_The world's best restaurants in destination hotels across the globe
Boucan Restaurant at Boucan Hotel - St Lucia, Barbados
Deep in St Lucia, 1,000ft above the sea, you’ll find Hotel Chocolat’s cocoa plantation and, within it, one of St Lucia’s finest hotels and restaurants. Here, unsurprisingly, it’s all about the cacao.
From a fresh cacao bellini as an aperitif, to a starter called ‘The Story of Chocolate, in Ice’, featuring a trio of ices showing the progression from pod to chocolate, to a main of cacao beer jerked pork tenderloin, everything is somehow linked to the plant. And that’s without mentioning dessert, which as you might expect takes things to a higher cacao plain…
Kerridge’s Bar & Grill at Corinthia - London, UK
Tom Kerridge’s first London restaurant is everything you’d expect from Marlow’s adopted son. It’s located within the Corinthia Hotel, which means opulence and perfection at every level: burgundy leather booths, a majestically domed emerald green ceiling and a duo of Beth Cullen Kerridge’s brass sculptures as centrepieces to the space.
And still the food manages to somehow go beyond your expectations. Claude’s mushroom ‘risotto’ with Daniel’s crispy egg is a new take on risotto, ie there’s no rice involved, and the rib of beef with mushroom ragout, grilled on the kitchen’s mesmerising rotisserie, is quickly becoming the restaurant’s signature dish. kerridgesbarandgrill.co.uk
Le 1947 at Cheval Blanc, Courchevel, France
© Jean-Christophe
This fine-dining restaurant in the heart of the Alps jumped up from two Michelin stars to three last year. Hosting only 22 diners per evening, and open only during the ski season, this is about as exclusive as dining gets and is a long, long way from raclette and vin chaud. Your meal will be designed for you depending on what main dish you go for, then chef Yannick Alléno will match starters to it.
Stamford by Alvin Leung at the Capitol Kempinski Hotel, Singapore
Head chef Leung racked up three Michelin stars at his Bo Innovation restaurant in Hong Kong, so expectations are high for his latest project. He chose the space in the Capitol Kempinski after realising it would have room for a huge open kitchen in which to fit his restaurant’s trademark bit of kit: a chargrill rotisserie grill, which provides an authentic Asian char indoors. Go there just for the chargrilled bak kut teh pork chop with compressed watermelon.
Zanaya at The Four Seasons, Mexico City, Mexico
Zanaya has its own fire pit built into the middle of the restaurant, so you can expect traditional Mexican wood-burning cooking methods. The dish to order is the whole zarandeado – chef Tonatiuh Cuevas marinates a huge sea bass in lemon and beer, grills it in the pit then serves it with tortillas, beans, salsa and herbs. A signature dish like no other. fourseasons.com
Grei at the Saxon Hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa
This South African restaurant, designed with minimalist Scandi style, opened last April under the helm of chef Candice Philip, with the aim of growing most of their produce on site, particularly focusing on herbs. The result is an unforgettable six-course tasting menu, featuring ostrich and linefish, with each course based around a different colour.
RitzCoffier at Bürgenstock Hotel & Resort, Lucerne, Switzerland
The location of this restaurant is unique in itself – on the top floor of the Bürgenstock Hotel, perched over Lake Lucerne. Add to that chef Marc Haeberlin, formerly of Alsace’s triple- Michelin-starred Auberge de l’Ill, and you have the ingredients for a mind-blowing culinary experience (it’s already secured its first Michelin star in its debut year).
The space is designed to look like a 19th-century French kitchen, complete with 100 copper pans hanging around the room and an original 1873 fireplace. Must order dish is the chicken cooked on hay and pine cones.
This article appears in International View 2019 - Knight Frank's annual compendium of the world's best real estate. To view more of the properties that inspire incredible lifestyles: