2018 Dining & Drinking Memories

BY JOSH RAYNOLDS | JANUARY 4, 2019

I was fortunate to enjoy dozens of fantastic meals, casual as well as over-the-top, indulgent and gastronomic, as well as literally hundreds of superb wines, ranging from remarkable values to rarities this year, many of which will likely never pass my lips again. Choosing which ones were “best” is, frankly, impossible but here is a highly pared down selection of those meals and wines that made some of the strongest and most lasting impressions on me in 2018.

In the case of the meals, all three of these restaurants struck the right chord for their simplicity, ingredient quality and, perhaps most important, their respect for tradition. The wine part was an even more difficult choice given the sheer number of them that I tasted as well as drank over the last 12 months. I decided to boil it down to a handful of those wines that lingered in my memory for weeks and even months after I had them. Rarity played a small part, but after doing this professionally for 30 years now, scarcity is less impressive for me these days than it was early on. Company always plays a big part, and I’m fortunate to have a number of knowledgeable, passionate and generous colleagues and friends around the world with whom I’m able to indulge in amazing wines such as those mentioned here.

Escargot at Brasserie Georges

Brasserie Georges has been serving classic Lyonnais cuisine and their own, brewed-on-site beers to huge crowds in a cavernous space across from the Perrache train station since 1836. It’s an endlessly bustling scene, with 800 seats that are mostly filled from 11:30 in the morning until 11:00 at night, seven days a week. On my three visits in 2018, I indulged in large escargots served in a ridiculous quantity of butter, garlic and parsley; decadent marrow bones; old-school quenelle de brochet in a classic sauce Nantua; an indulgent take on tournedos Rossini, with a generous slice of seared foie gras and a duck breast standing in for the traditional beef filet; and the superb saucisson Pistaché from Mâcon’s venerable Charcuterie Bobosse. A well-aged Saint-Marcellin, along with a healthy dose of Chartreuse, closes things out nicely, as does their rendition of île flottante. The small wine list offers a tight selection of mostly regional wines at fantastic prices, like Château Thivin’s special cuvées of Cote-de-Brouilly or Louis-Claude Desvignes’s outstanding Morgons for a measly €25. High rollers would be especially thrilled to find all three of Guigal’s La Côte-Rôties on offer at the ridiculously low price, relatively speaking, of €250 on my last visit.