It’s hard to beat entrepreneur Laurence Brahm’s idea of a Chinese revolution. Brahm has dragged Chairman Mao Zedong’s past into the present with a restaurant that pays homage to the chubby-cheeked revolutionary leader and his party at the height of their kitsch glory. Posters, porcelain figurines and, well, more Communist memorabilia than you throw a little Red Book at, adorn the walls of Brahm’s Red Capital Club Beijing base. Here the Chairman’s favourite meals are served up, banquet style, with names like Red Lanterns (shrimps), Silken Fan (asparagus arranged in a fan shape) or Socialist Economic Model (potatoes and beef). Revolutionary characters are thoughtfully carved from vegetables.
There is a revolution-era bomb shelter beneath the courtyard that has been converted into a cigar lounge. All this revolutionary reverie is neatly tempered with humour - wine bottles even feature labels boasting, “Appropriate for any party of mass gathering.”
www.redcapitalclub.com.cn
Archipelago
In the highly competitive restaurant world where innovation is everything and fashions come and go faster than a bottle of house white, Archipelago in London’s urban jungle is setting new standards in cutting edge menus featuring unusual wild meats. Among its specialties are crocodile seared in vine leaves and served with Chinese plum dip, peacock presented with vanilla and tomato, kangaroo fillet marinated in a hot Yemeni sauce, and seared zebra with port or more traditional frog’s legs.
Not keen? Well, you’ll be delighted to learn the animal world doesn’t completely dominate the menu. Insects are also a delicacy. The ‘Lovebug Salad’ for example features a bowl of mixed leaves topped with crickets and locusts. There is also a delicious dessert of scorpion dipped in chocolate or chilli, and garlic crickets for starters.
www.archipelago-restaurant.co.uk
Dans Le Noir
If you can’t see the menu, you’re in the right place. Don’t pass on the drinks list because you can’t read it. This is the dark side of eating out. Ten years ago, the Paul Guinot Foundation, a charity that supports Parisian people living with blindness, developed a series of dinner events entitled ‘Le gout du noir’ where food was served in restaurants that were deliberately blacked out to create impenetrable darkness.
The concept quickly transformed itself into Dans Le Noir, a restaurant opened by Edouard de Brogile in 2004 and supported by the foundation. Since then more than 100,000 diners have pitched up for a night of dark dining and sister outlets have opened in London and Moscow.
www.danslenoir.com
Dinner in the Sky
Dinner in the Sky has got to be the most bizarre food experience in the world. Diners are hoisted by crane some 46 metres into the sky and treated to a gourmet meal at a seemingly floating table. The table is made from heavy-duty plastic, chairs are fitted with seatbelts and the whole lot, including waiters, chefs and even musicians if you wish, are winched up into the sky.
The menu choice is yours; up to 22 guests can be invited and the concept is portable enough to be transported anywhere in the world for the sum of 20,000 USD. Already it has visited Paris, New York, Barcelona, Toronto, Sydney, Budapest, and our very own Beirut.
www.dinnerinthesky.com
Carnivore
If you like your meat to be gently roasted on the swords of Maasai warriors, then you need to take a trip to Nairobi’s Carnivore restaurant. Here, for just 60 USD, you can skip the traditional Kenyan safari experience and get up close and personal with giraffes, zebras and crocodiles… all on your plate.
There are more traditional meats as well – pork, lamb, chicken or beef – but the big draw here is the vegetarian’s nightmare of big game. All meats are served on spears wielded by waiters and you can eat and drink as much as you want. If you’re curious about the giraffe, it’s similar to a very succulent pork, best eaten pink.
www.tamarind.co.ke
Fat Duck
If you have a serious taste for the exotic, a visit to the Fat Duck is an essential stop-off in any gourmet’s global tour. Run by Heston Blumenthal, the Fat Duck is one of the most inventive restaurants in the world, and with a generous side order of food chemistry thrown in for good measure.
Blumenthal believes a multitude of physiological and psychological factors influence the way we taste food. The result is that many of his dishes are either playful pairings that stimulate the senses or just plain strange, albeit resourceful. Whatever your view, the Fat Duck is one of the most successful restaurants in the UK. Take your pick from Blumenthal’s snail porridge, salmon poached with liquorice, nitro-green tea with lime mousse or quail jelly truffle toast and judge for yourself.
www.fatduck.co.uk
Conflict Kitchen
OK, this is not strictly a restaurant but you’ve got to love the idea. Conflict Kitchen in Pittsburgh is a café that describes itself as “only serving cuisine from countries that the United States is in conflict with”. Every four months the concept changes to highlight another place. At the time of going to press, it was an Afghan variation (serving Afghan pastries of pumpkin, spinach and lentils or potatoes and leeks) that was developed with members of the local Afghan community.
Previously it had an Iranian incarnation, featuring chicken stew with pomegranate (khoresht fesenjan); beef stew with lime (ghormeh sabzi) and doogh, a yoghurt mint drink. The kitchen was established to “create a platform for discussion of international conflict, culture and politics”. Future Conflict Kitchen incarnations are planned to focus on North Korea and Venezuela.
www.conflictkitchen.org
FoodLoop
Do you like your food to be served on looping metal rails? Of course you do. For lovers of the bizarre, it doesn’t get more eccentric than FoodLoop in Germany at the world’s first, self-described, loop restaurant. Basically an incredible concoction of pipes, pillars and tracks crowd the space above tables like a mini-rollercoaster. Diners then place their order via a touch screen on the table noting their number.
