NO. 1 NONESUCH Oklahoma City NO. 2 MAYDAN Washington, D.C. America’s Best New Restaurants 2018 What sets these ten establishments apart from this year’s bazillion openings? The ability to take a timeless concept and turn it on its head. To cook the dishes your parents grew up on but make them your own. To serve the food you believe in without compromise. To make anyone who stumbles into your restaurant feel instantly welcome. Those are (just a few of) the characteristics that blow us away year after year as we scour the country in search of the Hot 10: our annual list of the best new restaurants. Welcome to the most delicious, exciting, and just plain fun places to eat in America right now. By Andrew Knowlton Edited by Julia Kramer NO. 3 UGLY BABY Brooklyn NO. 4 FREEDMAN’S Los Angeles NO. 5 NYUM BAI Oakland, CA NO. 6 NIMBLEFISH Portland, OR NO. 7 CHE FICO San Francisco NO. 8 YUME GA ARUKARA Cambridge, MA NO. 9 DRIFTERS WIFE Portland, ME NO. 10 CALL Denver HOT TEN 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL HOT TEN 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL HOT TEN 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL HOT TEN

NO. 1 NONESUCH OKLAHOMA CITY Photographs by ALEX LAU There’s always a moment when it hits me. It’s usually a single bite and, boom, I fall in love with a restaurant. The pickle plate, starring (clockwise from top left) golden beets, jujubes, green strawberries, blueberries, a powder-dusted carrot, and a quail egg, alongside juniper utensils The view from the U-shaped dining room counter Custom-made ceramics from OKC-based Sage Eden Pottery I stumbled upon Nonesuch while swiping through Instagram during one of those late-night sessions I do after my wife falls asleep. The food on its feed looked beautiful and artistic and progressive, the kind of dishes you might find in Copenhagen or Tokyo or New York—but not necessarily the Great Plains. I googled it. The results were meager. No big write-ups. No national press. And definitely no press release about it in my in-box. I started to wonder whether my internal restaurant radar was broken. How could something that seemed so compelling have so little buzz? Should I really book an out- of-the-way plane trip to Oklahoma based off a few well-lit Instagram photos? It was Thursday, prime time, and the place was all but empty. Thankfully, curiosity got the better of me. And six weeks later, as I stepped out into the sticky OKC air after that first dinner at Nonesuch, I was ecstatic and grateful. I was also full of questions: How did food this challenging materialize in a town known more for its massive chicken-fried steaks? Who was in the kitchen, and how did they learn how to cook like this? And in a world where everyone knows everything about a restaurant the minute it opens, how had this place flown so under the radar? I had to find out. Colin Stringer, Jeremy Wolfe, and Paul Wang are the chefs behind Nonesuch. All are under 30, and none have much in the way of professional culinary training. A month after my first meal, I was back in OKC, but this time I was sitting with the three chefs at Pho Cuong, their favorite Vietnamese restaurant. It’s where you can usually find them eating bún riêu and finishing one another’s sentences. Stringer, who was “really bad at college,” began his career washing dishes and scattering hash browns at Waffle House. Wolfe got his start at a restaurant where his buddy worked when the dishwasher quit. Unlike Stringer and Wolfe, both OKC natives, Wang was born in Hong Kong, then raised in Seoul and Southern California. His first job was at John’s Incredible Pizza Company, a Chuck E. Cheese knockoff, where he was a guest-service rep and wore a bear costume. After watching them work and eating their food, I think the best analogy I can use to describe the trio, who jokingly call themselves the Mayflower Boys after their shared birth month, is three guys in a band, heads down, making incredibly beautiful music together—that they doubt anyone will ever hear. Tell me your names again? The best analogy I can use to describe the trio is three guys in a band, heads down, making incredibly beautiful music together—that they doubt anyone will ever hear. Nonesuch doesn’t have PR. As of press time it has only 5,000 Instagram followers. It has a small local fan base, many of whom work with Nonesuch in some capacity. The chefs didn’t spend years working for Boulud or Keller, although Wang did intern at Noma in Copenhagen. And it has a guy who makes waffle sandwiches. Stay with me. In 2014, Stringer and Wolfe (along with Andon Whitehorn) ran a pop-up called Nani in a creaky 100-year-old Victorian house in OKC. Nani became a local phenomenon, selling out months in advance—until the health department essentially shut it down for operating without a license. Chefs Colin Stringer, Paul Wang, and Jeremy Wolfe EAT LIKE THE CHEFS The Nonesuch chefs at Pho Cuong A round at Prairie Artisan Ales What Waffle Champion is made of The scene at Bar Arbolada One of Nani’s early guests was a guy named Todd Woodruff, a local restaurateur who had a runaway hit called Waffle Champion (think waffles wrapped around chicken tenders, crispy leeks, and Tabasco honey). He fell for the gutsy cooking at Nani and the DIY vibe of the venture. “I wanted to give them a new stage to