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If there are over 1 million restaurants across North America and an equal number of best restaurant lists, how could you possibly know which are really. the best? What if there was one ultimate list? Well, there actually is, and it says there are five restaurants making food better than anywhere else on the continent. So I'm testing the top five on the list, eating over 100 courses across North America to see if the list is as accurate as they say it is. And better yet, is it worth it? At every stop, we're bringing a very important guest. Many will be people who rarely eat food like this.
A representative of the people. And at our final stop, a chef who knows what it takes to be number one. Starting not only with a two-Michelin-star restaurant, but you need a secret. code to get in. So we step inside a place called Tanière. This is something I've never. seen before. A long, eerie tunnel. And then another. Am I going to be locked away down here forever? Kidding. I hope. This entire restaurant lives underground, carved into a series of connected chambers. And as the night goes on, we'll move deeper and deeper. And our first special guest waiting in the snack room is Gurky,
a local Canadian food YouTuber who has never been to a place like this. One of only two, two-Michelin-star restaurants in all of Canada. The snacks were very unique, but the first main course. Whoa. This is their signature dish called Noble, which in the bottom is a rich butter sauce. And on top, scallops, poached in that butter with another topping of a massive pile of the finest caviar. And then they serve that all topped off. The first beverage you get in here is a beautiful glass of champagne to go with that.
I mean, the good life. C'est bon dans 'yeule. Good in the mouth. C'est bon dans 'yeule. Yes! Welcome to Quebec. All the layers work together. They're leveraging very simple flavors that are very powerful. And then this champagne cuts through it like a hot knife in butter. It is so sharp and tart and just mineralic. Is that a word? This meal makes you want to wear a huge coat of fur and be a Noble.
Next up. At the bottom of the plate is a lobster tail. At the top, a center cut slice of the lobster claw. And to the left, various greens. But more importantly, matsutake mushroom. Wow, that is so, so packed full of lobster flavor and like a toasted, like this roasted mushroom flavor. Honestly, that's borderline MSG hack right there. That's crazy. Full of umami. Like, it's crazy. The fact that we're getting this from the number five makes me kind of, like, almost, like, nervous.
Like, what is number one gonna be? Like, maybe this deserves to be number one. I don't know. This next one could propel Tanière to the top of my personal leaderboard so far. So we have a big rock. Ooga booga. So we have cheese, Au Gré des Champs. Yes. Cheese. Let's go. Now, in the upper left and lower right is that cheese. Shaved morel mushrooms in the bottom, and in the center is a crunchy tuile cylinder. And inside that, more of that cheese in a foam form.
Cheers. Oh, I have a Ratatouille moment. Being in. the woods with my father and walking on a mushroom that farts. I don't like this story, but I love this dish. That's a 10 out of 10. That is a perfect. dish. This is a dish that would signal me that we are in a restaurant that belongs in the top 50 best restaurants. in America. Creme brulee at a Michelin restaurant. On the left, more caviar. And on the right, a maple creme brulee. I'm a little skeptical. Oh, wow. That's insane. If someone were to have asked me, what's your favorite use of caviar ever?
I might have said, on a potato chip, mixed into a sauce. I'm going to go ahead and say it's creme brulee. Number five is low-key swinging for number one. The first dessert. Insane. But could the final dessert match the surprise I felt entering. the final room? An ice cream sandwich that on the outside has a crunchy praline, and then inside, that little thinner part is essentially a jelly, and the thicker, creamy part is a maple ice cream. So, yeah, ice cream. I have a Ratatouille moment once again. This is exactly like being in a sugar shack.
It feels exactly like a maple taffy. It's delicious. Everything was extremely good. 10 out of 10. I loved it. Memorable experience. You should try it out. Most people would love this kind of food because everything that was served are things that are craveable and delicious and interesting without being, like, so crazy. Incredibly fresh local ingredients executed literally perfectly. Who's not gonna love that? So is it worth it?. Duh. But is it a number five or is it a number one?
