out-of-towners who've heard it's the oldest and coolest restaurant in Paris. Secondly - the oldest and coolest restaurant in Paris.
Half the people eating there are name-searchers. The other half are names.
Isn't that Johnny Halliday?
Isn't that the French Prime Minister?
Isn't that his mistress?
It's that sort of place. Out-of-date, ancient, irreconcilable with modernity, yet loved by all. (And it's pronounced boh-fang-jay.)
The food is classic, the service stuffy, the décor just what you'd expect from a restaurant in the oldest arrondissement in Paris, a place that has been going since the French revolution. Specialities are choucroute, onion soup and foie gras - that's how traditional it is. And In 1864, the year phyloxera decimated France's vineyards, Bofinger installed the first beer pumps in Paris.

I went last year with Philipe Boland. Forty years ago Philipe was the booking agent who secured a week's residence at the the Bilbouquet Club for a group I managed in the 60s - Diane Ferraz & Nicky Scott.
Philippe has a wooden leg. He's also gay, and he rather fancied the band's drummer. One night the group played on this weakness by tempting him into the hotel bar and getting him so drunk he had to stay over.
Philippe didn't get what he'd hoped for, but the group did. At 3am they crept into his room, stole his wooden leg (lying next to the bed), then went down to the lobby and rang the fire alarm.
Ten minutes later every guest in the hotel was outside on the pavement, except Philippe, who was crawling round the floor of his room searching for his leg. That we're still friends is amazing.
Anyway, he took me to Bofinger – as classic a French restaurant as this is a classic rock'n'roll story.

Bombay
Brasserie
London

145 Courtfield Close
London SW7
England

Phone: +44 20 7370 4040

The Bombay Brasserie was the first of London 's up-market Indian restaurants.
Going for more 20 years, it still has the best atmosphere - tinkling pianist (but not too loud) great cocktails in the bar (Bombay Bellini being the best) and a spacious eating area with a big airy conservatory.
Every year I eat many good meals here, amongst them in the 80s, with Wham!, when we hit on the idea of making them the first Western pop group to play in China. And in the 90s with Brian Somerville, the publicist behind the Beatles at the peak of their success, who dropped his glasses into an urn of mulligatawny while I was interviewing him for Black Vinyl White Powder.
This year's best was with Martin Lloyd-Elliot, my favourite psychologist. His clients are mainly pop and rock stars struggling with the problems of fame and success.
"And one of them," he tells me on the way to dinner, "is the boyfriend of a politician who hasn't yet come out."

Like most Indian restaurants in the UK, the heat of the dishes is modified for local taste, but less than most places. Anyway, many classic Indian dishes aren't hot at all. Like sev patata puri, a starter as good as you'll ever taste. No matter that you can buy it in the streets of Mumbai for a few pennies, at the Bombay Brasserie it won't give you the runs.
Under the influence of food and drink Martin Lloyd-Elliot becomes delightfully indiscreet. Over giant prawns, baby lamb, curried duck and stuffed parata he reels off the secrets of his consulting couch. All hair-raising stuff - and the fact he won't put names to stories makes them all the more titillating.
To lubricate these tales we put away two bottles of red, the first being, from India, and surprisingly OK. Then the big revelation of the evening. An Indian sparkling white as good as anything being produced in California.
No, I take that back, the big revelation of the evening was Martin's final story. But that's something I can't repeat.

Brasserie Lipp
Paris

151 St Germain
Paris VI
France

Phone: +33 1 4548 5391

The Brasserie Lipp has been there almost a million years. It might even be the first restaurant in Paris I ever ate at.
Today it remains as always, unchanged and unfaultable. Even though it allows no booking and one always has to queue, it's a cheerful queue that somehow never takes more than ten minutes to get to the front of. There's nowhere else in the world I'm prepared to wait like this but since even my poshest French friends don't seem to care I just have to grin and bear it.
Last March I went with Fred LeClerc, a time-warped American Frenchman.
"The whole point of this place," he told me as we were standing in line, "is its sheer old-fashioned Paris-ness – it's the original template for all other brasseries throughout the world."
Fred is American really, but had a French grandfather who gave him his name and passed on the language. In the 60s, when he was forty, he walked out of the boardroom of American big business.

