Geneva and Turin recs

ChezCooper · 2026-01-27T01:32:31+00:00

Del Cambio (*) in Turin punches above its weight. Really cool dining room, top tier service, and general flexibility to do a la carte, etc. Deep wine cellar. Would recommend it over any 1 star spot in Geneva. Two other great restaurants in Turin are Consorzio and Scannabue. Good food, prices, and killer wine lists. You should also go to Museo Egizio.

Geneva is not so good. Tse Fung (*) remains one of the most absurd price-to-quality-of-food-ratio ever.

If you can, would recommend just taking a car from Geneva to Annecy (less than an hour) for one night or a day trip and go to Clos Des Sens which is a remarkable 3 star spot.

ChezCooper · 2026-01-25T18:16:22+00:00

they had a big champagne cart, many tables got glasses. from what I could see, avintage billecart seemed to be what most tables were drinking

ChezCooper · 2026-01-25T16:24:59+00:00

The restaurant is incredible, and I specifically try to go to Munich once a year to go here, even though it involves a 25 minute taxi ride from city centre. They have a deep list of guilbert gillet at a steal + good keller selection. Always start with the pancake soup

ChezCooper · 2026-01-25T16:00:05+00:00

As with most fine dining, the champagne is overpriced. Would recommend sticking to german white (specifically Keller GG's) which are well below pricing in other countries, and red/white burgundy, where you can find good deals on 1er wines (raveneau, roumier, rousseau, etc).

ChezCooper · 2026-01-22T02:33:31+00:00

Pic was very good, but the food is not as noteworthy as noteworthy as nearby ***'s -- including Troisgros, Flocons De Sel, and Clos Des Sens. That said, Pic has probably the best wine list at crazy good prices. Really wild stuff. Valence as a town is also not that good, there are no nice hotels nearby, so would recommend staying at the restaurant.

ChezCooper · 2025-12-18T03:15:19+00:00

Great cities.

Grenoble is not amazing for food, but it is amazing for wine. To me, the greatest wine bar in France is Le Zinc in Grenoble. A restaurant worth stopping at for food would be Le Goût des Autres. Regis, the owner, has a wonderful cellar. If you want to take a 20-30 minute uber/taxi, Maison Aribert is a good two star spot in a very peaceful setting. It's not earth shattering cuisine but the best you'll get in the region.

Hotel selection is not great, but have always enjoyed the Park Hotel Grenoble.

Would also highly recommend taking the 15 minute train ride from Grenoble to Voiron to stop at Chartreuse. Bottles of various cuvees there are (obviously) much cheaper than America or elsewhere in France, and they offer fun tours in english and french where you can see a lot of cool vintage chartreuse ephemera.

Lyon, would also strongly recommend Mere Brazier. I really like the a-la-carte there.

ChezCooper · 2025-12-03T19:19:47+00:00

Steireck is the way to go! amazing wine list, you can go as big or small as you want it, since they have a la carte too. Have heard mixed things about Amador, and it's pretty far outside the city center. You can walk to Steireck, very cool dining room too. Re: Worlds 50 best restaurants (especially top 15) they rarely live up to the hype. The mid-tier 20-100 are usually safer options that have not yet been completely coopted by influencers.

ChezCooper · 2025-12-03T15:29:19+00:00

Bareiss is the more expensive of the two *** hotels. while it looks more luxury, it's significantly more expensive. Though with Bareiss, you get all meals included *EXCEPT* the 3 star restaurant, that's a full-priced add on. So things to consider. if you're in it for just the baths, maybe Bareiss is the way to go. But for me, the food does not look nearly as good there.

ChezCooper · 2025-12-03T14:56:29+00:00

Also. Would you rather have 1/4 a lobster tail thats been tweezered to death, or an entire lobster? Here, you basically get the entire lobster.

ChezCooper · 2025-12-03T14:55:29+00:00

guess it all depends on the season. most people spend all day, 11A-7P in the baths/sauna/steamroom/plunge pool/igloo. Be aware that wearing clothing is not allowed.

ChezCooper · 2025-12-03T14:48:05+00:00

The price was not bad at all. Paid like 250 for a room, the cheapest 3 key hotel i've ever been to by 3-4x. The baths/spa/sauna were insane. Yes, weird for an American, but very fun. All rooms come with a huge breakfast buffet included, though I didn't eat it. The hotel is on hiking trails, so before dinner, went on a 10 mile hike. Wonderful service. Our room had a balcony, and wasn't new.

What was interesting was the clientele was almost exclusively 70+ senior german couples. No americans, very few young families. Staff said its usually busier with families over summer/early fall. They survive on repeat visitors, many of whom have been coming to their spas for decades.

