When you're traversing the world looking not only for the best meal, but also the best meal for a single diner, there's an inevitable, and tortuous, ranking system for a chef's table.
The criteria is a little different. Here, I'm putting more weight on how the experience seamlessly flows from the kitchen to the diner, and how the chefs interact with you. Is it natural? Are the chefs genuinely enjoying this? Or do they react like a caged zoo animal being pelted by peanuts from a petulent five-year old? Do they cut corners communicating when they're in the weeds?
Of course, the meal also has to be a knockout. My rankings stand at 45, and most don't even make the list.
I have now found a new World Number One Single Table at 2Monkeys in Lisbon.
With most chef's tables, the plating is on "their side" of the counter. Sometimes, it's at a different eye level than the dining surface, or at a center island further back. Often, the entire dining room must hush while the chef explains the dish to all the diners while everyone is served at once.
This is the subtle, but revolutionary, difference at 2Monkeys. There is no kitchen pass. There is no invisible line between you and the kitchen. You are brought a blank canvas in the form of an empty plate, in the exact spot where you'll be eating from it. Every element of every dish is plated directly in front of you, with the chef giving you the download. It's the chef and your dining party. There's nowhere for anyone to hide. You're in the thick of it, and it's thrilling.
Chef Guilherme Splak is your personal guide, and Vítor Matos is the consulting chef, through an extraordinary journey of creative cooking showing off the finest luxury ingredients, which all fit and make sense in this menu, which read as follows with some substitutions (apologies, as the the way the menu is produced, it does not scan well):
It's tuna and caviar in a consommé. Just start with the best ingredients and make them stars. Showing restraint instead of overcheffing it...
Assembly of foie.
...To which we move to the foie with eel and pine nut, and chef genius. One of the great, surprising, foie dishes in the world. While the eel adds smoke to the savoury sweetness of the foie, it's the unexpected crunch of the pine nut and tuile that give this dish body and character. The greens adding a touch of lightness.
A5. Chef and I will agree to disagree about the incorporation of papaya. But, the sauce work and treatment of the beef was impecible.
But why stop at A5 for your main when you can build on that with venison, truffle, beet and macadamia? We went from a jus for A5 and got darker, funkier, and reached the depth of our souls with this lick-the-plate sauce.
As we transition to dessert, we get a just-made waffle and winter pumpkin with crunchy maple leaf "candy."
To finish, lemon, rice and Peruvian mint. The perfect light and tart ending.
It's worth crossing an ocean for this meal. Complete integration between you and the chefs. Stunning cooking and service. A sommelier who knows his craft, and is a laugh riot.
I don't know when I'll return to Lisbon. But, I might have to go out of my way if it means another night at 2Monkeys.
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