Quintonil - Mexico City, Mexico

Lunch - Friday, December 28, 2012

Quintonil opened in the spring of 2012, helmed by the young chef Jorge Vallejo (formerly of Pujol). Of the meals we ate on our recent trip to Mexico City, this one stuck with us above all else. The food struck me as an effortless use of indigenous ingredients, fused with progressive technique - a seamless elevation of Mexican cuisine.

The restaurant, situated in the ritzy Polanco neighbourhood, is charming - plenty of natural light falls upon a combination of indoor and outdoor seating. For this lunch, we found ourselves at Quintonil's kitchen table, a secluded outdoor section separated from the shoebox kitchen by a pane of glass.

NB: Credit goes to this Eater interview of Jorge Vallejo (by Gabe Ulla) for first drawing my attention to Quintonil.

Sky Room at La Valencia - La Jolla, CA

Dinner - Friday, December 21, 2012

The setting is the Spanish-influenced La Valencia Hotel, a ninety-year old institution nestled along the La Jolla coastline. The chef is Luke Johnson, formerly of the locally-lauded Red Velvet Wine Bar. The occasion is... la fin du monde.

With the Sky Room scheduled to permanently shutter at the end of the year (part of an overhaul of the hotel's food and beverage department), our friend James arranged a dinner to celebrate its end, aptly scheduled on December 21. We had missed Luke Johnson at his previous post, and we were determined not to lose track of him again, come hell or high water - thus, we found ourselves in a black jewel box overlooking the glittering Christmas lights of La Jolla on a quiet evening at world's end.

The Chef's Counter at Saison - San Francisco, CA

Dinner - Saturday, November 17, 2012

Our last meal at Saison was over a year ago, when we shared the meal with Gary Fine in the dining room. I don't know why it took us so long, but we finally made it back.

With just the two of us this time, we made reservations for the chef's counter - somewhat fortuitous, since Saison announced their closure about a week after we secured our seats (if I recall correctly, the new space will not have a kitchen counter). We ended up sharing the counter with two solo reservations, both being gentlemen who work in the industry -  a young bar manager from Seattle, and the seasoned director of operations at Delfina.