"I just couldn't be bothered anymore."
He threw away millions in share options and settled for a severance allowance.
"I was going to write poetry," he said, "but I never quite got round to it."
Fred's such a connoisseur of life his days get lost with reading the papers, seeing friends, eating out and talking knowledgeably on everything under the sun. He's now in his early eighties, as unchanged as the Brasserie Lipp itself.
I had navarin d'agneau; he had a cassoulet.
I described the Thai political scene and he explained the complexities of the Parisian mayoral system.
For desert we both had tarte aux pommes and talked about American poets - from Whitman to Ginsburgh and Ferlinghetti - then ordered Pernod.
Around us the Brasserie Lipp buzzed efficiently - like another era - a film-set of le Paris ancien.

Browns
London

Brown's Hotel
Albermarle Street
London W1
England

Phone: +44 20 7493 6020

In the 70s I managed a punk group called London. They trod in dog shit outside my apartment before coming upstairs and putting their feet on the coffee table.
After six months I discovered I was being had - they were all as posh as could be. The singer, Riff Regan, turned out to be called Miles Tredinnick, and his father was something high up in the Royal Air Force.
Since then Miles has become a TV scriptwriter and he recently emailed me to say he had an idea for a play.
“Along the lines of ‘Jeffrey Barnard Is Unwell’," he explained, "a series of anecdotes about your life, and you'll be played by a well-known actor.”
At first I wasn’t sure about it but when Miles suggested lunch at Browns it began to sound pretty good.
Although its decor is hopelessly out of date (a sort of prehistoric green), Browns has become the bastion of posh politicians and aging film stars. _

A hundred years ago this was the place where posh people had their naughty weekends. But the important thing about Browns is they do an awfully good lunch.
There's meat on the trolley and a pukka wine list. In a little under four hours we demolished a shoulder of lamb, a bottle of Monrachet, two bottles of Margaux and eight glasses of 1947 Armangac.
I can’t recall what we said about the play but the meal was most enjoyable and with regular lunches to discuss its progress, perhaps the play should be kept for writing rather than performing.
In the 80s I had a similar experience with Graham Chapman. For two years we had regular lunch meetings on the pretext of writing a musical based on the Jeremy Thorpe case (gay Liberal Leader in court on conspiracy to murder - brilliant story and should be revived).
If Miles is silly enough to get his play about me finished, we might revisit the Thorpe story to justify continuing our lunches. Hopefully at Browns.

Brunos
Pattaya

Chateau Dale Plaza
Thappraya Road
Pattaya
Thailand

Phone: +66 38 364 600

Bruno's has a reputation as the best restaurant in Pattaya and I go there a lot. But in order to protect my welcome at other establishments I need to point out that it only wins by a smidgen.
With all these good restaurants, I can live by the sea in Thailand yet eat oysters from Sydney, foie gras from Gascony, and lamb from New Zealand.
Last August, Bruno's had an Italian Michelin starred chef come to cook. He produced some amazing dishes, like black angel hair pasta with lobster for just $6 US. On the first night of this month of feasting I went with two local friends, Hugh Spring and Michael Lowe.
Hugh arrived with a bottle. "A Hunter Valley masterpiece," he said proudly. "Smuggled by the Thai navy."
Hugh often gets angry about corruption in Thailand. "A rip-off," he says, "by the upper classes, depriving ordinary Thais of their share in the country's wealth."
Fortunately, when it comes to good wine he sets such principals aside.

Bruno's owner, Fredi, sometimes lets special customers do things like this, so he didn't charge us any corkage. Which was shrewd. For having helped Hugh drink his priceless (smuggled) bottle of red, Michael and I felt duty bound to match it with a couple of equally good bottles from the wine list.
Michael had just had an operation on his prostate. He told us he had a catheter coming out of his woodle with a collection pouch. Hugh said, "The wine must be wasted on you. You're pouring it in at the top and it's flowing right out the bottom. Why not pour it back in the bottle for Simon and me."
While Michael considered this proposal I ordered another bottle of the excellent wine we'd moved on to. And as always with us, the cost of the evening rose.
It's as if, despite Bruno's costing a just quarter of the equivalent restaurant anywhere else in the world, we feel it our civic duty to get the bill as near to London or Sydney prices as we can
Daft, isn't it – but very enjoyable.

