Went to Eleven Madison Park for my birthday dinner last night. Perhaps it's just me, but I feel like nearly every high-end restaurant I go to gets worse the next time I visit. There are only 2 restaurants with Michelin stars that have continued to wow me on follow-on visits: Gramercy Tavern and Contra (both in NYC). EMP has basically turned into a generic high-end French restaurant now. When I went 6+ years ago, virtually every dish served was an homage to New York City, and while it wasn't the best food outright I had eaten, it was a much more memorable experience. There was one standout dish - sturgeon caviar served in an EMP-logo'ed tin with a pickled quail egg and hollandaise. The rest, to be honest - delicious but not 'The World's Best'. I'd argue that my meal at Le Bernardin a couple months prior was arguably more memorable.

My personal 'Best in the World' remains Hertog Jan outside of Bruges, Belgium - still not even a contest.