It's gonna be a hard question to answer because the remaining spots are insane. Number three is a barn, literally in the middle of nowhere. Number two, reminder, in all of America, is just a simple neighborhood wine bar. And number one is inside a New York City apartment building. We've got an interesting experience ahead. But next, Smyth in Chicago, the only three-Michelin-star restaurant in the top five.
One of only 14 restaurants in all of America have been bestowed three stars. This is about obsessive creativity. But there's something unusual they do here. Constant risk taking in the middle of dinner service, which we'll see soon. And joining me on this adventure is quite possibly the perfect person for the job. Mr. Beef himself, Christopher Zucchero. What the show The Bear is modeled after. Not only is he a restaurateur, but he's a lifelong dining skeptic. So we're gonna find out if we change this man or if his beliefs are solidified.
You're not a big fine dining guy. So what do you think of restaurants like this, and are they worth it? Normally, I would not do this. My wife eats like this. Her friends eat like this. And I've been invited to a lot of nice places like this. It's just never been my thing. Who would want to eat like this? This isn't comfortable. Now we're gonna see how you feel. after the meal. Within minutes of being seated, they put something on the table that I'm worried is going to. upset Chris, but I thought it was beautiful.
That leaf-like object on top is actually seaweed, and underneath, a tart filled with Hokkaido uni. Interesting. It's beautiful. Looks like a piece of art. Why would you want to eat something like this? Shall we? Let's go, my love. One bite. Delicious, brother. Oh, wow. Super well seasoned and a little bit of umami. Tasted like a real excellent Ritz cracker. Okay, he's being nice, but let's be honest, he seems pretty unimpressed. Next up.
I think this is the thinnest sandwich in the world. The bread, crispy corn tuile filled with a lot of truffle and pate. Second course. And we already have a sandwich with the king of sandwiches. My wife's gonna be proud. She's not gonna believe that I ate something like this. What flavors and textures are you picking up, Chris? I don't know, man. It's delicious, though. This is one of those things that no matter who eats it, they'll find it delicious and they won't understand why.
It's like the perfect, perfect pairing of an assortment of flavors that you don't normally see together greater than the sum of its parts. I would normally not eat pate, but all that together was outstanding. It was delicious. I almost want to eat Vicram's right now. Next up, I don't love uni. And this is like, uni on uni. So. without further ado. I think it's delicious. This is really good, dude. It's very refreshing.
Kind of insanely good. It's, like, both rich and light at the same time. This is one of the only ways I think you're gonna get me to eat uni. Restaurants like this will put things in front of you that are often, like, underappreciated or ignored or scary, and they find ways to make you love them. And I think that is hallmark of not just great cookery, but also good creativity. It's basically saying, we're gonna take this thing that not everybody loves and just figure it out. And then a puffed liquid nitrogen frozen disc. of lobster with peanut milk in the bottom.
This is the most lobstery lobster I've ever tasted in my life. What he said. It tastes like an amazing Thai dish right now. Probably number one lobster bite I've had in the last 12 months. It's the only thing like this I've ever had ever, in the 45 years I've been on this planet. I can't believe it. Is this actually changing Chris's mind here? We haven't won him over yet, though, so on to the next course.
Three Michelin stars don't fuck around. They design their spoons for the vessels that you're eating out of. This is essentially a lobster chawanmushi, which is a savory Japanese egg custard. It's so hard to make something cold that flavorful. It's crazy. I like custards. Whatever came out of that was delicious. This is the type of dish that makes a restaurant two or three Michelin. It also is the type of dish that will get you on the top 50 list, especially. in the top five.
I don't like seafood. I've engulfed everything that's been seafood. It's easy to do here. He goes, "I don't like seafood." I'm, like, hammering him with the seafood restaurant. No, you do whatever you want to me, Joshua, I'm enjoying this. Chris was shocked, but it turns out I am as well. And it gets crazier. Smyth is known for creating dishes on the spot, and believe it or not, they did that with this. A completely translucent ravioli. Like, look at this.