Caprice
London

Arlington House
Arlington Street
London W1
England

Phone: +44 20 7629 3329

Reservations by phone only

I first ate at the Caprice in the early 60s. It was the restaurant actors went to - Noel Coward, Michael Redgrave, Margaret Lockwood - anyone in a current West End play was likely to be there.
At that time it was decorated with plush burgundy banquettes in velvet and had little candelabras on the wall. It was all but impossible for someone who was no-one to get in; and that was me.
At the time I was working in the cutting rooms at Elstree as an assistant editor so I got the studio secretary to phone and make the booking.
"For two very special people," she told the Maitre'd, intimating it might be for Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor who were working in the studios at the time.
In fact, I was taking my boyfriend for a birthday treat and we ended up being seated next to Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright both of whom nodded nicely at us as we were shown to our table.

Today the Caprice has no plush velvet. It’s slinky and sleek with black and white photos and discreet pools of light on each table. At the end of the 70s it was taken over and revamped by Chris Corbyn and Jeremy King and during the 80s it became THE restaurant in London for media people and faces.
Partly because of the amosphere and partly because of the food, I ate there two or thee times a week for nearly ten years. But my only visit this year was when Yo and I were in London in May.
In 20 years the place is unaltered - the decor, the atmosphere, the food, the service and the front-of-house staff. In other words, it’s as good as anywhere can be.
We both ordered the same thing – oysters followed by rack of lamb. The cocktail piano tinkled, we chatted and laughed, the food was superb, the evening perfect.
That’s the Caprice for you. Any time we make it to London we know it's there waiting for us. Most reassuring

Casa Pascal
Pattaya

485/4 Moo 10
Second Road
Pattaya
Thailand

Phone: +66 38 723 660

Casa Pascal is one of Pattaya's best.
Pascal himself comes up with food of real brilliance. He also does a set lunch for 300 baht (just £4) the like of which would cost you at least £30 in the UK. And out of season he does a set dinner for £8 which includes all the wine you can drink.
Best of all is his Sunday brunch - lobster, oysters, salmon, steaks done to order, a selection of Thai food, deserts and good cheese, complete with a glass of champagne, all for 650 baht (a little under £9).
One Sunday in March, Yo and I went with my brother-in-law, Reg, who was on holiday for a week. We were joined by Michael Lowe (whose apartment Yo was decorating), and Hugh, our voluble Australian friend. Michael was unhappy with something about the electrics Yo had installed in his flat and wanted to draw a plan of them on his napkin.
"Give it a bloody rest," Hugh groaned, snatching the napkin and saving Yo the tedium of a working lunch.

But within seconds Hugh moved from saviour to villain. He started talking about golf. Earlier in the week he'd played with Michael and Reg and they began to re-hash the game. Lunch was heading for my list of all-time boring occasions.
Then came a lifesaver.
At the next table were a group of Koreans, members of the Seoul Opera who the night before had given a concert at the Royal Cliff Hotel. Suddenly they decided to sing for their supper (lunch, actually!)
It was magic. Thirty minutes of arias from six feet away. Relaxed and well-fed they sung with a sense of pleasure which projected itself to everyone in the restaurant.
By the time they’d finished, golf was forgotten and the talk moved on to more sensible subjects, like sex, and good food, and 'how about we order some more wine to go with the desserts'.
One of the year's great lunches!!

Cipriani
Lisbon

Lapa Palace
Rua Pau Da Bandeira
Lisbon
Portugal

Phone: + 351 21 394 9494

Estoril hadn't lived up to expectations.
On the second day of our holiday the concierge at the Hotel Palacio looked meaningfully at Yo and me and said, "I think your type would be more happy in LIsbon. Stay at the Lapa Hotel."
We weren't sure what aspect of our character he'd presumed to have understood, but now, looking at the dingy area of Lisbon he'd directed us to, we began to worry that the hotel would turn out to be a cheap orgy house.
We were driving through a slum built on a hill, but as we came to the top of the last narrow street we realised that what the concierge had recognised in us was a lust for pure luxury.
In front of us the Lapa was perched on Lisbon's highest hill, a sybaritic palace, a lookout tower for the whole city, with luxuriant terraced gardens falling back down on the opposite side of the hill to the one we'd just crawled up in our hired Renault. It was everything we could have hoped for but inside there was better to come.

