Neil Walker

Last week I managed to secure a reservation at Restaurant Ernst in Berlin which, from what I had been hearing, would be worth the 4 hour flight from Turkey. I was not disappointed.
Canadian born wunderkind Dylan Watson-Brawn was previously cooking for just six people from his Berlin apartment (at the age of 19!!) under the project name ‘Jung, Grün & Blau but has now opened a 12 seat counter around his open kitchen in the area of Wedding. He was awarded his first michelin star last year and I am certain that more accolades will follow, including (I predict) him breaking into the W50 best list. Not that he really cares about such things. Speaking to him during the thirty course meal, which is served by the five chefs and one sommelier who represent the entire staff (no pot washers here), he made no bones about expressing his opinion about such things as the Guide Michelin, Opinionated About Dining and Worlds 50 Best. His opinion is not necessarily one of disdain but more one of indifference. His and his team’s focus is very clearly within the four walls of the restaurant during the four services they perform each week or out in the fields, woods, farms and forests with their multitude of suppliers whom they spend time visiting when the restaurant is closed. There is a name and a relationship that comes with each ingredient you are served. The first salad of the year is from David (the names have been changed to protect the innocent, and because I can’t remember them) down the road and is served with the colostrum of Mary’s cow on a plate made by Matthias etc etc.
The focus lies on seasonality and quality and not necessarily locality with Mangalitza pork from Austria and some other ingredients coming from Sicily, but you can bet that there will be a very close and personal relationship between the restaurant and that supplier no matter where in the world they are.
Some more local ingredients are donated because other restaurants simply don’t use them but the supplier thinks that rather than throw them away, let’s give them to Dylan and his team who crave not the fashionable and for show ingredients but whatever is excellent and tasty in that moment. The salad I referred to was the first of the year and pulled from the ground a couple of hours before service. Hence the ever changing menu and a service that is more like jazz than a fully orchestrated affair. Dishes can change during service as the menu evolves before your eyes. They come thick and fast but you never feel rushed in any way as each chef presents each plate in a friendly and relaxed way. They chat to you as they cook and within minutes you feel totally at ease and more like you are at a friends house than a michelin star restaurant.
There is certainly an air of arrogance to Dylan, who is now only in his mid 20’s, but I think it is refreshing to talk to a chef who cuts straight through all the crap and tells you exactly what he thinks with no filter. At one point during the meal he overheard me and my dining companion wandering out loud how exactly they make any money when they only serve 48 covers per week. He came over and said “This isn’t London Neil, I pay xxx euros per month in rent....that’s how we can make money”.
It was a factor that we had not considered, the area of Wedding, where the restaurant is located, is....erm...’colourful’ to say the least. Gentrification certainly has not reached Wedding. As I walked to the restaurant from the nearest station I strolled past three riot vans full of police gearing up for something and the restaurant is surrounded by boarded up businesses and graffiti. I was escorted from the restaurant to my taxi by one of the chefs at the end of the evening which was very kind, if a little emasculating.
There is not a huge amount of dining in Berlin that is worth a special journey, but Ernst may be one of the first Berlin restaurants that people will get on a plane to travel to. A restaurant that will be the centre piece to their visit to the city with the rest of the trip planned around this one focal point.
I guess you can see that I like the place. I do. You should go. Soon. Less

Dinner last week at two michelin star restaurant Horváth in Berlin. This was the last of the three restaurants that I had traveled to Berlin to try. With Ernst being the standout clear winner for me, Horváth comes in second though not a particularly strong second. This wasn’t a bad meal but some of the dishes really were not my cup of tea. I had extremely high hopes after the bread arrived with not only some great butter but also mashed potato with the skins of the potatoes roasted and crushed over the top. There was sourdough, a fried bread roll and a bread that had blood pudding through it. This was a bread course to rival my personal favourite at Frog in London. There Adam Handling serves his bread with butter topped with chopped up crisp chicken skin and a rich chicken jus which is pretty much impossible to beat in my book.
There was some interesting use of a celeriac root that had been baked in a salt crust and then left in the crust for 12 months to completely dry out. This technique resulted in a very intense umami flavour and was a nice addition when grated over the potato “Linda” dish.
The rest of the meal really just passed me by without offending but there were a couple of dishes that I remember for being quite strange texturally, the baked meatloaf and the cured rabbit along with, as I said before, some flavour combinations that really didn’t do it for me.
The service was excellent, friendly and relaxed and the wine pairing was great although in hindsight I wish I had tried the juice pairing as I have heard great things. I may go back as I have read some other reviews where people have had a dud meal there but returned a few months later to have the meal of their lives, so it sounds like a chef that is constantly pushing and changing dishes while experimenting, which is never a bad thing.
The other dinner I had in Berlin was at a restaurant called Nobelhart & Schmutzig which came in third. Here they give you the menu and at the bottom is written “The finest compliment you can pay your dining companions is to switch your mobile to silent and leave it out of sight, please take memories not pictures’. I was going to review it but I can’t remember what I ate ?.
I would say to the owner that if you are going to enforce this rule then maybe don’t stand in the middle of the completely open kitchen texting someone on your mobile.
They seem a bit pleased with themselves at Nobelhart, and I’m not sure they should be. The food was unmemorable apart from a couple of dishes I can remember for being bad and with huge gaps between the dishes the service was painfully slow.
Next stop Bangkok in a couple of weeks followed immediately by a trip to San Sebastián for this years OAD awards.
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A fantastic dinner last week with Cem Orkut and Sinem Soykam at restaurant Ent which is located in the incredibly beautiful Casa Dell’Arte Hotel near Bodrum. The hotel itself is worth visiting just for the art that is lying around, purportedly worth tens of millions (the hotel is owned by a wealthy individual) and also the beautiful beach. The chef, Yoldas Sönmez cooks food that is loyal to the local products, respectful to the traditional methods and yet creative and innovative from an open kitchen to an outdoor dining area set in front of the beach. Maybe you remember me saying that the Turks don’t really do fine dining very well...,,they do here ? Less