You can see through them, filled with pea broth and hoja santa. Banger. Bingo. This was seasoned 30 seconds ago. They dialed it in just now and then sent it out. From an operational standpoint, it's, like, not only borderline impossible but it also is ballsy. This is another on the spot dish. The little brown pieces are brined young walnut, a quenelle of cream sitting in a broth, and possibly the most generous serving of caviar I've ever seen. Hopefully, Chris likes caviar. It's f***ing crazy. There's no way they haven't tested this. This is the best caviar dish I've ever had.
Same here. Like, this is a 10 out of 10 use of caviar. This is it. This is the one. A three Michelin star restaurant constantly striving for utter perfection. And they're like, f*** it. Let's just test brand new dishes on these guys that we've never put on the menu ever before. Right now on camera. You gotta respect that. I understand why this is at the top five restaurant in America. I also am beginning to question, should this be number one? Then came the most beautiful bread I've ever seen in my entire life.
This looks like it belongs with the gods on Mount Olympus. Oh, my God. That is diabolical. How good that is. It makes Parker House rolls look like f***ing b******t. All right, that's what it does. I don't know if this is our last course, but if it is, that was one hell of a crescendo. And that means that dessert is next. Of course. It's rice pudding, My favorite quintessential. dessert. Any place has rice pudding. I automatically get it. There's a twist, though. The twist is that it has foie gras in it. And I'm gonna be honest with you guys.
I don't like foie gras that much. Neither do I. They're f***ing it up for us. Man, I really hope this is not a risk that doesn't pay off for them. It all comes down to this. Mm. I hate foie gras. I hate all that stuff. But the rice pudding is warm. Most people never have that s***. Rice pudding warm. This just won me over, even though there's foie gras in it. I love you, Josh. And I love you, Vic. Going through this whole thing, we took you to the number four restaurant in North America, three Michelin star Smyth. Is it worth it?
I think I've reached my ne plus ultra, as they say, which is the French word for like, the limit. I've eaten 24 inch pizzas by myself, all types of racks of ribs. I've never been this full in a while. I didn't think a place like this, you could fill up on that. And I'm completely wrong about that. So I apologize for sitting in my restaurant for so many years, f***ing harping on joints like this because clearly you can get your money's worth here. I'm stuffed right now, Joshua. Wow. Honestly. On to the next. Now that we've come back to the US we're actually going to go right back to Canada for restaurant number three, Pearl Morissette.
This one might be one of the weirdest. It's just on a random farm in the middle of nowhere. So if all of their food is being served off the farm, how are they going to deliver any sort of an experience when it looks like this? So this is their moment to prove their seating on the list. If they can still deliver, do they deserve to be number one? Eating with us is Canada's biggest calorie consumer bodybuilding YouTube legend, Will Tennyson. As a bodybuilder, you try to get every last ounce of value out of what you consume. So Will is the perfect person to help us decide.
Is this meal truly worth it? We'll make that decision at the end. Here we have a tart filled with crab. But you see that little clear jelly looking stuff underneath the crab? That's a hardened gel of pure crab flavor. I don't want to eat it. I want to frame it. It's beautiful. Then in front of us, we have what looks like a taquito to me. But it's not a taquito. It is a roe crispy carrot. Cheers. That's a nice taquito. Whoa. The tart shell. That was executed well. I love, like, the crispy wafer at the bottom.
Oh, my God. Never had anything close to this. This is just a snack. You gotta calm down. I thought when he put this down, this is like a little burrito or something. But it's a towel. You never know. This dish is interesting. I wasn't expecting to see a geoduck dish, which is a type of clam that looks like a penis. Oh, huge penis, actually. I love that. It's very fresh. It almost reminds me of like a Chinese egg custard, even though there's no egg in it. Not only is this beautiful, but it's hyper, hyper, hyper local. Because they have stuff that's coming from the ocean locally,
and then they have stuff that's coming from their greenhouse locally. Are you supposed to, like, superset, like the sake with the dish or you, like, finish one and then go. Yes, superset. The sake. Crazy use of superset. This is where things got a little unusual. Instead of a small plate, we were given a giant slice of bread. Did you smell it? Sniff the underside of that. Right. Wow. Yeah. So fine dining, you typically see a lot of small portions, which you've already seen, but we have. the signature dish, which is from a 3 kilo loaf of bread.
