Both are fantastic. Alinea is more of a "once in a lifetime experience" type of place. Oriole was purely about food/flavor.

Alinea may be a "once in a lifetime experience" place but I'd love to go back. The food/flavors were spectacular. It's not a zero sum game!

Does that mean the food itself wasn't good, that you wouldn't go back again for a 2nd time? My expectation/worry is that Alinea might be too gimmicky.

Good to hear that you'd go back! I was really feeling unsure about Alinea!

We were just talking about Alinea last night after seeing the new World's Best 50 rankings. Alinea, Geranium, Noma (lunch), Cyrus, Saam (inside Bazaar Beverly Hills), Amber, Kitcho, Narisawa, Saison, Atelier Crenn, Manresa, Guy Savoy, Meadowood, The Test Kitchen (lunch), Central, and Cena del Oro at MAP (Cusco) are among our most memorable and delicious meals of all time.

Biggest disappointments? Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, St John's London, Steirereck, Sepia Sydney, minibar DC (wine pours), Marcus, Hajime (worst service), Eleven Madison Park, Cosme (lunch).

I feel like my personal ratings would be more inline with Michelin than Pellegrino's list. For example, Chef's Table at BF is one of my faves of all time, and yet it's only at #69 . I also didn't love EMP, and am surprised to see it still hanging on at #4 . Nevertheless, I'm still going to check out Pujol (#13) and Quintonil (#11) on my next trip to Mexico City.

We had very good dinners at both Pujol and Quintonil--though I actually preferred Biko, which now is closed.

I don't take any rankings as literally accurate, instead preferring to think of broad categories of excellence. No. 5 and No. 48 can be comparably good, just as No. 3 and No. 86; it's always relative. Geranium was one of the most impressive dinners I ever had, and it was ranked #48 and had only 2 stars at the time. Now it's ranked higher by both Pellegrino and Michelin. Perhaps the rankings now of Geranium are more reflective of reality than they were back then? Who can say. Either way, Geranium likely is just as good today as it was when I dined there, despite its ranking and star count being different.

That's why I don't care much about the difference between 2 and 3 Michelin stars (looking at you, Atelier Crenn, which deserves 3 to me) and don't care much about the relative ranking on lists like Pellegrino (looking at you, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal and St Johns, which were horrible). More like Michelin stars denote broad categories of excellence, with many restaurants being considered comparable in terms of quality. Even so, people always will have their favorites and preferences, and different scenarios can result in people having varying opinions on the same restaurant at different times.

I like St John but I honestly don't think it is aiming at the heights it's been hurled up to mainly because it was pretty influential amongst chefs and foodies and got a huge amount of attention, it's straightforward nose to tail eating. The star is I think one of the generous ones Michelin gives for places which are influential and I'd put Gavroche's 2, Arzak's 3, Bocuse's 3 and I hear Waterside Inn's 3 is a touch bemusing these days too.

50 best just has some nuts things in there for me, Gaggan at no.5 I cannot understand - and I liked it and thought it was fun - but no way top ten or perhaps even top 30 material for me. Actually the place oppposite Gaggan, Gaa, I think could give it a run for its money as it has improved a lot recently. I also liked Mugaritz but nowhere near enough to put it higher than Azurmendi or Beresategui (which wasn't in the top 50). Arzak I loved first time in the early 00's but last time a couple years back I felt Michelin were being very kind.

Weirdly enough I was left a bit cold by Meadowood - there seemed to be a huge amount of work for the impact on the plate, A potato in beeswax dish and a chicken dish I was pretty underwhelmed by and across the tasting menu, there were too many thuds and not enough "wows" to convince me. I agree Crenn is special and I always look to see if she's nailed a third star every year.

Anyway these things are highly subjective as pointed out already and it's always possible I caught them on an off or a particularly on day...not quite possible to for me to visit these places enough to take the variance of a chef waking up hungover or the seabass delivery happening to be a King of its kind on any given day :)

I've been there twice and would go back ;)

My wife thought it was a bit gimmicky but loved the food. I loved both but my wife tells me I'm sort of like a moth, attracted to shiny, bright things.

We loved Pujol, when we dined there in September, and hated Biko - didn't care for either the food or the service (pretentious and inefficient) - when we ate there on Día de los Muertos. Unfortunately, I have not been able to score a reservation at Quintonil (my trips to Mexico City are generally on relatively short notice); perhaps next time at CDMX.

My TripAdvisor reviews of Quintonil and Biko from Feb 2015 are telling. I didn't like that Quintonil had no wine pairings. Obviously, menus change and the preferences we have don't change as easily. So it's not surprising, actually, that some of us preferred one restaurant that another didn't, all while we recognize that all of these are top restaurants for the most part. (Except for Dinner by Heston Blumenthal and St John's, two of the worst Michelin/Pellegrino meals I've ever had.) Sorry, I can't find my TripAdvsior review for Pujol, which I tried on another trip.

Quintonil:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUser...ulf_Coast.html

Biko:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUser...ulf_Coast.html

Foie gras with pineapple at Biko--I still remember being blown away by how delicious it was.

(For perspective, anyone also can see the rest of my restaurant reviews from there, I presume. I was at The Test Kitch and at Saam Bazaar Beverly Hills only a month earlier in Jan 2015 and at Mikla, Guy Savoy, Coi, and Saison only a few months earlier--and at Alinea a few months before that. I was at Benu and Atelier Crenn later that year, too.)

I think I read somewhere that these Michelin/Pellegrino raters visit restaurants repeatedly to get a fair score. That's great because consistency is very important. Most of these restaurants I've only been to once or twice, so even if I didn't have a good time it's possible it was just a fluke. The only restaurant I keep going back to repeatedly is chef's table at bf (6x), and it's been consistently flawless.

I've heard that it's wonderful, but I don't go to restaurants that require a jacket. If Guy Savoy can waive the ridiculous jacket req't for me in Paris, any restaurant anywhere should be able to do so, as well IMO.

I respect the wishes of the proprietor, and would never ask for any sort of waiver, absent some very special circumstance like "the airline lost my luggage" and then still ask if it would be ok, or accept the establishment's "substitute emergency jacket" if required. Yes, "any restaurant anywhere" could do it, and patrons who expect a certain level of published, purportedly-required ambiance, could be put off.

I respect the wishes of the proprietor, too. Asking for an exception isn't at all disrespectful. (I always do so well in advance, before booking or ticket purchase or immediately afterward.)

For those that have given me an exception, I always take care to still dress very well. For those that haven't (La Pergola, Chef's Table, Le Bernardin main dining room), I simply haven't bothered to pursue the reservation or have canceled.

The most ridiculous requirement I've seen recently was Le Bernardin's, which requires that you either wear a jacket in but can take it off at the table OR will let you walk in without a jacket, give you a "lender" jacket to walk to the table, which you also don't have to wear once at the table. The St Regis concierge and I had a good laugh about such pompousness.