Skip to main content

The Manual may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site.

Eat Where Chefs Go

By Ann Binlot Published March 22, 2015

There’s nothing as satisfying as discovering a restaurant with delicious food when you’re in a new city. The way that pork just melts in your mouth, or the flavor in that sauce that you just can’t get anywhere else. How can you forget the way that sinful chocolate and caramel tart made you feel? The problem is that when traveling it’s often difficult to navigate a good restaurant, especially for those of us who are too stubborn to depend on guidebooks. Sometimes we just don’t have the time to find locals or people who have visited to ask for their recommendations.

We all know that chefs have good palettes, so the 2015 edition of Where Chefs Eat: A Guide to Chefs’ Favorite Restaurants, is a valuable resource when hunting for restaurants that offer tasty and satisfying food. Hundreds of chefs, including René Redzepi, David Chang, Jason Atherton, Shannon Bennett, Helena Rizzo, Massimo Bottura, Yotam Ottolenghi and Yoshihiro Narisawa offered their recommendations on where to eat fancy meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner, late-night, far away food and everything in between. With over 3,000 restaurants in more than 70 countries featured in this book, there’s sure to be something that fits your tastes.

Recommended Videos

In Paris, try Pot au Poule, a late-night joint that offers tasty chicken. When going to Tel Aviv, try Shila, a bustling bar and restaurant recommended by chef Yair Feinberg. In Hanoi for a few days? Go for Ming at the Sofitel Plaza Hotel, which was submitted by Donald Berger. Capping in at just under 1,000 pages, there’s sure to be a place that you’ll want to try out the next time you want to go for a good meal.

Where Chefs Eat: A Guide to Chefs’ Favorite Restaurants, $19.05 at amazon.com.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Ann Binlot is a New York-based freelance writer who contributes to publications like The Economist, Wallpaper*, Monocle…

Food & Drink

Blended Scotch whiskies you’ll want to drink neat

These blended Scotch whiskies are too good to be used solely as mixers

Dewar's 15

If you’re a Scotch whisky drinker, I know you have at least a few bottles of blended Scotch whisky that you would never drink neat or on the rocks. Perhaps you were given a bottle, or you just bought one because of a flashy label, only to realize it was fairly unpalatable on its own, best mixed with soda or other ingredients. But, if you limit your whisky collection to blended Scotch whiskies that you’d never want to drink neat, you’re missing out on some outstanding expressions just waiting to be discovered.

I was once like this. When I first started writing about alcohol, I didn’t know much about Scotch whisky, and my only experience with blended Scotch was a less-than-stellar expression that came in an easy-to-grab plastic bottle. It wasn’t the type of whisky I was going to want to crack open when my friends or family members stopped by.

Food & Drink

A guide to destination drinking

A more authentic imbibing experience that explores origin stories

Glass, Alcohol, Beer

These days, it's not enough to pour a product. What splashes in the glass needs a good story, preferably one involving genuine sustainability efforts or a cool new hop variety. Moreover, that liquid becomes all the more intriguing when it reflects its origin, whether that's a coastal gin made with local botanicals and seaweed or a seasonal Georgian beer brewed with ripe peaches.

Wine may have capitalized on the concept of terroir but it certainly didn't invent it. There's an element of place in all of agriculture, meaning there are distinctive flavors tied to Nevada-grown whiskey grains and Washington state hops, destined to be showcased in an India Pale Ale.

Food & Drink

Rotisserie chicken is back and better than ever

Slow-turned birds are back, baby

Rotisserie chicken at ROSTO.

What goes around comes around, again and again. Certainly the culinary world knows as much, just consider the slow food movement or even a good Cosmopolitan cocktail recipe, back in its best forms since, well, the 90s. The latest thing to reemerge is slow-cooked chicken on a spit.

Yes, rotisserie is back and arguably better than ever. Like most things, the epicenter of the movement is taking place in New York City, but it's spread to other food-friendly towns, from Portland to Providence. Maybe we never wanted to let the style go. Maybe we're reliant on a relatively cheap protein in this wobbly economy. Regardless, there's no denying the deeply comforting sensation that is chowing down on some.