keep doing what they love but also make a living doing it,” Woodruff told me. Eventually he contacted Stringer, who put much of the Nani band back together. Nonesuch, the name of the new project, opened in OKC’s Midtown district on October 4, 2017. Nonesuch is not ambitious for OKC; it’s ambitious, period. The trio’s inspiration is modern Nordic cooking—a style of cuisine defined by hyper-local, often foraged ingredients, minimal but artful plating, and a love of all things fermented, pickled, and cured. What that means at Nonesuch is that if there’s a protein, vegetable, piece of fruit, or dairy product on the plate, it comes from Oklahoma. For some cooks this would mean culinary suicide, but for Stringer, Wang, and Wolfe, it is the whole reason for the restaurant’s existence. Wang is super technical and can pickle and ferment anything— skills he picked up during his Noma stint. Stringer has a way with aging and cooking meats and knows more than anyone should about vinegars, a key component in many Nonesuch dishes. He’s also the kitchen general. Wolfe, the baby of the bunch at 25, is a bread and dessert Jedi who made even this dessert skeptic a fan. I’m not alone. Greg Elwell, the former restaurant critic for the Oklahoma Gazette, told me about Wolfe’s crème anglaise s’more: “It was legit one of my top desserts of the last decade. I ate it with my eyes closed,” he remembers. “The woman I was with decided then and there that nothing was going to happen between us, because who wants to date the guy who gets weird with food.” Grilled chicken hearts? Colostrum custard? Are you kidding? Nonesuch is not ambitious for OKC; it’s ambitious, period. All three chefs share a passion for Oklahoma ingredients. But the fact that everything is from in-state is not a narrative they want to shove in people’s faces. To them it’s just what responsible chefs do in 2018. Of course, it’s easier to abide by that philosophy when you live in, say, California or even Washington, D.C. But in a landlocked state like Oklahoma it can be difficult. The Nonesuch guys see these limitations as a positive. “I think it helps our creativity because if we could cook with anything we wanted, well, I’m not sure that we would know what to do,” Wolfe says. This connection to place is part of what makes Nonesuch so special. Take the tea course that usually arrives near the end of the tasting menu, the one that most people overlook until they take a sip. It’s not fresh chamomile or even some rare pu-erh. It’s made with as many as 12 ingredients that the chefs have foraged over the years, which they steep in hot water. “Not only was it utterly delicious, but I remember thinking that I was drinking an entire year of Oklahoma,” Elwell recalls. “Every season. Every storm. Every drought. That still blows my mind.” Time to sort the elderflowers Colostrum custard with peas On my second visit to the restaurant, Stringer asked if I was interested in trying a new dish and, of course, I was game. It involved barely poached double-shucked English peas (to remove any bitterness), strawberry vinegar, and coriander flowers. All of that was sitting atop the silkiest, most perfect custard I’ve ever eaten. The dairy used to make the custard is what sold me. It was cow’s colostrum. The glossy description of colostrum: “When cows give birth in the spring, the immediate milk they give is extremely high in protein.” (That’s how Stringer put it on the Nonesuch Instagram. ) The real-life, deal-with-it description: bovine breast milk. I defy anyone who likes dairy not to fall for it. It was the most intensely flavored dairy-based dish I’d ever tasted. It was grassy and needed no gelatin, just a bit of heat, to create a custard. I had never tasted a dish like it. “We have the freedom to cook whatever we want. So I think it’s very easy for us to be like, what do we have to lose, let’s put it on the menu,” Stringer says. Could Nonesuch be the restaurant to put OKC, which as far as I could tell was still heavy on steaks and onion burgers, on the national dining map? Of course, you can cook some of the best, most compelling personal food on the planet using hyper-local and foraged ingredients and have an amazing story to back it all up, but if it’s not delicious, does it really matter? I’ve been to plenty of well-known spots where the food looks incredible on the plate but fizzles when you taste it. I was worried during my first trip that this would be the case with Nonesuch’s beautiful dishes—all Instagram glam, no boom. Then Wang arrived with a delicate mushroom crepe filled with mint, lovage, sorrel, and nasturtium and dusted with smoked wild chive powder. It was like eating your way through an ethereal herb garden. And then there was a rich and deeply flavored steak tartare piled on a sablé cracker. God knows I’ve had my fair share of steak tartare in 2018, but this one was made from the dry-aged meat of a dairy cow and cut into slightly larger chunks, resulting in a beefy flavor times ten. What these guys lacked in confidence and oratory skills (a few dishes were described in a head-down mumble by the chefs), they more than made up for in technique and taste. These kids could really cook. THE TASTING MENU One night. Ten courses Compressed courgette and fava–stuffed squash blossom Bison tartare on pork fat sablé Turnip