It arrived in the hands of a waiter, who moved with the lightness and grace of a ballet dancer across the restaurant floor. It had a fleshy colour. A creamy, brown kind of hue.  It was inflated to the size of a balloon, but the shape was slightly less uniform.  

“Asparagus,” said the waiter. “Prepared in this pig’s bladder.”  

I don’t know how many bladder-based meals you’ve had in your life but that was a first for me. The asparagus, I should say, was absolutely delicious. But not so amazing that I personally felt compelled to give up roasting food in my oven in favour of bladder cooking, from then on. 

I was dining at Eleven Madison Park. It’s an extraordinary fine-dining restaurant at the foot of Madison Ave in New York, just across the way from the Flatiron Building. Tom Brady had his penthouse across the road. I once saw Rupert Murdoch walking his dog in the park outside. And the food at ELP is as fancy as the neighbours. As a winner of three Michelin Stars, Eleven Madison Park is widely considered one of the very best restaurants in the world. 

The Michelin Star system is certainly an effective marketing tool. It has been with me.   

I’ve sought out other Michelin-starred restaurants in New York, including when Kiwi Matt Lambert won a star for his work at The Musket Room. I’ve dined in Bilbao, where they have a higher concentration of Michelin-starred restaurants than anywhere on Earth. I’ve lined up early and eaten at what was the world’s cheapest Michelin starred restaurant – dim sum in Hong Kong.   

As much as anything, I’ve treated eating at most of these places as an experience. A rare treat. Not so much as a source of nourishment, but as food for memories.   

As the Michelin judges turn their attention to our restaurant scene, I just hope they don’t come here expecting the absolute finest of fine-dining. I appreciate they look at a range of restaurants, but for a few exceptions, la-de-dah's not really us. We don’t do fussy. We don’t do fiddly. We do a more casual, relaxed style that befits our culture. Really good ingredients cooked well and more often than not, designed to be shared. 

It’s funny, as incredible as my night was at Eleven Madison Park, the single best meal of my life wasn’t at a Michelin-starred restaurant. There were no white tablecloths, no sommelier-curated wine list. 

It was in tiny, legally questionable firetrap of an apartment in Paris, that my best mate called his home. I’d flown in with another mate the day before, and the three of us had gone for a long jog by the Seine to try and kick the jetlag. On the way back home, we stopped by one of the local farmers’ markets and picked up some gooey cheese, tomatoes, salami, and baguette. We sprawled out on the floor of the apartment, cutting off hunks of each and stuffing them into our mouths. It was heaven. 

And that’s the thing about the best meals. Ultimately, it’s not the truffle mousse or the poached dodo’s egg or even the inflated pig’s bladder that makes the magic, it’s the people.