I’m Jamie Oliver.
I’m Thomas Keller.
I’m Alice Waters.
I am Jose Andres.
And this is where we like to eat when we’re traveling.
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[all hum]
For me L’Ami Louis.
That’s my, I also love.
For us, L’Ami Louis.
Yeah, for us, L’Ami Louis.
I always love the terrine.
Foie gras.
Which is absolutely delicious.
Agree.
And they do a leg of lamb there,
they carve it at the table.
I’ve not had the leg of lamb, I’ll try that.
But it’s all good, isn’t it?
So good, and so historical, I love that.
What do you have when you’re there?
I have the terrine of foie gras and roast chicken.
The next time I’m gonna have the terrine of foie gras
and leg of lamb, sounds really good.
One of the chefs I love is Pierre Gagnaire.
Yes. Yeah.
He’s one of the guys early on in my life
that I saw he had such a sensitivity for cooking.
It’s a place I love.
The Semilla, up in Saint-Germain.
I just had a river trout
in rock salt.
He brought it out and showed us this fish,
really took my breath away.
I had forgotten what cooking a fish in rock salt
can be like.
Especially an oily fish like that, what a joy.
It was a joy. Beautiful.
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[Jose] Ooh, London. [Alice laughs]
I’d go for Clarke’s.
Clarke’s. Sally Clarke.
Because she became a friend when she came and worked
at Chez Panisse.
And then she took all those ideas back.
She has fixed-price menu, who knows all her farmers.
And it feels like you’re eating in somebody’s home.
I like Fergus Henderson a lot.
I do too. Agree.
I’ve been going there for years.
I also like, there’s a gastro pub called Bentley’s.
Yeah.
Yeah, Richard Corrigan.
Richard Corrigan, yeah. Very good.
Really good fish and chips.
And Jamie, you, your favorite?
It’s a tricky one. You’re the expert.
Well, it’s my hometown,
but I kind of think in the spirit of young talent,
Wildflower is a new one in West London.
Aaron is a great chef, cooking over fire,
farm to table, organic produce,
buying direct from suppliers, which I know many do,
but it’s just so beautiful to see
the next generation of great cooks doing it.
It’s his life on the line, right,
so I love that vulnerability.
I love that youth, and I love that commitment.
So tell me about Indian restaurants.
Yeah, Pahli Hill, Avi who is
ex-10 years at The River Cafe
cooking his mother’s food from India.
But the reason that this plug is worthless
is that he’s just left after five years
and he’s about to open a new one.
So for London, I’m gonna bring it to my native Spain.
And is this amazing chef, Jose Pizarro,
who he’s been bringing for years now, decades,
the best of Spain in the heart of London,
and using English ingredients in the Spanish traditions.
And another restaurant that was also
a Spain meets North Africa, Moro,
which also was delicious last time I ate there.
Yeah, Exmouth Market, yeah.
Was just unbelievable.
Yeah, Sam and Sam Clark, they do a great job.
And what’s beautiful about Moro is
that street used to be rough as old boots.
And they opened that restaurant,
and started cleaning the windows,
and everyone copied that passion and that respect.
And now the whole street is one of the hottest streets.
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I love Tokyo, I used to go there a lot,
but I can’t possibly remember one name.
I can’t either [laughs].
Me either.
Tokyo is a place to love,
but there is one place that is called Mibu.
Mibu?
And has only four tables,
and you eat what he has. Yeah.
Menu forever changing.
He’s probably in his mid-80s right now.
And so what chef does there is just for me unbelievable.
In a second floor, in a entrance
that you will not even recognize as a restaurant.
But once you are in there,
every single thing from the chopsticks to the flowers,
to minimalism, and then the food just speaks by itself.
Mibu, it’s for me, unbelievable.
It is really difficult to get
some of the finest restaurants in Tokyo.
Had some really wonderful experiences there.
But I do have to call out Daniel Calvert,
who worked for us at Per Se, who now has Sezanne.
It is a French restaurant,
so it’s not gonna be Japanese.
But he’s a wonderful young chef,
who’s done a terrific job there.
It is a place in the subway, Jiro,
we all know it by the documentary.
But across the street, it’s a great thing
when you know where the place is,
how much you don’t ever remember the name.
But it’s a place just across the street
from the entrance to Jiro that specializes in the yakitori,
and especially every single part of the chicken,
the skin from here, the oyster, the salty legs from there.
And that place alone is one of those places that
sometimes you will not read in the guides,
but just go to that subway, find it,
wait in line until you get your seat at the bar or anywhere,
and you start getting one by one piece of chicken.
That one for me was one of my biggest surprises.
That’s what I love about Japan.
There’s artisans who are doing one thing,
a person just doing tempura, right.
They specialize in just this one technique,
or this one ingredient, and it’s just breathtaking.
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For me, I love Pizzeria Bianco.
It’s an incredible pizza, Chris Bianco’s pizza crust
is utterly…
There’s one here?
Yes.
Yeah, it’s utterly delicious.
And they have a pizza on there called a Rosa,
which is so good, pine nuts, rosemary.
Yes, I love it.
Red onions.
We were lucky to have it last night, weren’t we?
Agree.
So that’s definitely.
I have to go for one of my guys,
Aitor, he opened Somni.
One of the most creative chefs you will ever meet.
And I love him, and I love what he’s doing right now.
He changed the menu every other week,
so whatever I recommend you today is, no way, Jose,
you’re gonna find it again.
I have to say I like to eat in my own restaurant.
Here in Los Angeles?
You have a restaurant here in Los Angeles?
I do. You do?
