Awards 2023

Living legend Michel Guérard is receiving a Special Award of Honour at La Liste 2023 recognizing his tremendous influence on the culinary world. Chef Guérard is most notably one of the founders of nouvelle cuisine, and the inventor of cuisine minceur. Chef Guérard was the first great chef to work with the food industry, one of the first great chefs to open a bistro, he launched in 1996 with his Ferme Thermale the wave of spas that has since spread to hotels all over Europe, he was one of the first chefs to buy a vineyard (Château de Bachen), opened a second discreet hotel on the Atlantic coast - and remained faithful to his slimming cuisine. If there's a recipe for success in Michel Guérard's life and cooking, it's that just when other colleagues are putting their feet up and basking in deserved glory, he goes back to the drawing board, questions what he's accomplished - and simply writes another act.

Not yet 30 and with just over a year at Le Burgundy Paris, Pierre-Jean Quinonero is today’s go-to pastry chef for Parisians with a sweet tooth. Take afternoon tea under Le Burgundy’s glass ceiling, or save space at the end of dinner at Le Baudelaire. At “tea time”, Quinonero offers exquisitely executed favorites such as Paris-Brest and apple and cinnamon tatin. At dinner, his creations become more theatrical, from hazelnut, saffron and lime to a chocolate dish with black cardamom and oabika, the little-used cocoa juice extracted from the pulp. Quinonero is from Auvergne and grew up in a food-loving family. He credits his French and Spanish grandmothers for inspiring his career, which he has honed at Chateau de Ferrieres and the Four Seasons George V.

For La Liste, no-one dessert better than ChikaLicious, the outstanding and outrageously innovative pastry shop which serves New Yorkers a fully sweet menu from its East Village counter, described by chef and co-owner Chika Tillman as “American desserts, French presentation, and Japanese tasting portions”. Try yogurt panna cotta with pomegranate sorbet and brioche crouton, or white chocolate mousse and apple trifle with Calvados genoise and butter pecan. In addition to the dessert restaurant, ChikaLicious has ‘The Dessert Club’ pastry shop outlets in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bangkok and Dubai - with more on the way - where you can try signature Dough’ssants and crepe cakes.

The Mediterranean region includes at least twenty countries across southern Europe, north Africa and western Asia, and is as vast as it is diverse. Its cuisines include French, Spanish, Greek, and Italian to Turkish, Moroccan, and Lebanese, an astounding array of cultures, climates and culinary history. How to bring it all together? Jerusalem-born, London-based chef Yotam Ottolenghi has been working to do just that for decades exploring and translating the magic of the Med’s rich produce and incredible variety into millions of homes with his Mediterranean Feast TV series and nine cookbooks, including Plenty, Plenty More, Simple, and Flavour. It is 20 years since he opened his first Ottolenghi delicatessen in Notting Hill and he now has five, along with restaurants NOPI and ROVI. From these and his infamous Test Kitchen, he has trained and inspired scores of chefs and influenced our store cupboard, turning Mediterranean and Middle Eastern ingredients such as preserved lemons, za’atar, pomegranate molasses, and tahini into everyday staples.

Lyon, the legendary food destination nestled between the Saône and the Rhône, is a city of old friends and new faces. The bouchons such as Daniel et Denise, the beating heart of Lyon’s food scene, rub shoulders with famous restaurants like La Mère Brazier and the Auberge du Pont de Collonges - best known as Paul Bocuse - along with the wine merchants of the old town, and the cheesemakers and butchers in the covered market. Alongside all this are a new generation of dining spots, both innovative and even meat-free, including Ludovic and Tabata Mey at Les Apothicaires, Maxime Laurenson at Rustique, Louis Fargeton of L’Établi, and Peruvian Miraflores. Culina Hortus is probably the best known vegetarian spot, then we have the new food court, Food Traboule, and the Lyon Street Food Festival, which celebrated its sixth year this summer. Together they deliver a gourmet destination fizzing with life, making Lyon, once more, the true capital of great eating.