A small motorised track carries the drinks, food, and whatever else you ordered to the ceiling of the restaurant and then like any good fairground attraction, your food comes speeding down, through loop-the-loops, circular tracks and death-defying drops, to your table. Great feats of engineering have bridged continents, scraped skies and navigated oceans but for our money, a loop restaurant is best engineering achievement we’ve seen all week.
www.europapark.de
The Hellfire
The dress code is ‘dress to distress’ and the venue is a 19th century haunted building in the heart of Manchester, UK. According to the management, the venue – decked out in horror kitsch – was started as a place for alternative people to feel at home. As a result “Goths, bikers, burlesque, pagans and period dress enthusiasts” are particularly welcome as are people “divorced from the norm… and those shunned by more traditional restaurants”. Sounds tempting, eh?
There is a banquet room for private functions, in addition to the restaurant and – of course – a dungeon. Menu favourites include Satan’s Crown Jewels (“hot and spicy manhood meatballs”, sadly real meatballs); Stake Through The Heart (“a monster T-bone”); Return Of The Mummy (OK, it’s just a chicken breast) and well,… you get the idea. Traditional food with horrendous names. Anyway, it’s all fiendishly good fun.
www.thehellfire.co.uk
Monchstein
At the top of the tower of the gothic Monchstein Castle in Austria is an eight metre-square room. A small room. A small room where food is consumed. And it calls itself the smallest restaurant in the world. Now, we’re not experts when it comes to an encyclopaedic knowledge of Guinness Book (or The Guinness Book of World Records) but surely, it can’t be that hard to ‘create a small restaurant’ like this anywhere. Like our kitchen.
But of course that’s not the point. This cool little hideaway actually brings food to your small table (which is more than happens in our kitchen), is based in a wonderful building and boasts stunning views of Salzburg. Up to four people can be served in the small room/restaurant and the chef is available all night. Small really can be beautiful.
Clink
Prison food is normally terrible – so we’re told at least – but at the Boston’s Liberty Jail, it’s absolutely delicious. Perhaps the positive dining experience has something to do with the fact that the prison no longer contains inmates. These days those seeking the accommodation here are five-star guests of the converted hotel.
However, at the appropriately named Clink restaurant there are authentic details to remind you of this former institution, like the cell doors, bars and security gates. Still, it’s unlikely to put you off your sashimi of yellowtail or perhaps the wonderful Littleneck clams.
www.libertyhotel.com
Sarastro
Fond of opera with your starters? Is your idea of a great main course one with a side serving of aria? Perhaps Or perhaps you prefer a sweet tenor with dessert? In this case you must pay Sarastro a visit, the only restaurant in the world that serves up live opera with dinner.
It’s in London’s West End and is certainly not shy about putting itself centre stage. Featuring banisters taken from the Royal Opera House and a riot of Rococo, Ottoman and Byzantine styles, the venue hosts live shows/performance/solos by both well-known and up-and-coming singers. And this is all very well and good but what about the food? “The emphasis is more about having fun than stuffy gourmet pretentiousness… it’s broadly Mediterranean in style,” says the restaurant. If you fancy, there’s a three-course ‘opera menu’ which is a sound investment. Allegedly.
www.sarastro-restaurant.com
Snow Restaurant
In Finland there’s no business like snow business. Because, quite frankly, there’s a lot of it around, especially in winter. And those clever Finnish folk have a way of making the most out of the white stuff. Every January by the Gulf of Bothnia, a giant Snow Castle arises from the frozen earth.
It’s an awe-inspiring sight and the construction constantly offers new features, but a perennial favourite is the Snow Restaurant carved from ice and snow blocks. The food is warm when served on wooden plates. What a good job when the temperature is a bottom-clenching minus five degrees. Still, despite having to wear gloves, pull on thermal overalls, wear thick-soled boots and a cap, the promise of fresh reindeer steak or perhaps a red shot served in an ice-cube should warm the cockles of anyone’s heart.
www.snowcastle.net
The Car: Das Auto
So here’s the concept: It’s a restaurant shaped like a car. That’s it. Sound good enough to eat? Thought so. Well, in Salzburg this Beetle-shaped restaurant offers terrace dining while behind giant wheels and headlamps. It’s a chic and cheerful contemporary interior.
Apparently it cost a couple of million dollars to build and was designed by über architect Markus Voglreiter who had previous created a car-shaped home for another client (Why, oh, why?). Anyway, there’s loads of entertainment and a menu guaranteed to satisfy the most demanding petrol-head. Of course, the bar is probably the only place you can safely drink and drive, sort of.
www.thecar.at
UFO
Depending on your opinion, the Novy Most (New Bridge) that straddles the Danube in Bratislava is either the ugliest communist thing since Stalin’s moustache or a triumph of kitsch over concrete. Either way, it makes a lasting impression. And at the top of its 85-metre height is the rather spectacular UFO restaurant and club.
With a name like UFO, what do you think the theme would be? Go straight to the top of the class, it’s all spaceship chic, white vinyl and disco cool. Yep it’s expensive to eat here (and this is a city where you have change out of a five euro note and still have enough to buy a goat on your way home), but the selection of goulashes is sublime and the view almost as tasty; especially in winter.
www.redmonkeygroup.com
