Bukhara in India is pretty fantastic
Uh, did anyone notice that Italy’s first restaurant on that list is absolutely hilarious? I have a poor understanding of Italian - I could never remember the suffixes that differentiated all the crustaceans, but I know they all started with “gamb”, and “Gambero Rosso” immediately brings to mind the American restaurant most likely to come up in a punch line. Oh, and don’t try to use Google to translate “gambero” - it’s useless. But searching through images reveals that it at least means “crawfish”, if not “lobster”.
Alinea, for one. Tru, for two. Possibly Everest for three.
Yay! I live 20 miles from #2 and will be going soon.
And I’m going to #14 for my anniversary in June. 
I agree about Trotter’s and pulykamell, I had a holiday dinner at Tru in Decemebr and will not be returning–service took far too long, food was not spectacular and the wine was way overpriced ($26 for the cheapest single glass on the menue, which one of the guests got because he didn’t want the bottles of white the rest had).
Sorry to hear that. Anyhow, if you are looking for culinary suggestions in Chicago, look no further than this excellent resource: LTH Forum. In fact, there’s a discussion about the same list the OP linked to there. Avenues is another Chicago restaurant I didn’t mention.
Sheeesh. Multiple links.
Okay, HS. Now I owe you a dinner at Arun’s, plus all the beers you can drink and a frank with the works from the Byron’s on Halsted west a da Loop.
Come on, someone else say that they appreciate the irony that Italy’s best restaurant is called Red Lobster, or at least confirm that that’s the case.
The missus has eaten at Per Se, and I know that her uncle and aunt, being major foodies, have eaten at French Laundry. I wouldn’t be surprised if the relatives have dined at a dozen of the restos on that list.
They all think that they’re very good restaurants, with very good food. But they also know of restaurants in Seattle, Vancouver, and St. Martin that deserve to be on that list.
Kinda artistic, ain’t it? Like a painting with a little girl holding a mirror reflecting a little girl holding a mirror.
Deal–or maybe a slice from your best place in Brooklyn and some of those cookies from a Brooklyn bakery (I bought 2 pounds once and ate them all on the flight home). Are the cookies ubiquitous like the pizza or did I just get steered to the right place on that score?
Thanks Dan
Ok, so I looked it up (I forgot that I had spent sixty damned dollars on an Oxford Italian/English dictionary), and yes, I’m right to laugh. “Gambero” actually means both crawfish and lobster, and they’re differentiated by mentioning their origin. Gambero di acqua dolce (fresh water “gambero”) is crawfish and gambero di mare (sea “gambero”) is lobster.
So yes. Italy’s best restaurant IS Red Lobster (though by now I’ve killed the last smithereen of humor that might have come from that revelation).
I guess. I think it’s kind of a stretch.
I would translate “lobster” as “astice” or “aragosta.”
I would translate “gambero” as “shrimp.”
When I saw your first post, I was thinking to myself, “Red Shrimp… what’s so funny about that?” I never would have thought of “gamberi” as lobsters.
Oh, yum. Musk ox at Noma’s. :dubious:
I was all prepared to think Chez Panisse was overrated.
Usually when I got to restaurants, it’s because it’s something I don’t want to bother to cook. Or don’t know or care to know all the details of. I didn’t think a bunch of pansy organic california cusine whatchamacallits could possibly be worth the money.
All it took was one bite of bean soup.
I make a lot of bean soup. I thought I knew bean soup. But there was something magic in that bean soup. Something I couldn’t do if I wanted to. It was only maybe a cup of soup, but it tasted like more than all the soups I’ve eaten before. Each bite was a world- earthy, subtle, surprising. Divine. I can still call up the ghost of that taste in my memory, and it keeps me toasty on rainy days.
And it’s not just me. Only one person ordered the soup. The rest of us just made asses of ourselves by reaching across the white tableclothes to get at it.
Well, maybe there are regional differences. I see that Google translates lobster into “aragosta”, but I’ve never seen that word on a menu. My dictionary says that it’s specifically spiny lobster or crawfish. And I certainly remember “shrimp” having a more diminutive suffix (my dictionary says “gamberetto”, but I remember “gamberoni”, and a search of Google images confirms my memory). I do remember ordering lobster as “gambero”, or at least as something beginning with “gamb” in Tuscany, which is where Gambero Rosso is.
I probably shouldn’t say this, astro…but I live within an hour of #4 and #20 and have never been to either. Shoot, I lived in Berkeley for 5 years and never ate at Chez Panisse. And I think I drove by French Laundry on my way to someplace else.
There probably are. I lived in Venice and didn’t spend much time in Tuscany. I guess that spoiled the punchline for me. 
Gambero rosso… per l’amante di frutti di mare in te.
I’ve been to two of them on the list, The French Laundry, and L’Atelier, and they were both fantastic. I definitely wouldn’t put any other restaurant I’ve ever been to up against TFL, and I have to look askance at someone who says that the restaurant down the street from their house is better…
How can I say this…
A friend of the family is an editor of Gourmet.
Both parents are educated at the CIA.
One has a long history in market research, including a stint at Resturant Business.
When I say the Iron Horse is the equal or superior to any other restaurant I’ve ever seen… believe me. I will make very few claims about restaurants, mostly because I keep forgetting them and call them places like, ‘Those french brothers with the incredibly fresh fish.’ (Very good, also in Manhattan, completely forgotten the name. Very fresh vegitables, too.)
But I’ll make this one.