We walked into a cool marbled lobby. On the far side, under an awning of gold and white striped canvas, was a terrace that looked over Lisbon as far as the eye could see. It was laid out with an Emperor's feast - an orgy of food of every conceivable type.
The tables beckoned temptingly. White tablecloths and crystal wine-glasses sparkled in the sunshine. Handsome waiters stood by waiting for the nod from us to prepare a place.
We started with Muros de Malgasco, a vinho verde, accompanied by a skewer of roasted scallops with three huge crayfish lying across them. Then we had sea bass in a crust of salt and lamb from Tras Os Montes with a soft Portugese red - Casa Ferreirinha 1994.
There were desserts too - naughty, sticky, honey-coated, cream-covered, and totally delicious. A lunch of pure decadence.
Made all the more so by the thought of the cool room and crisp afternoon sheets that awaited us.

Daniel
New York

60 East 65th Street
New York
NY 10021
USA

Phone: +1 212 288 0033

I ate here with Kurt Loder. For years Kurt wrote for Rolling Stone but now does news for MTV. He’d just given my American publishers a great quote for the front cover of I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch, so I owed him one.
There was plenty for us to talk about but at Daniel the conversation inevitably comes back to food. We decided on a tasting menu.
“Which one?” the waiter asked.
“Is Daniel Boulud in the kitchen?" I asked. "Because... if he is, ask him to create the tasting menu he himself would most like to be served.”
It was probably a mistake because from that moment on it wasn’t going to be cheap. But by gosh it was delicious. One mouth-watering dish after another.
Foie gras terrine with Sauterne jelly. Peeky toe crab with Granny Smith apples. Butternut-Kabocha soup with huckleberries. Paupiette of sea bass. Broiled squab breast. Grain-crusted venison.

Now, I can't remember the taste of any of them. But at the time I thought I'd remember each mouthful forever. The deliciousness pushed me to a rash choice of wine and the evening sank into a sybaritic mist of self-indulgence.
We were eventually lifted out of it by Daniel Boulud coming to our table to see if we’d enjoyed ourselves. "We have," I assured him, and Daniel seemed pleased to hear it.
Some people are scornful of his restaurant being awarded two Michelin stars, but I don't see why. This place beats Sketch (its nearest equivalent in London) hands down for a comfortable relaxing atmosphere. Sketch is far too stiff.
For me Daniel is the best in New York. Both the food and the feel of the place are really superb. But it's pricey too!
If you’re going to do what we did you'd better be ready to cough up at least a thousand dollars.
Quite a splurge!

Daphne's
London

112 Draycott Avenue
London SW3
England

Phone: +44 20 7589 4257

Daphne's first opened in the 60s.
Daphne was an inventive cook, a sturdy woman who wore a monocle and raced cars. Somewhere along the line the restaurant changed hands and Daphne disappeared.
For a while in the 90s Daphne's rose to be London's top celebrity restaurant, even outdoing San Lorenzo. But now it's less frenetic and more comfortable. Because of its large airy skylights it's particularly suited to lunches.
At the back is a glassed-in terrace and it's here that the poshest lunchers gather. Daphne's food is impeccably contemporary – extra virgin olive oil all over the place, the fish as fresh as can be, the tuna barely seared, the prawns with a touch of Thai spice.
And there's champagne everywhere too – usually pink and consumed by people who make their own money. Last year I ate a Saturday lunch with Ministry of Sound supremo James Palumbo and his young lady sidekick Taptin who's from Thailand.

Their's is a weird relationship – tied to each other for life, it seems, but not an item in your usual sense. (Taptin even has approval over his girl-friends.)
James was in huge good form. “Would it be a good idea,” he asked, “to invest in a top-end apartment in Bangkok? We were thinking of something around a million pounds.”
(In London thse days that doesn't get you much. But in Bangkok it can buy you a palace.)
“Why not?” I said, “If you've got a million to throw away, go ahead and do it. What sort of property is it anyway?”
It turned out to be a penthouse on the twenty-fifth floor, overlooking the river, with its own Olympic-size swimming pool and some fifteen or so ensuite bedrooms.
“For Taptin,” James explained. “A little something for her retirement.”
That's the Daphne's lunch crowd for you.