Abruzzo-born, self-taught chef Niko Romito remains true to his roots while developing Italian food into something indisputably unique. Le Reale, which he took over in 2000 with his sister Cristina, is as much a restaurant as a testing ground for the wizardry of Romito’s invention, which focuses on intense research into ingredients and techniques, often resulting in dishes with very few ingredients but incredible complexity. He’s also a global entrepreneur with Il Ristorante Niko Romito in Dubai, Beijing, Shanghai, Milan, and Paris thanks to his partnership with the Bulgari hotels, with Tokyo and Rome openings in the diary for 2023. Ever keen to share his expertise, the Accademia Nico Romito trains chefs at his Casadonna monastery location, where he is also developing his Campus project, a research hub for the future of nutrition and food processing techniques which will open within two years.

It’s thirty years since Daniel Boulud opened DANIEL on New York’s Park Avenue, and forty since he began cooking in the Big Apple, but he remains at the top of his game, with eleven New York establishments and many more around the world. His Dinex group has gone from strength to strength, seen off the challenge of Covid, and enjoyed two recent openings. Le Pavillon at One Vanderbilt borrows its name from Henri Soulé’s legendary restaurant (1944-1966), a chef who defined French cuisine in the United States. Le Gratin, an authentic Lyonnaise bouchon on Beekman Street, is a tribute to the city of Boulud’s birth. He has also opened his first west coast restaurant, in Beverly Hills with Mandarin Oriental, and Le Voyage, a restaurant on the cruise liner Beyond. His tireless innovation brings traditional French food to new diners year after year.

Australian chef Josh Niland, whose wife Julie runs his ever evolving Sydney business, has changed the way chefs use fish all over the world with his zero-waste “fish butchery” approach. His methods seemed radical when he started talking about them, but make sense - use the whole fish, from fin-to-gill, as we do nose-to-tail with animals. Age and cure fish. Don’t forget the offal. As many chefs lack the knowledge to do this, he shares his ideas in two cookbooks, The Whole Fish and Take One Fish. Niland enjoys tremendous global acclaim for a chef who only opened his first restaurant, Saint Peter, in 2016. Today he also has the infamous Fish Butchery fishmonger, where cuts are displayed like fine jewels, and his interpretation of a fish ‘n’ chip shop, Charcoal Fish.

The Alléno family lost their 24-year-old son, Antoine, on the night of May 8, 2022, the victim of a terrible crime with tragic consequences. Yannick Alléno, an incredibly popular chef and restaurateur known for reworking classic sauces, has been profoundly changed by the grief of his son’s death. In September he set up the Association Antoine Alléno to help victims of crime under the age of 25 and their families.

Chef-owner Manoella Buffara elevates regional ingredients into elegant fine dining in her Curitiba restaurant in the Brazilian state of Paraná, home to the Iguazu Falls, and is widely considered one of the best chefs in Latin America. But even more commendable than her cooking is her commitment to reconnecting the people of Curitiba with food, and improving the food system of her home. She started with bees - placing hives around the city, which quickly became talking points, and works to create urban farms and educate others to grow and cook through her Instituto Manu Buffara. She has over eighty gardeners growing for her across the city, and scores of children visit her own vegetable garden each week. The five-table, tasting menu-only restaurant is 60% plant-based. Manu uses local meat and fish but has eschewed beef, the cause of so much destruction in the Amazon, since 2019. She has just opened Ella in New York and launched a one year pop-up in the Maldives, translating her precise and authentic approach to local and seasonal cuisine for the Soneva Fushi resort.

We hear plenty of good things about Arnaud Lallement's cooking, but few customers know that this unshowy chef is in the process of transforming his restaurant to meet high environmental standards - perhaps because he’s not the type to shout about saving the world with a handful of fine dining covers. Just outside of Reims, L’Assiette’s gardener Benoit Deloffre has spent several years working on his vegetable garden, which now produces edible flowers, vegetables, and herbs. Lallement has his own beehives and cooks with produce that is either certified organic or produced along organic lines. The kitchen has gone fully electric and waste is composted. All in all it feels like a sustainable step-by-step evolution of a fine dining restaurant compared to the approaches of more radical chefs.