They did specify you can have as much of it as you like. Should we ask for more? Of course we should. I low key, could just do this and then just eat that. That's crazy, man. Macros are dead. Memories over macros, right? Mmhmm. Why is bread so f***ing good? I don't even know. It doesn't make sense. But I can almost taste the fact that the butter was made here. It tastes so fresh. You give it a 10 out of 10? I give it a 9. Damn. Almost perfect. This is supposedly the most perfectly cooked lobster ever, but will it compete with the lobster dish at Taniere and Smyth?
I don't smile much, but this one's making me smile. I haven't even eaten it yet. This one deserves a standing ovation. It is a privilege to be here right now. We've had lobster at almost every single restaurant we went to on this list. Best lobster dish by far. That is a banger. Cooked absolutely perfectly. Seasoned perfectly without losing any of the flavor of the lobster. On to the next course. The most perfectly cooked scallop sitting on top of pearls, made of lobster, green strawberry, and served tableside. a savory broth.
Oh, this is so good. First of all, the scallop is cooked insane. Ooh. Tastes like bacon. I also am getting that. They're leveraging all the briny flavors of the sea in this. You have dashi, rich umami. God, the scallop is just, like, briny and perfectly cooked. It, like, melts in your mouth, and I don't know how to say it without saying it, but the little balls in your mouth. Incredible. Like, texturally. Actually, yeah. Honestly, Will's right. The balls in your mouth are crazy. Like, I love these balls in my mouth.
Gargle them around and then chew. Whoa. Yeah. So we've moved on to an interesting course. This is a celery root, one of my most favorite vegetables. They, like, let it stay in the ground too long so it freezes over, and then it thaws, and then they slowly cook it for multiple hours. It smells more like a croissant than celery root. That's bonkers. That's a flex. My toenails are curling. Wait, pause. How are you supposed to go back after something like this?
You know what I mean? Like, if my wife makes me dinner when I go home, I'm just gonna throw it away. I'm like, this is what I expect now. Like, you're not making me celery root like this. Give it to the dog. How many calories you think we're at for the meal so far? I'm gonna say we're at 1350, maybe you 2000 with the butter. You're right. Yeah. This is the best dish I've had so far. This is number one. Number two is the lobster, and number three is the tart in the very beginning.
I just want to point out the fact that what beat out lobster was a vegetable. Not just a vegetable, but a really f***ing ugly vegetable. I don't know about this one, guys. A halibut dish sitting what they call an onion bubble bath. Ah. And more caviar. Of course. That is a f***ing banger. Personally, we got another number one. No! it's seasoned perfectly. Balanced perfectly. The caviar, little pops of umami, and salty brininess from that.
The fish is cooked perfectly. But what I really love about this is the explosion of smoke in my mouth from the smoked onion. Like, every bite, I'm like. almost like my mind just goes clear. It's just so good, though. We were getting tremendously full, but then at the start of dessert, they threw us a curveball that really confused Will. Can you explain to me why at this point we need to have cheese? It's like, the last thing I want. Honestly, I don't know, but I like it.
Yeah. I'm not gonna complain about it but. You sound like you're complaining. I guess I am complaining about it. Yeah. I think it's kind of like. Oh, oh, you're changing your mind? That honey. I'm never gonna be able to enjoy other honey ever again. This feels like the most luxurious bite we've had. We're transitioning into dessert quite literally with a very sweet but also a very salty dish. Our first two desserts were tasty, but not crazy.
A rosehip ice cream and an apple tart. But now we have something I didn't know was possible. We have reached the final two courses. So far, they've had non-stop bangers. A few ones that didn't quite impress us as much, but ultimately, I think overall, we could agree this has been a pretty phenomenal experience. Are they going to win it at the end, or is this going to be a crash? I feel like they have to. They have to end on a high note.