Last but not least of this delicious meal....
SEVEN TEXTURES OF CHOCOLATE
Black mole &e Gianduja mousse, white Chocolate Ganache Spheres and
Chocolate ice cream
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After visiting #diverxomadrid we simply had to give @streetxolondon a try and we didn’t regret it. Creative, Inventive food with seriously stunning flavours. .

Michelin Guide - 🍽
OAD list -
W50Best- .
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#achefabroad #itravelforfood #foodie #foodies #foodporn #foodpic #foodpics #finedining #michelindining #eats #instafoodie #michelinstar #oad #worlds50bestrestaurants #worlds50best #eater #iphonexsmax #michelinguide #foodlepro #influencer #spanishfoodie #oadtop100 #diverxomadrid #diverxo #dabizmuñoz #londonfoodies #eaterlondon #londoneater #desserts Less

Dinner a couple of weeks ago at the newish Da Terra in London’s Bethnal Green. Partnered with Argentine chef Paul Airaudo, head chef Rafael Cagali, formerly of Simon Rogan’s Aulis and the Fat Duck, cooks “Latin American cuisine with Italian inspiration” in the East London site that used to house Nuno Mendes’s Viajante and Lee Westcott’s Typing Room.
It was a nice enough meal but nothing that really shone for me. Lovely friendly service and a great table right in front of the open kitchen. It wouldn’t surprise me if this place garners a Michelin star when the guide comes out again but at the same time it wouldn’t surprise me if it didn’t . It’s somewhere that I would be interested in revisiting in a years time to see how it has developed.
When in San Sebastián last week I also visited Paulo Airado’s michelin starred restaurant Amelia, which was a meal that I would go back for much sooner.
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Lunch last week at Baan Nual in Soi Sam Sen 2, Bangkok. Owner Sittisak Sakornsin takes care of the diners lucky enough to secure a reservation at one of his two tables in this small homely restaurant while his Sister Yuwarat cooks family style Thai dishes of the highest quality using ingredients procured from Trok Mor market each morning. It feels less like a restaurant and more like you are eating at your Grandmother’s house. This relatively new Bangkok eatery is fully booked up to 2 months in advance and it is easy to see why. The only way to enjoy this style of cooking is with a group of friends so get on IG or Line and book your table today, you won’t regret it. Less

Another visit last week to my favourite restaurant in Bangkok, ⭐️⭐️Sühring with Andy Yang and Firm Hongsananda. The Michelin guide Bangkok is only in it’s second year here and there isn’t a ⭐️⭐️⭐️ restaurant in the city.........yet.
Thanks again Thomas Sühring , Mathias Sühring and team for another stellar meal. It honestly keeps getting better and better every time I visit, which is hard to believe when after every visit I think I’ve just had a perfect meal. See you again in October I hope ?? Less

Dinner a couple of weeks ago at Front Room in the Waldorf Astoria Bangkok. Here, chef Rungthiwa Chummongkhon (Fae to her friends) and her team take inspiration from her 12 years cooking in Denmark (Geranium, Noma) and also from local Thai ingredients to produce a cooking style that marries the West and the Far East using Nordic cooking techniques such as curing, fermenting and smoking.
I visited Front Room late last year when it had only very recently opened and I had a very enjoyable meal. There were a couple of issues that I think were forgivable for a restaurant and a chef with this ambition at such an early stage, but overall I thought it was great and I was eager to return in a few months to see how it had developed.
Apart from the bread and a few of the petit fours, this was an entirely new menu. I have to say that I was hoping for a leap forward from my last visit having had the time for the kitchen to settle down and find it’s identity. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a nice meal but I definitely preferred the previous menu to this one.
I think that maybe this type of restaurant and ambition from Chef Fae may not be suited to an enormous dining room tethered to a 5* hotel. I doubt they are attracting the sort of diners that they would do in a stand alone restaurant space with fewer covers and I think that that would make a real difference. I imagine that being attached to such a large hotel brings with it a whole different set of challenges other than focusing on the food.
Anyway, I still say give it a try if you are in Bangkok and if you do I would be interested to hear your opinion as this is just mine.
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Another visit last month to the incredible ⭐️ Sorn in Bangkok. This is an absolute must visit when in Bangkok serving refined Southern Thai cuisine in a tasting menu format. Though not for the faint of heart as this is some of the spiciest Thai food you can get. However, they are happy to dial down the heat if you let them know. Also the menu is very well balanced with any of the particularly fiery dishes usually followed by a dish that is designed to cool you down and bring some welcome relief. I did try to make a good showing of myself during my first foody date with Samantha ,aka Bangkokfoodies.com, but inevitably ended up sobbing like a small child during a couple of the courses ? ?. I don’t think she noticed ??‍♂️?
Thanks again to Yodkwan U-pumpruk for the incredible food and hospitality and also to my pal Ice. See you both in October I hope ?? Less