31-year-old Dieuveil Malonga is committed to giving a voice to African food around the world. In addition to restaurant Meza Malonga in Kigali, Rwanda, where he nurtures the continent’s food culture by training scores of young chefs, his Chefs in Africa platform provides a space for thousands more to meet and share ideas. Over 4,000 chefs, 75% in Africa, are using the digital tool, which connects professional chefs and students with businesses, training programmes and government schemes, working with them to uproot obstacles such as discrimination and poor training or access to employment. Born in Congo-Brazzaville and raised in Belgium, Malonga trained in Germany’s best restaurants before taking part in France’s Top Chef. His fusion cuisine at Meza Malonga mixes local flavors and high-end techniques, and he hopes to expand in 2023.

The very best fish and outstanding shellfish - a love letter from the Garcia Azpiroz family to the fishermen of La Coruña and the treasures of the sea. All the produce at Desde 1911 is of incredible quality and starts, every morning, with the day’s catch. Alongside chef Diego Murciego is sommelier Sergio Otero, who manages a cellar of the best bottles in the Iberian peninsula, and restaurant manager Abel Valverde, formerly of Santi Santamaria in Can Fabes who was a pioneer of Spanish locavorism. Having lost such a brilliant chef far too early - Santamaria died in 2011 - it’s wonderful to see his team continuing his good work.

Apricity means the warmth of the sun in winter, but Chantelle Nicolson is sprinkling her sunshine on London’s Mayfair year-round thanks to the balmy success of her 2022 opening. Known for plant-based cooking at Tredwell’s and pandemic pop-up All’s Well, former lawyer Nicolson runs a mostly female kitchen with head chef Eve Seeman, and describes Apricity as “conscious cooking and joyful dining”. Hit dishes include black pearl and oyster mushrooms in XO sauce, butterhead lettuce with miso aioli, cured Cornish sea bass, and pork dumplings with horseradish. Eat in the light-flooded dining room or the chef’s table downstairs. Beautiful plates, complex flavors, and the comfort of great food from experienced hands, with plenty of surprises in the mix.

Following in the footsteps of Charles Barrier and Jean Bardet, there’s a new star chef in the Loire, Christophe Hay. His luxury hotel in Blois with its spa, bistro, patisserie, and restaurant is one of 2022’s most significant openings. Hay is completely in tune with the times, using regional suppliers, breeding his own Wagyu, and serving food that is contemporary but deeply rooted in the region and classical French cooking. Dishes include the three-bird pie Belle Aurore aux trois plumes with lavender sabayon, poached Sologne pike-perch with agastache and corn, and carp in Chambord with black summer truffles and crayfish. He’s only been on our radar for a decade, but Christophe Hay is bound for great things.

Modern Chinese restaurant Mora on Hong Kong’s car-free Upper Lascar Row celebrates the cuisine’s best known ingredient, soy. Chef-owner Vicky Lau, founder of Tate Dining Room, opened this bijou 28-seat space with head chef Percy Ho to explore the texture-based cuisine China is known for and the versatility of the soybean, bringing diners tofu in all its incarnations, from silky and soupy to crunchy and meaty. Don’t miss the cold chicken and soy milk broth with udon and bean paste, and the “butter”, which is actually thick soy cream whipped with fermented tofu. Lau has even invested in machinery to extract her own high quality soy milk.

Lucky Texas : Mashama Bailey’s much-lauded The Grey in Savannah, Georgia, has spread its wings and landed in Austin. The Diner Bar has its roots in the same style of Port City Southern cuisine, but with splashes of Texas and a menu showcasing the best of Austin’s growers, gamers, and fishermen. Try head chef Kristine Kittrell’s eggplant and okra, foie and grits, curried goat, and shrimp rice, or drop by for happy hour Martinis and oysters. The more casual Grey Market, with counter food and sandwiches to go, is located in the same new hotel, The Thompson Austin.