I feel like the chefs back there know that this has to bang. The more I eat this the more I like it. I appreciate the creativity of this. We ate that fast. Hang on. We have warm madeleines. It's like a little banana bread pillow. Crispy on the outside. It's almost like a donut and a cake at the same time. I love the cold, and I love the hot. It's a nice, lighter thing to finish off. Kind of like a fruity finish. Holistically, this meal has been absolutely bonkers.
I wish it would have ended with a bit more of a bang, but I have mixed feelings about it, and I want your actual opinion. Is it worth it? I feel like there was a few moments within this meal that I'm going to talk about for a very long time. I think that food is more than just food. It's an experience. And I think you'll be able to, like, go and share that with other people. Makes it worthwhile. That, like, halibut, that lobster. I think it's definitely worth it. We're at number three, but does this belong at number one? So we move on to number two.
This is Mon Lapin in Montreal, Quebec. This is the biggest upset on the entire list because it's nothing like any of the other restaurants. It has zero Michelin stars, no tasting menu, reasonable prices, and it's run by one of the chillest chefs I think I've ever met. But I'm a little bit in the hot seat here because we're with Chef Laurent. He's a regular here. He's a native, and his goal is to convince me that Mon Lapin should be number one on the list. We'll see if he's right at the end of the video.
We're at Mon Lapin. My rabbit. Like you. The food, the wine, the service, everything is to the level of a Michelin Star. Like, you can come here on a regular Tuesday night, just show up in sweatpants, have a good dinner, and leave. Kicking us off, this is a cookie in the shape of a rabbit, except it's filled with chicken liver. A humble and also unexpected start. So good, simple. The cookie is super crisp. It's like a shortbread. So very buttery.
A little lightly sweet. And then the inside, the chicken liver mousse is creamy like butter. So clean. Nice flavor, well seasoned. Really nice great start. Another shockingly simple dish. Clams with a lot of crushed sun gold tomato on top. Very fresh, briny. The perfect sweetness, acidity. The natural brininess of the clams. It's amazing. Followed by what looks like essentially deep fried ravioli.
Wow. It's so tender. It almost has like a spanakopita. I was just saying, we think the same way. It's just like uncomplicated and delicious. There wasn't a million ingredients. It was a great sauce. A lot of Swiss chard cooked very nicely, seasoned very nicely, very simply. This last one stopped me in my tracks. These are leeks, gently cooked in mussel brine. And you eat them by taking them out, putting them on a beautiful in-house made potato chip, spoon on some of the aioli they serve on the side and take a bite.
Beautiful. So simple. I always have the word pure because of that, letting the ingredient just speak for itself. They're really blowing me away. I can't believe how good this is. We're just getting started. So they've earned their number two spot for sure. But this next dish might have me thinking it's number one. So we have shrimp from Nova Scotia. which are usually cooked directly on the boat, and somehow they've managed to acquire them, on the plug. So we're gonna enjoy them raw. Yeah. In 37 years of existence, I've never had those raw because they always come cooked.
Yeah, they're unbelievable. Wow. Great sweetness. That's insane. Are those not regular capers? Question. Yeah? What are those you said? Blueberry capers. Premature blueberry fermented like capers. Green blueberries fermented like capers. That just blew my **** right off my body. The sweetness from this is sweeter than any king crab, lobster, whatever. And they're just little baby shrimps. I mean, I don't think I've ever had anything from a seafood standpoint that pops with sweetness like that naturally.
Canada. This is toast. Well, actually a scallop toast filled with a scallop mousse and a sauce to dip it in. So good. The sauce here is called a rouille with saffron and garlic. That is incredible. Better than any shrimp toast I've ever had. The textures are so beautiful and contrasting. The outside's beautifully crispy and toasted. The inside is like smooth and almost creamy texture. Almost like a soft scrambled egg. Oceanic, briny, super, super salty and nice.
