Best Items of the Best “Best Of” List Ever Made: Spilled Milk #47

The best restaurants I've tried this year

Lists are great, especially best-of lists.

Well, they are really great for the people and products that are on them! And they are great for readers because it helps to narrow down choices. If you didn’t make the cut on a list, then lists are worthless and probably created by people who don’t know what they are talking about. To quote the amazing Joni Mitchell, “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now…”. 

So here is a massively incomplete best list. The opinions are solely mine and so is the inherent bias. Then again, I am not wrong. And I have included one “Worst Of” at the bottom, well, just because.

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I saw a recent article naming Locust in Nashville the best new restaurant in America.

I am a HUGE fan of Trevor Moran and since I have yet to eat there, I can’t tell you how I feel about it except to say I will 1000 percent fly down there just for dinner at Locust. It’s going to be amazing, Moran and his team are that good. But it got me thinking, in other cities where I have dined out, what’s my best new restaurant experience? And BTW, Locust opened in 2020 and given Covid etc., I like to give some leeway on the word ‘new’. Any place that opened after February in 2020 through now is a 2022 restaurant. Just sayin’.

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Mara by GK - Minneapolis, MN

My best new restaurant in America for 2019 was Gavin Kaysen’s Demi in Minneapolis. It was on many lists, nominated for a lot of awards and still is one of a small handful of best restaurants in my five-state region. Come to think of it, there isn’t a better restaurant than Demi in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, North Dakota or South Dakota. And lightning has struck twice. Mara, Gavin Kaysen’s newest restaurant is the best new restaurant in our part of the world, a blessing for anyone visiting our town since its located in the brand new Four Seasons Hotel in Minneapolis. 

By the time you get there, the menu will have shifted and shuffled, but the ethos will be the same. Kaysen’s Midwestern roots are shot through a prism of his French training and global knowledge of techniques and amplified in this restaurant’s case by a desire to play on the four shores of the Mediterranean with a toe dipped into the Levant. Think exquisite babaganoush and cured mackerel, lamb shank and whole salt roasted sea bass, a stunner of a grilled ribeye for two that is the best piece of steak for red meat lovers in the city.

Pistachio semi freddo

Service is crisp and welcoming, the beverage menu and wine list are top-notch and the desserts are as you would expect, out of control. Pistachio semi freddo for the win. Check that. Get one of everything because the olive oil cake and the rice pudding redefine those desserts.

Kann - Portland, OR

Octopus with avocado and Creole sauce

I had the best meal I have eaten in a long time a few weeks back at Gregory Gourdet’s Kann in Portland, Oregon. This may be one of the handful of best eating experiences I have had in a long time. I’ve been to Haiti several times and understand Gourdet’s source material, eaten my way around the Caribbean for decades, and spent more than a few nights exploring the Haitian diaspora wherever I could find it, I can pretty confidently tell you that what Double G takes you on a thrill ride of island style and Haitian food.