Langdon Hall in Cambridge, Ontario, 90 minutes from Toronto, is as sublime and sophisticated as the food Jason Bangerter serves there. As a leader in Canadian cuisine, Bangerter is dedicated to localism and sources 80% of his produce from the region, serving the best fish and fowl with unique seasonal touches, such as sour cherry preserves, chestnut confit, “forest floor broth”, and toasted hay and barley jus, with luxurious flourishes like champagne velouté, organic Canadian caviar, and truffles. Langdon Hall is a 19th-century country house hotel built for the Astors, set in a 75-acre estate with a kitchen garden and spa. In Europe, Bangerter worked with Anton Mosimann and Pierre Koffmann. He came home to Canada in 2002 and is about to complete a decade at Langdon Hall.

“Flemish Viking” Willem Hiele started simple, serving dinner from his parents’ former fisherman’s cottage in Ostend on the coast of Belgium, in 2015. After a short break last year he’s back for 2022, with a new eponymous restaurant in a Brutalist building in the Keignaert nature reserve. Hiele comes from a family of fishermen and says he is led by the “rhythm of the sea, the unpredictability of nature, and the individuality of the region”. This means he serves one tasting menu, taking diners through sea, earth, grass, and fire, interpreting the land through food.

You might not think of Guatemala as a food destination, but Debora Fadul is here to change that. Her Guatemala City restaurant Diacá brings indigenous flavors to the fore, with every dish at her chef’s table starting with the ingredient rather than a technique or recipe. There are tomatoes, corn and chillies, of course, as well as coffee, cardamon, mushrooms, and sesame. She also focuses on the people, both grower and cook, starting conversations between producer and consumer. Guatemala is well known for its geography and wildlife, and Fadul is working tirelessly to elevate its food culture to the same level, through Diacá and a number of non profit organizations, such as her database of producers, Crece en Guate.

Drink in the view of Hermanus harbor alongside your seafood at the hidden gem of Perlemoen, a stone fisherman’s shack on the coast 120km south of Cape Town. This was the site of the town’s first abalone hatchery - called perlemoen in South Africa - and is the only restaurant dedicated to serving the specialty fresh out the sea. Jannie and Annabella Malherbe restored the building and opened their no-reservation, BYO restaurant in May 2022. Tasting plates of abalone include carpaccio, ceviche, risotto and abalone Benedict, alongside an abundance of other local seafood.

When Antonia Klugmann found this 17th century mill in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, east of Venice near the Italian-Slovenian border, it offered the perfect spot for Klugmann’s first restaurant. She spent four years renovating to create a small dining room - only 18 covers - with spellbinding views of both the countryside and Klugmann at work in her kitchen. Her elegant style is guided by the seasons and region, therefore the two tasting menus and small à la carte change frequently and she is inspired by ingredients rather than bound to tradition, pairing Jerusalem artichokes with baccalà, beef carpaccio with bone marrow and cavolo nero, and creating stunning pasta such as beetroot ravioli with roast chicory, and corn gnocchi with Parmesan extraction and juniper oil. Though off the beaten track, there are three rooms for diners to stay the night - especially useful if you’ve fully explored the regional wine list!

This long-awaited opening in the grounds of the 18th-century Château de Saint-Vrain, 40km south of Paris, was previously home to the Comtesse du Barry, the Borghese, and then the studios of Niki de St. Phalle and the sculptor Tinguely. After a notable stint at Bones in Paris, Australian chefs James Henry and Shaun Kelly began selling produce from their own farm to top restaurants, and featured in the New York Times. Today, their farm-to-table project, Le Doyenné, welcomes customers with dishes such as autumn barbajuan, eggplant and Doyenné lardo tartine, marinated Charentes shrimp, root vegetable salad and homemade ricotta, scallops with wild mushrooms, and braised Kriaxera Duckling. The 40-cover farmhouse restaurant also has 11 rooms, and exploring the abundant walled garden is almost as attractive a proposition as dinner.

