Filed under
Food / Best Of / The Year
Published
September 4, 2026
Best by Lauren may earn a commission when you shop through certain links. Every product here was bought with my own money or tested for at least six weeks. No brand has paid to be included, and nothing is ranked higher because it pays more.
Everything I ate this year, narrowed to the ones I have described to someone out loud since.
They are not ranked by price, and the cheapest is very near the top. What they have in common is that something happened at the table — a wheel, a flame, a plate handed over a counter.
Food that happens in front of you
A cheese wheel tossed at the table, a copper pan set alight, a teppanyaki counter — the theatre is a gimmick and it also genuinely makes the food better, because you eat it thirty seconds after it is finished.
The rule I have landed on: sit at the counter wherever there is one. The food is the same and the meal is better.
The cheapest thing on the list
A plate of beach oysters for about a dollar seventy, shucked in front of me, with lime and a chilli sauce better than it needed to be. I ate them roughly four times a week for months.
Nothing I ate in a restaurant with a website beat them.
The pastry counter
A patisserie counter long enough that choosing takes ten minutes. I went back three times and had something different each time, and I still think about the first one.