It's a perfect dish. It really is. It's unbelievable. The first time I had this, it was like the first time I kissed you. It was amazing. Now a celery root dish that may compete with the one from Pearl Morissette. We have a roasted celery root, buffalo mozzarella, a special sauce, and finished with a ton of grated Perigord truffle. Wow. If I smell it, I only get truffle. When you bite it, all you get is celery root. It's also so fresh. It's not too rich at all.
All the flavors are there to, like, lift the celery. This is making me realize something. Tell me. I understand now why they are so high on the list. I'm realizing that every single thing here is so fresh and also, like, creatively hand selected. You probably have a guy for celery root, a guy for asparagus, a guy for tomatoes, you have a guy for clams. It's when you take the time to curate different suppliers for every single ingredient. A lot of chefs don't think about that. It's kind of a lost art. Mon Lapin. Wow. Fewer dishes, and they're matching punch for punch. And apparently, it's my birthday, by the way.
It's not. Happy birthday, Joshie! He's 25 years old today. Just aged very badly, that's all. Yeah. Worked in the restaurant industry. Yeah. This is the most random thing you can imagine. A buckwheat cake is something I've never even heard of. And every time I come here, I get it because it's very good. Wow. Yeah. Oh, my God. Right? That's so good. Like, a little crispy tuile makes the cake. Dense and, like, whole grain, but in a nice way.
Yeah. Super lightly sweetened. And then that caramel, like, super rich, super buttery, salty. That brings a lot of the sweetness. Textural wonderland. So this is the final dessert. The sorbet meets meringue meets brown butter meets berries. It doesn't look crazy. If they don't hit it with this, then it really ruins the meal. Can these guys bring it home? That is a top 10 dessert of my life. I love this. That brown butter powder is genius. Because it brings dairy in without, like, overwhelming your palate with cream.
Yeah. Instead, we get the best form of dairy, which is toasted milk solids. I'm shocked. Could this place be the best restaurant in North America? This is the best meal I've had on this list, and it is the best cooking I've had on this list by far. You can't be the best without having ego about it. You can't, but this is, like, one of the first times I've been to a restaurant that's on a major list and has a high ranking where it does not feel overwhelmingly like they have a huge ego.
This level of talent has been here forever. It's just been always under-recognized. I think we're starting to get the love that we deserve in Montreal because we've had some great restaurants for the longest time here. Out of the list we've had thus far, it is the best place that we have eaten at. We have one more left. So the question is, is this number one or is the number one? It all comes down to this. The final restaurant. The number one on the list, Atomix in New York City. From the outside, I'm going to be honest, it's just a random apartment building. But what's tucked inside blew my mind.
Underneath the surface isn't just a breathtaking kitchen. You're greeted by a display of every single fresh ingredient you're about to eat. Hand selected by the chefs. It's a whole experience before the food even starts. It has best restaurant in North America energy. And to help us make this decision, we have the only person I think suited for the job. Christian Petroni, chef, Food Network celebrity. He's built and run many restaurants. So I asked him, what does he think it takes to be number one?
Well, first of all, the people behind it need to be a little sick in the head. There's a level of pure obsession to be called one of the best restaurants in America. You need to execute every day at the highest level humanly possible. Nobody is moving without purpose. It's theater, man, in the most beautiful way. First course, a wild looking raw scallop set atop rice and a wrap of seaweed, almost like a sushi roll. Send out a dozen more. You know?
I would eat 600. A whole tray of them. Every little grain of rice, you could detect the individual piece in your mouth. And everything about that bite was so dialed. Believe it or not, this is the craziest looking little clam tart in the form of a single bite. Bang. Wow. Yeah. When fine dining is executed really well, it's when they can still maintain craveability. Because when you lose craveability, then what's the point? You'll be thinking about those bites three days from now. They sent these out to let us know, hey, man, you guys are safe here. If they were like, take your shoes off, I'd do it.
Mine are already off. Oh, shit. Okay. Belt? So I don't know the last time you guys went to a restaurant and they had personalized chopsticks for you to choose, but this one does. Part of me is excited about the choice, but I'm also a little nervous because what if I regret this? These are a little short. Sometimes you just gotta pick a pair of chopsticks and run with them. I should add, every time they bring me a new drink.