Jérôme Jaegle of Alchémille in Kaysersberg has won a slew of awards and competitions since his apprenticeships with Jean-Yves Schillinger and Christian Têtedoie, but he returned to his hometown in Alsace to open his first restaurant, an ode to the indigenous flora and fauna of the area and a true hidden gem. This son and grandson of butchers reminds us of a young Michel Bras and draws on his love of nature to create dishes inspired by his kitchen garden, as well as foraging, fermenting and preserving to bring diners the best of the region, year-round, with his constantly evolving cuisine. There is a choice of three menus, all with a focus on local and plant-based products, such as courgettes, radishes, trout roe, fennel, hogweed, snails, mint, asparagus, and ceps.

Venture to Payrin-Augmontel, a small commune in the Tarn, south-east of Castres, and your reward is Villa Pinewood, a unique restaurant from chefs and sommeliers Thomas and Anne Cabrol, known for their tremendously popular No.5 Wine Bar in Toulouse. Here, their 15-course menu truly celebrates local producers, and the Cabrols are on hand during the evening to share more about the ingredients - 95% are from Tarn and 80% within 20km. There might be mushrooms with bay and wild herbs, cep and hazelnut pâté, and pigeon cooked on a flambadou with lard and Périgueux sauce. The wines are outstanding, it often seems the dish has been matched to the wine instead of the other way around, and at €89 this is a great value excursion.

Chef Lorna Muñoz Arias serves authentic Chilean food - Chilota - from her restaurant Travesía in Castro on Chiloé island, in Chile’s spectacular Lake District. But her conscientious approach to the origin and authenticity of each dish marks Travesía out from other local restaurants. She worked with historian Renato Cárdenas Álvarez, who died in 2022, to research the dishes, and they share the cuisine in their cookbook. Book one of the few tables in the simple yellow building - where Muñoz Arias grew up - to try her hake ceviche in clam sauce, oysters with seaweed, braised octopus with chapaleles (potato dumplings) in olive sauce, eel cheek gratin, and smoked pork. For dessert, there’s passion fruit semifreddo and raspberry tart.

Chef Shuji Niitome is considered Japan’s top tempura master, and has elevated his art to a level of indisputable genius, reinventing tempura while remaining true to its origin. His secret? Hakurikiko flour, preserved at -60°C for three days. He starts with a mixture of water and eggs, which he whips. This is placed over an ice bath, into this he sifts cold flour, and briefly whips the two together. Instead of dredging the food first with rice flour or cornstarch, everything is dipped directly into the dough. The result is incomparable. PS. Don't try this at home, a normal fridge doesn't go below -20°.

Cult Montreal restaurant Au Pied de Cochon’s country cousin the Sugar Shack - Cabane à Sucre au Pied de Cochon - is located in prime maple syrup territory St Benoît de Mirabel, 55km outside Montreal. Chef Martin Picard is known for indulgence and gluttony - he fed Anthony Bourdain a stream of foie gras dishes at one meal - but also for promoting traditional Québecois cuisine, and this is his way of preserving the cabane à sucre tradition for generations to come. The sugar shack tradition has families tapping syrup together then cooking and eating with it, and Picard serves maple pig’s head, braided merguez tagine, duck fat pancakes, and maple condensed milk. The cabin is so popular it has even spawned its own sibling, the Shack Next Door (La Cabane d’à Côté).

Husband-and-wife team Roxane and Jean Sévègnes run this bijou bistro together, bringing traditional French cuisine to a modern audience - weekdays only so the tiny team (just the two of them) can enjoy some time off together! Chef Jean has worked at Bernard Pacaud's Ambroisie and Alain Ducasse, among many respected names, and in Café des Ministères he truly fulfils the promise of his impressive CV. Go for the Gascony pork and chicken liver terrine, Drôme snails, Normandy scallops, calf’s head, tripe, and their famous vol au vent ‘Grande Tradition’. This is the place to eat true French food without breaking the bank.