You are opening restaurants beyond Berkeley?
Oh my God, she’s a sinner.
This is a restaurant called LULU,
and it’s at the Hammer Museum,
and it’s part of UCLA.
I love that.
Well, mine may surprise you,
my favorite restaurant is Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles.
On a Sunday morning, fried chicken
and waffles with maple syrup.
I know it sounds crazy,
it sounded crazy to me the first time I had it,
but I just fell in love with it.
So when I’m in Los Angeles, I’m at
Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles whenever I can.
That’s good information.
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[Jose] Madrid.
Jose, he can speak for all of us.
Madrid… All of us.
I don’t wanna talk about Madrid.
It’s like go to every restaurant, people,
just go to every restaurant.
I’m gonna get in trouble in Madrid.
There’s no way I gonna say Madrid.
Is one place, but very small,
but it’s a chef that’s so talented,
and the name of the restaurant is Bistronomika,
what he has, you see it,
he has a little grill right in front, the fish,
few catches that he buys in the seafood market
in the morning, you order,
and he’s throwing into the grill as you speak.
Just fascinating, but he makes one thing,
it’s called a traditional gilda,
which is this kind of skewer, this pincho
that you have in the Basque country
that usually is with an anchovy,
and an olive and a green pepper.
But he’s transformed that and he does it with tuna.
That bite alone is just a bite that you want to keep having
all day long, all day long.
So tell me your favorite roasted baby pig or baby lamb.
There you have to move away from Madrid.
Okay. Madrid has good ones.
To find the places I will say are unbelievable.
Yeah.
An hour and a half away from Madrid for baby lamb
is a place called Mannix.
It’s not the most beautiful restaurant in the world,
but it’s the restaurant with the most heart in the world.
And Marco is the owner,
you will see him in the morning two hours before service
with all the baby lambs
that they are no more than three-weeks-old.
So good.
Only with water. So good.
And fire and smoke.
He’ll put it there and he’s there watching.
When I go to his restaurant,
I try always to arrive two hours before
to see everything that goes before the dish is finish.
And he’s a guy that listens to the lambs,
to the fire, he cooks with his ear.
You ask him what temperature,
This is the right temperature.
What wine do you drink with that?
Heavy wine, because I like my mouth to be fresh.
But me, I will go with a Mencia from Bierzo.
He’s one guy called Raul Perez,
and he’s making some of the best reds,
new reds, I would say,
for what everybody thinks about Spain.
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Good luck on that one, guys.
It’s hard.
I have to mention Pujol.
Pujol, Quintonil.
Quintonil yeah. Those two.
Gabriela.
They’re really as good as you read.
And then there is a churros club,
it’s called Moro, you been to Moro’s?
Yes, I have.
Yeah, the best churros you ever had.
It’s Gabriela’s.
Contramar, Gabriela’s is Contramar.
Contramar.
Yeah, Gabriela is a great job.
It’s her birthday today I think.
Last time I was in Mexico was during the mushroom season.
We don’t think about wild mushrooms in Mexican cooking.
You see it in photos, in books,
but when you are in mushroom season, September/October,
and morels, and chanterelles, and ceps,
it’s just astonishing.
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One of my favorite restaurants
is a small yakitori restaurant, Yakitori Totto.
Simple, easy, they don’t recognize me.
The quality of the food is the quality of the food,
and the quality of food is excellent.
I have to mention Gramercy Park.
Gramercy Park, yeah.
Because he recognizes me.
Michael? Yeah, totally.
And when I was there last time, it just felt like everything
that I love about Chez Panisse,
he saw that and made it happen for me.
New York?
So hard.
I like a hot dog in the streets.
The first thing I ever did,
and I know this is like, really?
I was off a boat, 30 days on the sea,
I’m walking in the streets, I’m a young sailor,
and still I remember that moment, that smell
of the hotdog, the ketchup, the mustard.
I say, Put anything you have,
if it’s included in the price, I’ll take it all.
And for me that bite of hot dog is still,
I close my eyes is like,
Okay, this is New York, this is my Manhattan.
Lovely memory.
Or can you think?
I don’t think so, but that’s okay.
The one I’m gonna mention is a place called King,
it’s run by three wonderful women.
I always get so excited when strong women
can make it in New York, right,
as they should be, we need more women in the industry.
And they cook so beautifully, great ingredients.
The menu changes every day,
twice a day as far as I can work out,
so you never know what’s on the menu.
I was there just last week,
and it’s really exquisite cooking.
It’s kind of, I would say sort of French rustic,
a little bit of Italian in there as well,
and a little bit of English,
’cause there’s a mix of ladies running the kitchen.
So yeah.
What is the place of Marco’s up in Harlem?
The Red Rooster.
The Red Rooster, the fried chicken there
is great because when, especially as a tourist,
you go and you go Manhattan, right, midtown, Soho,
we don’t move from there.
Go Harlem to go to Red Rooster, see what he’s done there,
which I think is unbelievable.
And the fried chicken, there are many other dishes,
but the fried chicken there is just astonishing.
Beautiful.
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But one thing is true,
we don’t have enough time in our lifetimes.
No.
To enjoy the amazing bounty of cities.
So me, sometimes I like to go to that city
that seems is not in any guide, in any magazine,
because they don’t think that city is cool enough.
And you land there,
and all of a sudden what you find is just amazing people
with amazing things, and traditions
that you had no clue,
because nobody ever has written about it.
So we all need to move away from our comfort zones,
and move beyond that horizon,
because we’re gonna discover things
that are gonna be blowing our minds away.
Every day I do that, I keep learning so much.
We need to do that more often, I think.
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