This article was also published in the Financial Times.
I write this most self-indulgent article about my best meals of 2010 surrounded by a rather wobbly pile of menus of different shapes, colours and sizes; a much smaller pile of cuttings of my articles from the FT; and a small stack of moleskin notebooks.
The latter have been my constant professional companion for many years now (although I have recently switched from the black covered to the red) because they easily fit into my jacket pocket; the little internal flap at the back is the ideal place for business cards and receipts; and they don't take up too much space on the table.
But despite all these aide-memoires, three vital ingredients still seem to be missing: the aromas emanating from the kitchens; the noise, the bustle, the commotion of a busy dining room; and the sheer pleasure of meeting the chefs or restaurateurs who, together with their respective teams, have just generated such pleasure around the table.
It's the clatter of chopsticks, bowls and teapots that is a common factor in the best Chinese meals, whether in London, Singapore, Hong Kong or Shanghai. The Four Seasons on Gerard Street has in retrospect fully justified the headline the sub-editor gave my article, 'The Best Roast Duck in the World', despite the fact that the phrase 'cheek by jowl' is an understatement of quite how close the tables are to one another.
The heat of the peppery pork rib soup at the outdoor corner café opposite the Tiong Bahru market in Singapore (where breakfast cost £15 for 5) is as memorable on a cold London morning as the recollection of the sun on the back of my neck that day. I look forward to my next dim sum breakfast at the Luk Yu Tea House in Hong Kong; more street food in the markets of Seoul; and I do hope that A'Shan will continue to cook as well as he does at his restaurant in Shanghai, despite seemingly never being separated from a cigarette.
My far more sedate tasting at Kokoromai restaurant in central Tokyo of the 12 different varieties of rice restaurateur Tetsuhiro Yamaguchi has on his menu opened not just my taste buds but has also led to me appearing on the cover of the December issue of Discover Japan magazine, which devotes many pages to this national treasure.
The notion of focusing the restaurant on one particular ingredient or specific attraction links central Tokyo back to central London. Richard Bigg has cleverly opened Pepito by King's Cross as the capital's first and most compact sherry bar; Chris Ammermann and Miles Kirby have set the wheels of Caravan in motion on Exmouth Market, roasting great coffee in the basement and serving great food on the ground floor; while Xavier Rousset has made 28-50 near the Royal Courts of Justice a magnet for wine lovers by collating the gems lurking in several private individuals' wine cellars and putting together what is becoming so very unusual in restaurants today, a list of mature wines at very fair prices.
Sheer, unadulterated enthusiasm for hosting their fellow human beings is not limited to the young, however. 2010 saw the return to the stoves of Bruno Loubet at Bistrot Bruno Loubet in Clerkenwell and Pierre Koffmann at Koffmann's in The Berkeley Hotel. Right across the road, the London outpost of chef Daniel Boulud's Bar Boulud has settled so successfully into its second home in the Mandarin Oriental that it served just under 1,000 customers one Sunday in November.
Roy Metzdorf and Rainer Schultz, if not behind the counters of Weinstein or Kurpfalz Weinstube in Berlin are either pouring wine or fetching it from the cellar, and currently both bear witness to the seeming health-giving properties of this way of life. Santino Busciglio and his fellow Sicilian and partner Joe Martorana have brought a great deal of Mediterranean warmth to many since they opened Mennula in Charlotte Street as have Will Smith and Anthony Demetre since the doors of Les Deux Salons in Covent Garden swung open.
Four other very different but equally impressive practitioners of such hospitality are Dan Kluger, under the mentorship of Jean-Georges Vongerichten, at the abc kitchen in New York; the team at Els Pescadores, Port de Llança, north-east Spain under the ownership of the same two local families since 1947; and the Anglo/Irish Justin Greene, Englishman Robert Reeve and their Philipino chef Eddie Bagiuo, equally responsible for the success of O'Brien's Chop House in Lismore, Eire.
Whether any of these teams will reach the heady professional heights set by Paola Cavazzini and her husband Maurizio Rossi, ably assisted by their son Enrico, at La Greppia (pictured above) in Parma, Italy, only time will tell. She has 37 years in the kitchen as a reservoir of experience and expertise although our conversation lasted no more than a minute just after 3 pm. She accepted my compliments, smiled and promptly asked to be excused so that she could get back to her kitchen.
Finally, to four Frenchmen cooking superbly not in London, New York or Tokyo but at home in France. Frédéric Simonin's new restaurant in Paris is a gem; Mathieu Viannay has lavished such care and attention on La Mère Brazier in Lyons that it must now rival what it was when it first opened 80 years ago; and the combination of father and son, Régis and Jacques Marcon, in their location of St-Bonnet-le-Froid in the hills of the eastern Auvergne is simply stunning.
Finally, there was a dinner at Maison Troisgros, which, despite two unforgettable courses -pumpkin with white truffles and hare à la royale – engendered my only pang of professional jealousy. Across from our table was one occupied by three Germans who had at least 10 bottles of the greatest wines of the world around their table and by the ledge of the window that opened onto the busy kitchen. A discreet question to the waiter revealed their good fortune: they had preceded dinner with lunch at the same table.