Anyone who’s eaten Max Natmessnig’s food will know he’s one to watch, and it was no surprise to hear the Vienna-born chef announced as the new head chef of Alois, the fine dining restaurant of Dallmayr delicatessen in Munich. He joined in October and serves a 17-20 dish menu in amuse-bouche portions, plenty to get the true sense of each plate and Natmessnig’s outstanding skill. His style has its roots in the classical but reaches beyond in terms of flavor - he pairs langoustine with satay and pandan, char with chives and buttermilk - breaking boundaries even in cooking of this level, and showing off the fruits of his impressive CV, which includes Steirereck, Oud Sluis, Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare, and Lech’s Rote Wand.

Chef-owner of Philadelphia’s Her Place, Amanda Shulman, used to sneak into kitchens as a student journalist on the pretext of writing about them. After an 18-month stage at Marc Vetri’s trattoria Amis, she realized she’d found her vocation, and with Her Place has created a new way to dine out. It began as a New York pop up for friends, growing into a community of hundreds. After stints at Momofuku Ko and Joe Beef, she reinvented the concept in Philly, and Her Place is now a “not-restaurant dinner party restaurant” with 24 seats, two sittings a night, and the original vibe of friends discovering and enjoying food together. The menu, which changes weekly, is deeply personal with Italian, French, and Jewish influences - lobster pain perdu, stone fruit with whipped cheese and speck, strawberry profiteroles. It’s also one of Bon Appétit’s 50 best restaurants of 2022, while she’s a James Beard nominee. Brava, Amanda.

Moroccan-Spanish chef Zineb Hattab is as refreshing as any palate cleanser, mixing Mexican flavors from her time at New York’s Cosme with Swiss produce, at plant-based KLE in Zurich. How about tostadas with hazelnut and corn, or kohlrabi with ancho chilli and macadamias? Or try ravioli with cream and pistachio, or squash, Morello cherries, and curry. Her Moroccan roots come through in each dish, especially in desserts such as lemon meringue pie using Moroccan verbena and Swiss lemongrass, and meringue with violet and orange blossom. KLE has succeeded in freeing vegan cooking from worthiness to focus the pleasure of the dining experience.

Amsterdam talent Joris Bijdendijk, the chef behind the Rijksmuseum’s RIJKS and the younger Wils, is known for his sense of humor as much as his commitment to making a name for his homeland’s cuisine. He is determined to raise the profile of Dutch food internationally and shares these ambitions in one of his cookbooks, A Kitchen for the Low Countries. Both his restaurants use prestigious Dutch ingredients such as Zeeland salt, caviar, and seafood, side by side with the international flavors that have passed though the trading city of Amsterdam for centuries. At RIJKS there’s beetroot millefeuille with Tomasu soy beurre blanc, and radish with ponzu broth and Dutch ginger. Wils serves a fire-focused menu cooked over a fire pit and in a wood-fired oven. At the other end of the food spectrum is the tinned soup brand, Snert, he launched during the pandemic, giving away 10,000 tins to food banks.

Tel Aviv’s Raz Rahav has recreated Israeli cuisine for the 21st century with his tasting menu restaurant OCD, where he preps and plates each of the 19 courses for 19 diners seated at his counter. Rahav is committed to sustainability and seasonality and draws on food and history from across Israel, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, serving Israeli caviar, Ashkenazi dumplings, buckwheat puffs, miso hummus, bay leaf crème brûlée and olive oil marmalade. He is as obsessive and compulsive about his menu as he was in 2016, when OCD opened.

As her father was the owner of the legendary bouchon Le Mercière, Marie-Victorine Manoa grew up with the food of Lyon. In her Paris restaurant, Aux Lyonnais, a small historic establishment and part of the Ducasse group, she serves Lyonnais-inspired dishes refined in a contemporary way. Onion stuffed with Bresse chicken, chicken liver cake with bone marrow, spatchcocked partridge with roast liver and buttered cabbage, and Pommes Anna with smoked eel and artichoke. Manoa’s food goes well beyond the Lyon of the past to become something truly authentic and her own. We look forward to watching her evolve even more.