Eki
Tokyo

Four Seasons Hotel
Pacific Century Place
1-111-1 Marunouchi
Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo
Japan

Phone: +81 3 5222 7222

For me, Eki is currently one of the world's top 50 restaurants, impeccable in every way, the cuisine a perfect fusion of Japanese and French, the service a perfect balance of subtle and indulgent.
Yo and I were in Tokyo for only two days and doubted we'd get a booking, but the restaurant's high prices make it more popular in mid-week when most of its customers can charge it as a business expense. So on Saturday evening, although we called at the last minute, we managed to get a table.
It's in the Four Seasons hotel in Maranouchi, a little hard to find, tucked away in a vast shopping plaza. Even as you enter it oozes perfection - the elegant understated décor, the perfect low key lighting, the equally perfect low-key staff, yet none of it intimidating - like being gently massaged in a marvelous health club.
The tables are laid with knives, forks and chopsticks flying out sideways from the plates even further than the grandest European restaurants.

The dishes are French or Japanese or a combination of both - kobe beef carpaccio, zuwaigani crab cakes with spicy Italian sauce. Every dish was mouthfuls of magic. And the wine waiter was like meeting a friend - quietly talkative when we wanted him to be, nowhere to be seen when we didn't.
It's extraordinary. If a restaurant aims at this sort of thing and gets it wrong, even slightly, the whole thing ends up stiff and uncomfortable. But when a superstar place like Eki gets it right you enter another world. You find yourself sitting and eating and talking on a different level. In one sense, acutely aware of your surroundings, in another almost oblivious to them.
Even the arrival of Ozzy Osbourne and his entourage did nothing to disturb the peacefulness. In fact the beauty of the place seemed to have a medicating effect on Ozzy who behaved perfectly.
For Yo and I this was the last day of a three week trip eating our way round the world. It couldn't have been a better finale.

Fiskekrogen
Gothenburg

Lilla Torget 1
Gothenburg Place
Sweden

Phone: +46 31 10 10 05

Just Yo and me for dinner when we went to Fiskekrogen.
We were in Gothenburg for the christening of the first son of one of my ex-boyfriends, Donvaon. Yo was to be the godfather.
We arrived in Gothenburg the day before the christening and went off to see what was on offer. Fish was what everyone said we should have and Fiskekrogen the place to have it. Pretty pricey, but worth every penny (or whatever it is the Swede's have a hundred of in every Kroner).
The impact of the place was unique - an old building from which nothing had been taken away yet contemporary in a way only the Swedes can accomplish - original wooden ceilings set off by sheets of thick coloured glass - traditional yet intensely modern. Worth coming just to see the place.
The wine list looked good too. I ordered a bottle of Chassagne Monrachet and the waiter suggested Swedish caviar to go with it.

"Not very delicious," I told him after I'd tried a few mouthfuls. "How comes it's the same price as Oscietra?" (which I'd also noticed on the menu).
“It comes from tiny fish”, he explained. “The small amount you have comes from about twenty of them - all done by hand.”
In that case the price was hardly surprising – what with Swedish labour costs and twenty fish to be stripped of their ovaries for each plate eaten. I mean, with caviar it's just one big sturgeon and 'slooshh', out falls enough for fifty helpings. Anyway, for the next course I gave up on fish and had veal osso buco while Yo had sea bass.
At the next table an annoying group of wine buffs were drinking their way through some Burgundy, ostentatiously shaking and sniffing their glasses at each sip. It was so annoying I got tempted into quelling them by ordering the best Romanee Conte.
Oh, these spontaneous reactions! Even now I'm afraid to tell Yo what it cost.

Fook Lam Moon
Shanghai

Shangri-La Hotel
33 Fu Sheng Road
Pudong
Shanghai
China

Phone: +86 21 6882 8888
ext.6490

The Shangri-La hotel is on the ‘wrong' side of the river, but that's a plus. It means the picture window in the Fook Lam Moon restaurant (a Chinese as posh as they come - exquisite décor, perfect silverware, bone china, glassed-in wine room) looks across to the 'right' side of the river - old Shanghai.
If the setting is perfect, the food takes it even higher - salt-roasted prawns, succulent soft-shell crab, rice baskets of crispy duck skin. Yet I got so lost in conversation I hardly noticed it.
I was with a Chinese man who for fifteen years had been the manager of a local punk-rock radio station. His tales of how he'd coped with the Chinese government before they ‘loosened up' were riveting.
"We had a spy amongst the radio station staff - an informer who was leaking internal memos to the secret police - but we couldn't decide who it was."
Finally they realised it must be the person most above suspicion.