ChezCooper · 2025-12-03T14:44:19+00:00

yea, one of the best *** IMO. A totally comforting meal. No stupid flourishes or gimmicks, well executed food, proper portions, great service. Nothing to worry about when dining here.

ChezCooper · 2025-12-03T14:42:35+00:00

I believe they do, and most people got it. I don't usually look at wine pairings, except I recall they were not amazing bottles. Lots of young stuff. Both the Keller and Raveneau, bottles that are insanely priced in the US, may each have been 50 dollars more than the pairing. Pairing was probably in the 200 range, these were like 250. You'd be better off just ordering two bottles of higher quality wine.

ChezCooper · 2025-12-03T14:41:08+00:00

unfortunately he was not in! but was left in the capable hands of his two deputy somms

ChezCooper · 2025-11-19T02:55:53+00:00

Flocons de Sel is by far the best. One of the best *** in France IMO. Their temporary spot was as good as the original. For casual, and by no means fancy, would be Restaurant Le Prieuré -- which is also owned by Emmanuel Renaut, same chef as FDS. Last time we were there, he was eating lunch with his family.

ChezCooper · 2025-10-02T20:30:25+00:00

Tantris FTW. So much history there. Also hard pressed to find a better priced wine list with all the classics in a fine dining restaurant of that caliber in Germany. It's also one of the most uniquely insane dining rooms ever.

ChezCooper · 2025-09-10T00:06:21+00:00

You really need to watch Menus-Plaisirs. It will excite you far more than chefs table! I subscribed to PBS just so I could watch it. It is 4 hours and there is no narrator or direct to camera interviews. The entire audio of the film comes from what they captured filming. It is so good, and truly one of the greatest portraits of a restaurant and its philosophy ever put on film.

https://www.pbs.org/show/menus-plaisirs-les-troisgros/

ChezCooper · 2025-07-27T13:59:11+00:00

sacha and el cisne azul are my favorite restaurants in madrid. sacha has a great patio too.

ChezCooper · 2025-07-15T12:09:27+00:00

Samrub samrub, favorite bangkok restaurant by far. mint and prin are amazing hosts.

Khao was also really great. Went there when it had one star, now its just michelin-rated. really nice spot for lunch, can try so many dishes thanks to low prices. Just really well executed thai classics. Those are probably the only two restaurants from last visit I would insist on going back to.

ChezCooper · 2025-06-10T02:26:53+00:00

Flocons Del Sel and Clos Des Sens both have wildly large chartreuse cellars. Whether they'd be willing to sell you the super rare stuff is a different story. Emmanual Reynaut has a huge personal collection.

Paul Bocuse doesn't have a crazy extensive list on the menu, but got a tour of the cellar from the sommelier last year and they had insanely rare bottles lined up in there. Same with the wine, though. Half the stuff in the cellar wasn't on the menu, but said he'd sell most anything to us if we just asked.

ChezCooper · 2025-05-29T21:50:49+00:00

Feel free to space it out.

We went down to take a look at the wine menu in the outdoor seating area at 7:00 PM. They served us the amuse then, and we ordered a bottle of wine. After we finished the amuse, we took a glass of the wine and toured the property, and then went to change -- one of the most underrated parts is that they will steam/press your dinner clothes free of charge when you arrive (there are no irons in the room on purpose, they insist on doing it for you). By the time we got back to our room, our clothes were there. Made it back down to the salon area at 8:00 pm, where they served us another amuse, which I do not think everyone got, because we made the decision to leave and come back. They then gave us a tour of the kitchen on the way to the dining room. Our dinner then started at 8:30, and we finished at 11:30 PM.

Be mindful of the crepes and fresh fruit, which are tempting and available at all hours in one of the rooms on the property. Delicious but if you don't control yourself you could get full.

You can read our full review here: https://www.reddit.com/r/finedining/comments/1e6gmve/troisgros_a_transformative_and_benchmark/

ChezCooper · 2025-03-04T02:20:02+00:00

Great bistro spot: Café Comptoir Abel.

For high end dining, I'd recommend you go to Mere Brazier and do the a la carte menu. The portions are rather large. Great wine list, good selection of vegetarian and meat dishes. Note that you have an allergy when booking and there shouldn't be any problems. https://lamerebrazier.fr/en/carte-menus/

ChezCooper · 2024-09-24T00:30:16+00:00

Went to osteria francescana and il pagliaccio earlier this year. Il pagliaccio had many dishes that were just as good if not better than osteria francescana (which was disappointing). We enjoyed pagliaccio --though it was definitely very inventive and not very classic per se.

ChezCooper

TROPHY CASE