ForLook Interior Design

As I suggested in the previous article, good restaurants are hard to find these days - despite an endless choice of trendy places, cafes, gastro-pubs and so on providing modern, fusion or ethnic cuisines..

Over the years, I have been to many restaurants around the world - from crap to good ones; from cheap-and-cheerful to Michelin-starred ones; from cosy to trendy ones. Interestingly,  wherever I have had a wonderful meal I not only remember the great tastes but can also recall the spatial design of the restaurant in detail. On the other hand, the trendy, designer places that satisfied my eye but not my palate remain vague visual memories and I have no recollection of the food I ate.

Our restaurant guide will be different from other guides. What we are looking for, and want to share with others, are restaurants with the X-factor - where everything somehow works together, where there is a balance between the spatial & gastronomic experiences; where the most important factor is taste - tasteful food and tasteful design.
Here are the criteria:

• No restaurants that are run by celebrity chefs & owners or where celebs hang out
• No designer or hyped-up “trendy” places - where style outdoes flavour
• No pretentious places - where they make you feel that they are doing you a favour by allowing you to dine there rather than pleased to provide you with a service
• No chains - including celebrity chefs’ franchise restaurants
• The clientele should be mainly locals
• The restaurant is known mainly by word-of-mouth
• Where you can get an amazing meal for less than 50 pounds or 100 dollars/euros (yes, they do exist) for two

We’ll start writing about interesting places we’ve been to, but if you know of restaurants that fit the above criteria please share it with us and others. I know that, in a selfish kind of way, you don’t want to share such information because the place might become popular and lose its touch (which has happened to several restaurants I’ve known) - but supporting local restaurants helps them survive and thrive in the world of multinational eatery chains and celebrity chef franchises.  So let’s not be selfish and share our finds!

By the way, there is a European organisation, Jeunes Restaurateurs d’Europe, -  the restaurants we visited in Spain, Germany, France and Austria were absolutely amazing!

PS: Please do not misuse this blog to promote your own or your friend’s & family’s business. It will most certainly backfire - remember, the internet can make or break a business.