"In the CIA," he explained, "if a spy is needed for a specific job, they find someone already in the right location - the head of Coca Cola in Moscow, the chairman of Ford in Caracas. But the Chinese use the reverse method."
A Chinese spy will be trained in a specific job with a view to infiltration. For instance, a spy destined for a punk rock radio station will be given a university education in the subject. Because of this it eventually became obvious to my friend who their spy was.
"He was the person with the greatest knowledge of punk music."
But in the end they decided not to get rid of him.
"We enjoyed his record collection too much."
This story took my mind off what I was eating, so in the evening I went back again by myself with a book and was reassured.
The food was as fantastic.

Foreign Corres. Club
Hong Kong

2 Lower Albert Road
Central
Hong Kong
China

Phone: +852 2521 1511

Reservations by phone
(for members only)

There’s no way the Foreign Correspondents club in Hong Kong is going to get into a list of great restaurants. The bar and restaurant area is just a big untidy room with wooden floors and clattering chairs. But this is THE place in Hong Kong for newsy media-oriented expats to meet.
On this trip I met Neville Sarona, Hong Kong's most feared criminal barrister, the son of 1920s British pop singer, Leslie Sarona. On night's off Neville croons like his dad with a local jazz band, a great big smile on his face. Just a pussycat really! And then there's the bar-owner whose grandfather designed the gun that killed Abraham Lincoln. Now that's quite a calling card!
But the principal reason the FCC lept into my top 12 meals is because of Phil Whelan, a broadcaster with a talk show on Hong Kong radio. I’d just been on his show for an hour and we’d talked about everything from Wham! to Van Gogh, from the origins of rock to the beginnings of democracy in Hong Kong. And when it was over we still couldn’t stop talking so we went off to lunch.

But it wasn’t just Phil that put the lunch into my top dozen, it was the lamb vindaloo.
People often refer to vindaloo as a Madras dish simply because it’s hot. But a vindaloo doesn't necessarily have to be hot at all, and it doesn't come from Madras.
Vindaloo is a Goan dish and the name comes from 'Vigne d'Alho', a Portugese stew of ‘wine and garlic'. A correct Vindaloo is made principally with dried chilis, not fresh, and it’s this that gives you that next morning feeling of ‘fire around the bum’, a distinctive effect of dried chilis (fresh chilis being more likely to give you fire on the lips).
Some recipes for vindaloo use no chilis at all but only black pepper, which at the time the Portugese first came to Goa was a commodity more valuable than gold. But the real point is this - the vindaloo I had at lunch with Phil Whelan was world class.
And memorably fiery at the point of exit next morning.

Goya
Madrid

Ritz Hotel
Plaza de La Lealtad 5
Madrid 28014
Spain

Phone: +34 91 701 6767

Internet reservations

I first ate here with Ray Singer 30 years ago when we were touring Europe doing deals for records we’d produced.
The hotel was so stuffy you had to wear a tie to walk in the garden and the restaurant was staffed by decrepit waiters in moth-balled dinner jackets. We twice caught our waiter nipping from a flask and when he flamed our crepes Suzette he poured the sauce over the tablecloth and set it alight. Another waiter rushed up with a fire extinguisher creating an exciting ending to a dull meal.
Earlier this year I went with Pepe Morillo who did marketing for EMI Spain in the 60s. We met back then when I came to Madrid with a new record by the Yardbirds.
After I'd played it he said, “I’m no good for judge music. I like sailors. I think the same way the sailor thinks.”
It was an odd thing to say, but after a moment I realised he meant salesman.Trained in marketing he felt unable to comment on A&R matters.

When I informed him of his mistake Pepe was mortified, but later when he'd got to know me better and his English had improved, he admitted he really did like sailors - and soldiers too - and airmen and policemen - in fact any man at all who wore uniform.
Pepe has a thrilling giggle. It soars gloriously but sometimes gets out of control. Since it's also wildly infectious I was worried our meal at the Ritz might take an awkward turn. But in the event, it was fine. At least no-one set the tablecloth on fire.
Actually, I’ve never been convinced by Spanish food. Although it's now come to be highly regarded, I still find it bland and oily. But for many years I’ve been a fan of the greatest Spanish wines.
The Ritz has them. And that’s what made the meal so good. Two elderly but magnificent brick-red Riojas – Rioja Alta 1970 and Marques de Rical 1958.
Not cheap. Not even reasonable. But accompanied by Pepe’s giggle worth every last peseta.

