BY BROCK RADKE
DECEMBER 26, 2014

Bazaar Meat BY JOSÉ ANDRÉS is nothing less than the most spectacular new restaurant to land in Las Vegas in 2014. The innovative Spanish superchef was already a prominent force on the Strip with Jaleo and China Poblano. But at the hip new SLS Las Vegas, risen from the ashes of the iconic Sahara on the northern end of the Strip, Andrés creates a signature and singular culinary experience that must be eaten to be understood.

Considering the rest of SLS’ exciting restaurant lineup, it’d be easy to assume Bazaar Meat is the latest in a series of celebrity chef-powered steakhouses to join the carnivorous competition on Las Vegas Boulevard. But if you think José Andrés is simply going to char a steak, bake a potato and call it a night, you don’t know José Andrés. Bazaar is a celebration of meat, specializing in animals that graze or swim, served raw and cooked over fire. Most steakhouses might offer one massive, shareable ribeye or roast that could feed the table; Bazaar offers a variety of Spanish-style, bone-in beef rib steaks priced by the pound and fired over oak as well as suckling pig served in quarters or, if you order ahead, the whole thing.

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Heston Blumenthal looks back on nearly 20 years of The Fat Duck in Bray, before heading to Australia to open the three-Michelin starred restaurant there

What a difference nearly two decades of sweat, blood and frequent tears makes. Heston Blumenthal has certainly come a long way from the round faced ingénue who transformed a former run-down pub into a future three Michelin-starred restaurant, to today’s shaven-headed master of molecular gastronomy.
And when he shuts the door of The Fat Duck on Sunday he will be bringing to a close, albeit temporarily, a revolutionary chapter in British cuisine.
Since its opening in 1995 the restaurant, in the Berkshire village of Bray, has gone from refurbished pub to groundbreaking laboratory for cutting edge cooking, topped with what he calls a “typically British sense of humour”.
Now he is transferring the Fat Duck lock, stock and smoking pans 10,000 miles to Australia, bringing with him the wonders of snail porridge, salmon poached in liquorice gel and jelly of quail on oak moss and truffle toast.
While the 17th century cottage near the River Thames, which houses the original Fat Duck, undergoes a six-month programme of refurbishment and renovation, Blumenthal and his team will be running a reconstructed version of the restaurant at the award-winning Crowne Towers hotel in Melbourne.

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Brett Graham’s understated west London restaurant breaks into the top 10

Discreet, welcoming but quietly outstanding – the same epithets can be used to describe chef Brett Graham, his food and The Ledbury itself. The restaurant, tucked away in a corner of west London’s fashionable Notting Hill neighbourhood, still retains a loyal local (if distinctly well-heeled) following, with long-time regulars sitting harmoniously alongside the increasing number of international visitors.

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