Hard to pick “The Best”, but L’Auberge Chez Francois in the suburbs of Washington, DC is right up there - astonishing Lamb Chops!
This thread is pure torture!!!
Where in Fernandina Beach? (My parents live there, too!)
There’s a lot of people who like The Patio, but I will never understand its appeal.
The best ribs I’ve ever had in Chicago are Uncle John’s, on 69th, a block west of MLK Drive. The worst are the Pit Rib House in Hickory Hills.
Anyhow, my current best restaurant in Chicago is a Yucatecan place called Xni-Pec in Cicero (on 25th, just east of Laramie). One of these days, I’ll get out to some of the modern hotspots like Alinea and Moto, but for the time being I can’t justify spending about $150-$200 per person (no drinks).
The last time I had a truly transcendent meal was probably at a little French bistro in Budapest called Chez Daniel. It was a very simple meal: just an onion soup for starters, filet (or perhaps it was veal) and potatoes with black truffles for the main, and creme caramel for dessert… but everything was so absolutely perfect that it will forever stand up as one of my favorite dining experiences.
AMEN!! Katz’s is part of the reason I’m going to college in New York. Seriously, I love them. I hate Quizno’s and every sub I get at Subway looks like it’s been run over by a truck, so ever since then I haven’t eaten another sub from a chain. Good Lord. It’s like a food-orgasm.
I’ll have to looks around for that when I go there again. I’m not sure when that will be, but I know I will, because I LOVE DC with a passion. Have you ever been to a restaurant there called the Cactus Cantina? My sister’s friend reccommended it to me befroe I went last year but we never got to go there. Is it good?
I don’t live there anymore, but I’ll ask my folks if they’ve heard of it.
The best restaurants that I have eaten at include:
Le Moulin de Mougins - while Roger Verge was still the head chef.
Storm Mountain Lodge - Just outside of Banff, in a beautiful setting. I had a bison filet that may have been the best steak I have ever eaten.
I will second Del Frisco’s. I’ve been there several times including my birthday with the GF and a bachelor party dinner (no strippers).
I’ve also liked III Forks in Dallas, TX for steak.
It just moved. It used to be in this weird location off of 14th Street (you know, what A1A becomes as you come into town) and now it’s in one of those weird shopping areas on the south side of the island. Not Amelia Island Plantation, but similar.
Jacques Bistro Du Parc, in Yorkville, here in Toronto. I’ve been there several times. The food is always wonderful, but my most perfect meal was Valentine’s Day, 2006. I had filet mignon stuffed with foie gras, onion soup, and a trancendental chocolate kirsch mousse cake. I died of happiness eating it.
I can’t remember what my husband had, because I spent a lot of the meal with my eyes closed, moaning quietly. He was doing the same. We kept interrupting each other, and saying, “I’m sorry. I can’t talk to you until I’ve finished chewing.”
Filet mignon stuffed with foie gras? Looking over this thread, I must admit that I am far and away the lowest brow.
Endless great places in France and Italy of course.
Sometimes it is just raw seafood ingredients, and sometimes it is pizza from the gods, and always the chef is a magician.
If anybody ever finds themselves in Oban, go down to the shack next to where the ferry comes in. The guy has owned the place for many many years and you can get a big bag of fresh crab claws for a couple of pounds, langoustines, lobster tails, scallops and various other shellfish for silly giveaway prices. All fresh from the boats.
Well, you’re not alone. My idea of high-falutin’ cuisine is a Red Lobster all-you-can-scarf crab extravaganza. 
I suppose, if we’re discussing the most high-class places ever, I’d have to say … I haven’t been to one anywhere near the scale most here are talking about. Oh, I’ve been nice places, but even when entertaining clients on a no-limit company credit card, we’ve usually wound up at some nice place, but nothing high-class.
That said, I’d like to point at my favorite restaurant ANYway. The Raw, here in my hometown. It’s a trendy place, which ordinarily would make me run screaming, but it’s owned and run by Noel, a transplanted Hawaiian with an amazing sense of humor. They make the BEST SUSHI EVER. I can’t afford to go there often, but when I do I die happy. One of my friends has eaten sushi literally just about everywhere, and his take on it is that Noel has struck a deal with Satan, because how else could he get such wonderfully fresh stuff this far inland? I mean, damn, they’re THAT good.
So, anyway… I’ll be over here with Lib, watching you high-rollers wander by… 
We got lost in a blizzard on our way there, called 27 billion times for directions, arrived 1/2 hour late for the last seating, completely wrongly dressed (we didn’t realize it was a formal setting and pretty much came in our ski clothes) and received divine food and some of the best service I’ve had anywhere.
They did this thing with shaved daikon radish and smoked whitefish that I still think of fondly from time to time.
Lib, I thought yours sounds like one of the most appetizing actually (except the tea; I prefer mine bitter like my heart).
I’m not sure of the BEST but my current favorite is called Leelavadee’s. it’s a Thai place in Southaven, MS, which is a suburb close to my home (and just south of Memphis, if anyone is close). They have the most amazing food. Everything I eat there is perfect. It’s actually difficult, because I always want to order the same thing I had the time before, because it was the best thing I ever ate, but I know everything they make is wonderful. They have a cream curry with duck that is just so perfect; the flavors are complex, sweet and spicy, and even a little minty. Oh, it’s wonderful!
It’s set in this stupid strip mall, and often we are the only people in there (although we go a bit later than the usual dinner rush, so that may be part of it). I worry they might close, because I feel like the food is too awesome for the culinary doofuses in this area. I try to go every weekend, but I know I can’t keep it open by myself. I hope they make it, because what they do with food is just fantastic. it makes me happy to be a human.
Not all of the places I mentioned are fois gras and caviar. Florida House is just plain down-home Southern cookin’. Greasy fried chicken, grits, greens, sweet tea, and banana pudding. It’s not that I like it because the waiter speaks with a fancy French accent. I like because the down-home food is so good it almost makes me want to vote Republican and put God back into schools where He belongs.
I know a place like that, except I don’t. Or rather, I never got the name of it and was only a young’un at the time and wasn’t very good at paying attention. Dammit.
I was on a road trip with my grandparents, and we were somewhere near the Mississippi. I know this because we went to Kentucky for a family get-together the very next day and it wasn’t a long drive, and the party was on the shores of the Miss.
So anyway. This restaurant, which I wish I could name, had the BEST food I have ever had. It was fried chicken and mashed potatoes and corn on the cob and green beans and salad and gravy and… well, that’s about it. But you sat down at a big table with a bunch of other folks and it was all brought out in big serving bowls. When a bowl ran dry it was replaced.
I wish to this day I’d thought to try and remember the name or SOMETHING, because I’d love to take my wife there. Damn was that good chicken…
Yep, Florida House is like that. And come to think of it, Brookville Hotel in Abilene, KS is every bit as good. In fact, I couldn’t remember the name of it, so I googled “fried chicken kansas”, and their site was the 3rd hit. Apparently it’s famous throughout the state. People drive huge distances to eat there.