Ivy
London

1-5 West Street
London W1
England

Phone: +44 20 7836 4751

Reservations by phone only

You can never go wrong at the Ivy; always star-studded and bustling, but never too loud to hear yourself talk. The menu runs from sausages to sauteed foie gras but my absolute favourite is baked cod with sticky toffee pudding for desert. But it's not really about the food - it's the place. It's about being there.
I've been there so many times that one meal fades into another; a continuous, long, happy memory. But one meal last year remains more in mind than most.
It actually started out at L'Escargot. Yo and I were lunching with Donavon, one of my exes, who these days divides his time between Sweden, where he lives with his girl-friend, and London, where he manages Boney M (still going strong after all these years).
Donavon is quite a character - slim, flamboyant and black - and he loves to dress up. I once met him on his way to a fancy-dress party dressed from head to toe in skin-tight black leather.
"An oil slick," he told me, before I could ask.

Yo and I got to L'Escargot early and were waiting in the bar when Donavon turned up looking as if he was about to walk the catwalk for Jean Paul Gautier. He was decked out in what looked like a metallic space-suit, purchased, he told us, the previous day from Versace at Harvey Nix for an obscene price.
Unfortunately Donavon's grand entrance was spoilt by someone else arriving in exactly the same outfit, which made the two of them look like they were taking time off from rehearsals for an episode of Dr Who.
Donavon stormed right out. Yo and I followed him and after a few phone-calls on the pavement the Ivy worked one of those miracles they sometimes pull off for old friends - a table for three in half-an-hour despite being fully-booked for six months ahead.
For the inconvenience he'd caused Donavon treated us to a gigantic number of oysters and an abundance of champagne. Which is why, though forgotten in detail, the meal remains so exceptionally jolly in my memory.

Jiang-nan Chun
Singapore

Four Seasons Hotel
190 Orchard Boulevard
Singapore

Phone: +65 6734 1110

Singapore is awash with great eating places.
Jiang-nan Chun is the most upscale one serving traditional Cantonese food. If there's anyhing fusion about it it's just the sheer Western luxuriousness of the place.
For dinner there was me and Yo and Allan Soh. He was my boyfriend years ago but now is a best-friend to Yo as well as me.
Allan ordered us a banquet - lobster, duck noodles, three different fish, two huge crab, fried rice with baby squid the size of your fingernail, venison from Malaysia, speical guinea fowl from Fukkien province. The list was endless.
As we ate Allan regaled us with stories of his father's funeral. Chinese custom has it that the band in the funeral procession plays the deceased‘s favourite song. Allan's father's favourite was Jingle Bell Rock. And if that wasn't enough, he was a philanderer and had two separate families – a Chinese one (Alan's side) and a Malay one.

The two sides were about to fight tooth and nail over the will but it was unseemly to do so until the funeral was finished. Both sides had cars and speedy drivers waiting for them but for the moment they stood waiting at the graveside, apparently mourning, but actually tensed and ready to leave the second the first handful of earth was thrown over the lowered coffin.
In the middle of the ceremony Allan's older brother was taken short with the Singapore runs. There was no cover except for one tree which had the thinnest of trunks and very little foliage near the base.
Allan's brother had to climb to where the leaves became more luxuriant. As he sat perched in the tree the funeral finished and the rest of the two families high-speeded to their lawyer's offices leaving him trouserless and paperless.
Fortunately our meal gave us no such problems. We left in good humour and good health.
Bowel-perfect, so to speak.

La Brasserie
London

272 Brompton Road
London SW 3
England

Phone: +44 20 7584 1668

In the sixties I once ate here with Ike and Tina Turner. Tina found a dead caterpillar in her cauliflower au gratin and leapt onto her chair screaming as if she'd found a live mouse - a foretaste of the dramatic stage star she was to become later in life.
Fortunately the standard of cleanliness has moved on with the times and caterpillars are nowadays banned from the establishment.
The Brasserie is the most French place in town. Open from breakfast to late evening, you can breeze in at 4.30 in the afternoon and still get a full lunch.
Like any good Parisian brasserie it has oodles of fresh sea food laid out on ice – sea bass, lobsters, jumbo prawns and oysters. And it serves beautiful lamb flank with heaps of flageolet beans. Or cassoulet. Or saucisses de Toulouse.
Last year I ate there with Candi Staton, whom I was managing, when she was in town to do a show with Nile Rodgers and Chic.