It is so cold. It's like, colder than ice, but somehow in a liquid state. It's like McDonald's Diet Coke level cold. You know what I'm talking about. This next one is risky, to say the least. Monkfish liver. Now, this is a make or break dish. I've had monkfish liver four or five times, and there have been times where it has blown me away. Delicious. And then there have been other times where it was the polar opposite. It's like butter. Oh, my God. That is so damn good.
I'm kind of shocked out of the monkfish liver that I've had. This one's craveable. I was gonna say make or break. So far, it's a make. Underneath that giant dollop of caviar are shreds of kohlrabi, which is kind of like a radish. Underneath that is hot crab all sitting in a rich cream sauce. Whoa. I'm, like, tearing up a little bit. This one's getting me. This one's really. good. The little flecks of salt popping.
The perfectly cooked kohlrabi, the cream. This is a meal. I'm feeling it. I'm schvitzing. So this is a standout dish for me. It's a dish that makes me ask, is this the type of dish that makes a restaurant the number one restaurant in America? How many times can lightning strike, right? I don't know. It's striking. Ever heard of abalone? Well, it looks like this. It's essentially a giant clam. This one is tempura fried sitting in a sweet and sour sauce, almost oddly simple. But they gave us another little dish that they told us to
save for the very last bite. If you want to be the best in the US you have to find a way to merge the creative art with familiarity. That's crazy, right? That's f***ing insane. And then you hit this thing that they tell you to hit last. The accoutrement. This little thing is a 10 out of 10 I'd change absolutely nothing. It was so good because I think that the intensity of the acid, the saltiness, the sweetness, and the umami combined with all of the aromatics was at its absolute maximum. And that was crazy. Now they're hitting me in my soul. Lobster glazed in one of my favorite ingredients ever, Gochujang. And on the side, a perfectly cooked rice rolled in tofu skin.
The rice is cooked so crazy perfect. And the spicy little kimchi in there. This is, like, I think, the most obvious impression of Korean cuisine in our entire meal tonight that is perfectly meshed because this is the fine dining, the lobster. But then you take a bite of this, and it's like, oh, this is like an amazing little Korean dish. The lobster, creamy, rich butter. We're in France. But then you put it up against this Korean style rice. One of the things I'm starting to realize here, they're telling a story about Korean culture with every single dish.
What drives me to cook food. I'm constantly trying to get people to see food through the lens that I see it, to enjoy it as much as I do. And that's kind of what they're doing here. They're telling the story of Korea and presenting it to you in the best possible format in a way that's delicious, that you get it. We didn't have a single bite of truffle for this entire dinner until dessert. To the right, there's a little chocolate torte topped with a massive layer of fresh, thinly sliced black truffle. On the left, a corn ice cream on top of white chocolate snow.
We waited the entire meal for this. Will it pay off? The texture of the cake is, like, decadent and thick. It's like a black truffle brownie with corn ice cream is what it tastes like to me, and I'm here for it. I love that the truffle adds, like, a little bit of a subtle, earthy funk, but leaves almost like an earthy mocha kind of tone to the chocolate. Having that sort of hint of, like, let's be honest, dirt, right? Yeah. Is beautiful. Against, like, what I see as a very sort of nostalgic style of dessert.
Guys. A hilariously understandable ending to a meal that closes out possibly one of the craziest dining experiences we've flown all across North America. The top five restaurants. The question that we need to answer here is, do they deserve their spots? After 100 courses? Five major cities. Here's what I really think. The ranking did not matter at all, actually. It's so incredibly difficult to even get on a list like this as a restaurant.
It's just giving you an idea of the type of caliber of a restaurant you're going to be walking into. They all felt like number one in their own way because they were all completely different. Each restaurant could be number one on a different day to a different person, just depending on how the restaurant's night went or how that person's night went. So just pick something, go and have a good time. Love you. Subscribe. see you.