As we came in the door Adam Faith was just leaving and gave me a nod. "Hi Simon, I'm just off." He'd had a by-pass not long before so I guessed he'd been nibbling at something healthy. Though not healthy enough, because next day he had a heart attack and died.
I liked Adam. For years he ran his financial consultancy from the cafe at Fortnum & Mason, arriving every morning at ten and staying till four. I often popped in for a cream tea just as we was leaving. "Hi Adam". "Oh, Hi Simon, I'm just off." Only this time he really meant it.
I had the seafood platter, French style, oysters piled high on ice with prawns and cockles and crab. Candi had plain grilled sea bass and her daughter, Cassandra, with whom I have a running waistline competition, had a steak, similarly plain. Mainly Cassandra likes dessert and she followed her steak with a correctly crunchy tarte aux pommes.
I was too full to eat one so I teased her and called her a fatty. I didn't tell her I was taking one home in a box for later.

Laris
Shanghai

3 The Bund
Shanghai
China

Phone: +86 21 6321 9922

Reservations by phone only

Laris is at Three on the Bund, a historical building from Shanghai's colonial days now converted into five restaurants, an art gallery and two bars.
The art gallery is well worth a pre-dinner visit and the night I went it had an exhibition by contemporary Chinese artists working in wood.
Laris iteself is a classic modern dining room and a seafood bar with small private dinning cubicles. I was taken there by Will Hua, typical of the new type of Chinese entrepreneur, an expert in product flow.
At 29 Will is the youngest Chinese marketing director of a major European company. He also consults for American corporations and runs his own company providing guides for visitors.
At most of the high-priced European restaurants, it's these young, upwardly-mobile Chinese who fill the tables, and at Laris someone more mobile than us had arrived first and usurped our booking.

We were told we would have to wait or sit at the bar. We chose the bar and watched the parade of dishes that left the kitchen for the dining-room.
After a while Mr. Laris himself appeared and told us his food represented 'freedom from ethnic labels'. He claimed to be the creator of some of the world's most beautiful dishes. Considering the thousands of other good restaurants in the world I thought he might be overestimating himself. Anyway, for my starter I chose rock oysters, plain and simple.
Seeing his disapointment, I made up for it by moving on to one of his trademark dishes - seared scallops on a parsnip mash topped with oyster lemon foam.
The word 'foam' was hardly appetising. Even so, I pushed Gilette from my mind and focussed on the flavour. If this was one of the world's most beautiful dishes it deserved my attention.
As far as I remember it was OK. And it was certainly pretty. But I haven't the faintest recollection how it tasted.

The
Leatherne Bottel
Goring

The Bridle Way
Goring-on-Thames
Berkshire
England

Phone: +44 (0) 1491 872 667

This is the most idyllic outside eating within driving distance of London.
It's on the Thames at a turn of the river in the countryside at Goring in Bucks. The riverside tables are on an un-raised terrace where the river flows at your feet. Ducks swim to the edge and climb out to inspect your shoes.
In front of you is water. On the far bank there's nothing but fields with not a building to be seen anywhere. On a sunny day it's as perfect a place as I've ever encountered - huge sunshades with spacious tables and comfortable chairs. Pure peace.
Last summer Yo and I went there with Tim Gee. We made a wrong turning on the way, got hopelessly lost and found ourselves forty miles away with thirty minutes until last orders which are at a quarter to two.
The roads were empty, the countryside beautiful and our rented car was a Mercedes CLK, so I went at it like a rally driver. Tim read the map and Yo hung on for dear life.

We arrived elated, as if we'd won some big event, but grumpy for having had to rush. What could the chef have to do at 1.45pm that was more important than cooking for us? But once they'd taken our orders and put some champagne in front of us our adrenalin started to drain away. We calmed down and began to relax. They'd even given us the best table, right by the water.
At the Leatherne Bottel the food has a Mediterranean touch - 'duck confit on lentils', 'tuna nicoise', 'fish with girolles' - so we chose a red from Provence.
There wasn't a cloud in the sky, the river flowed gently, ducks climbed out of the water to hunt for food round our feet. Last orders may have been a little early but no-one was rushing us now. We felt ashamed for having been edgy earlier.
We ordered cheese and another bottle of wine (with Yo holding back so he could drive us home). Then some Calvados.
The place is faultless, it really is. It's just those damned last orders.

Le Cirque
Mexico City

Camino Real Hotel
Mariano Escobedo
Mexico City D.F.
Mexico

Phone: +1 55 52 27 7200