with duck-yolk sauce and kale “nori” Salty buttermilk sorbet with sorrel juice Grilled bison rib eye with grilled baby cabbage and peach glaze Soft scramble tart with black garlic Blueberry sorbet with lemongrass yogurt Mint and basil biscotti with herbal tea Chocolate mint ice cream, pizzelle, and chimichurri Sourdough baguette with cultured butter, shishito jam, and pickles Did other diners realize just how astonishing these dishes were? I was beginning to think not. On the two evenings I dined at Nonesuch, there were a combined total of ten guests. Including me. It got me thinking. What did I see in Nonesuch that others did not? What was keeping people away? Was it the price (around $75 for ten courses)? Was it the in-your-face dishes like grilled chicken hearts or aged duck? Did people find the tasting-menu format pretentious? Did OKC locals even know Nonesuch existed? When I got back to my hotel after that first thrilling dinner, I flipped through the local city magazine’s Best Of issue. Nonesuch wasn’t mentioned anywhere. The magazine’s favorite new restaurant was praised for its cozy environment and large portions. “What more could we want?” the last sentence read. Elwell told me about the time he was having dinner with a member of the OKC city council, and when he mentioned Nonesuch, the city official had never heard of the place. I fell for OKC. I dug the low-slung brick buildings and the neon signs advertising laundry services and dive bars. I loved the airy art-filled 21c Museum Hotel where I stayed. I saw the same creative energy I see in Houston or Nashville at a new spot called Bar Arbolada, which was bustling with cool kids sipping cucumber daiquiris and cans of rosé. There was a cultural and culinary buzz beginning to simmer. Could Nonesuch be the restaurant to put OKC, which as far as I could tell was still heavy on steaks and onion burgers, on the national dining map? I’d seen my share of ambitious, inexperienced chefs try to transform tradition-bound restaurant scenes and fail colossally. I had my doubts. You down with OKC? Welcome to Oklahoma City. The chefs acknowledge the lack of attention they’ve received, but it doesn’t change the way they operate. “It’s more respectful to a community if you’re not dumbing things down and making everything fried this or fried that,” Wolfe says. “You have to remember that our state dish is an extra side of ranch dressing.” All it takes is three people who believe in what they do and do it (well) with conviction. It also helps if you have someone who sells a lot of waffles to believe in you and back you. Nonesuch is challenging food for any city. The fact that these chefs have chosen to stay in OKC and not flee to a city like Austin, where many talented local chefs end up, makes it all the more impressive. Their job is to feed people, yes, but I get the sense that they really love changing people’s attitudes about food. “Some folks come in, cross their arms defensively, and want to hate everything,” Wolfe says. “And then halfway through the meal they are smiling and laughing with you and really loving it. That’s my favorite thing to witness.” When I asked Stringer about his motivation, he paused for a moment. “It’s the transformative power of it,” he said. “You serve a heart dish and a lot of folks roll their eyes or make a face. Then you look over ten minutes later, and they’ve eaten all of it, and they’re beaming. I like that food has that power over people. That’s why I cook.” Oklahoma City, home to the geodesic Gold Dome…and our No. 1 restaurant If there’s one thing I’ve learned after crisscrossing the country in search of memorable food for almost 20 years, it’s that greatness exists everywhere—it just needs risk-takers to make it happen. “I won’t pretend everyone here gets Nonesuch, but those guys have willed a Michelin-caliber restaurant into reality through passion,” explains Blair Humphreys, a local developer and Nonesuch regular. He’s right. All it takes is three people who believe in what they do and do it (well) with conviction. It also helps if you have someone who sells a lot of waffles to believe in you and back you. How demoralizing must it be to cook the wildly creative and compelling food they were knocking out nightly and still not be busy? In the food-media world we tend to cover the same spots. There’s a well-traveled circuit of usual-suspect cities. Each year certain restaurants pop up on everyone’s Best Of lists. And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. If a place is great, it’s great, right? Take last year’s No. 1 restaurant on our list, Turkey and the Wolf in New Orleans. We loved it. And so did everyone else. Yes, it was a sandwich place, a bold choice to name the best restaurant in America, but it was in one of the most food-obsessed cities in America. The chef, Mason Hereford, had worked at a standout NOLA spot, and there were already lines out the door by the time I checked it out. Nonesuch had none of that going for it. city of neon With signs like these, who wouldn’t fall in love with OKC’s retro charm? At the end of my visit, Stringer drove me around OKC on a 95 degree day in his blue 2001 Dodge Ram truck. The AC was busted and the humid air blew in the windows like a hair dryer. He pointed out local landmarks: the geodesic Gold Dome on Route 66, his favorite Chinese joint, Chow’s, and the old Victorian that housed Nani and started him on the road to Nonesuch, a restaurant whose future I openly worried about. Even more, I was worried about Stringer, Wang, and Wolfe. How demoralizing must it be to cook the wildly creative and compelling food they were knocking out nightly and still not be busy? How did they stay motivated? “Sometimes I do get frustrated and ask myself, ‘Why am I here at 8:30 a.m. when I’m cooking for five people tonight?’” Stringer replied. “But we have to remind ourselves that we’ve gotta make it great every single day.” He paused as we drove by S&B’s, a local chain where he used to flip burgers. “None of this really makes any sense,” he said. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.” How did a 22-seat tasting-menu spot from three chefs whom no one has ever heard of, in a city that no national critic has ever paid attention to, become America’s best new restaurant? This time it was a forkful of homemade dan dan noodles. They were tossed with minced fermented turnip greens in a tahini-like pecan sauce, dressed with chili oil, dusted with cucumber powder, and garnished with micro purple basil. It was spicy and cooling, confounding in its simplicity, and immensely satisfying—the type of dish that follows you around for years. The taste was unexpected and complex. Whoever made it was a genius. I was halfway through a ten-course tasting menu in a 22-seat restaurant in a city I’d never set foot in before. It was Thursday, prime time, and the place was all but empty. Dried wild spinach and juniper hung from the wood rafters. Pickles and other jarred kitchen experiments lined the shelves. Car Seat Headrest played on the speakers. There was a host, a server, three chefs, and no menu. I was head over heels but utterly confused. Who cooked this dish? And what the hell was this place? It had been three months since I’d set off on my annual cross-country search for the year’s best new restaurants. I’d checked out most of the places I was “supposed” to. You know, those buzzy spots run by pedigreed chefs or by cooks who used to work for those pedigreed chefs. I’d visited San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and the other noted food cities. I’d checked out the vibrant restaurant scenes in smaller towns like Charleston, South Carolina, and Portland (both of them). But Oklahoma City? In two decades of covering restaurants, it had never popped onto my radar. And the chefs? Never heard of them. Ready to jump a flight to OKC? Read about the Nonesuch crew’s favorite spots in town. America’s best new restaurant? HOT TEN 2018 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL HOT TEN HOT TEN by ANDREW KNOWLTON

Swiss Chard-Tahini Dip Seared Halloumi with Peanut Dukkah and Honey Freekeh Salad with Parsley and Cherry Tomatoes Lemony Cabbage with Mint Slow-Roast Spiced Lamb Shoulder with Sumac Onions Cinnamon-Tomato Jam Get the recipe If you love hummus or baba ghanoush, this dairy-free dip will become a new favorite. Just make sure you have plenty of warm flatbread to scoop it all up. Get the recipe Salty, lacy-edged Halloumi covered in warm honey and sprinkled with nutty dukkah—what’s not to love? Get the recipe The chefs at Maydan make this summer grain salad extra tart with lots of lemon juice. It can be served on its own or alongside creamy spreads or fatty pieces of meat. Get the recipe When all the flavors meld, the dried mint blooms and transforms this dish into an addictive slaw that pairs well with fatty cuts of meat. Get the recipe At Maydan the lamb shoulder is cooked sous vide until meltingly tender and then finished in the hearth until crisp and golden brown. We adapted their recipe for the oven to similar effect. Get the recipe Cinnamon lends additional sweetness to this savory jam, making it an excellent match with heavily spiced lamb or pork. RECIPES A giant hearth with a copper hood sits at the center of Maydan, which is housed in a former train facility. Maydan owner Rose Previte —ROSE PREVITE We want you to taste the food, to taste the vegetables just as they are. There’s fire on them, but the flavor of the white oak wood is not the component we want coming through. It’s not barbecue; it’s grilled. We don’t smoke anything. We could if we wanted to, but it wouldn’t be accurate for the regions we are representing. There’s not a lot of fusion, there’s not a lot of experimentation. It’s really dead-on. Certain things don’t work on the fire, like rice. People are always asking, “Why isn’t there rice with my kebab?” We’re like, “We can’t do rice!” What we can do is bread. It’s the most representative thing on the menu. In Georgia I discovered this clay-pot oven, known as a tone, that made it all the way there from India. We’ve built one into our hearth here at Maydan. We make a flatbread using recipes from all the cultures put together. It’s not naan, it’s not pita—our bread is unique; nobody else does it like we do. To me it’s the culmination. It’s symbolic, the breaking of bread, in this place where people can come together as equals. My mom is Lebanese-American, my dad is Italian-American, and I have been cooking and surrounded by food since I was born. My first restaurant, Compass Rose, is all about international street food. But for the second, I wanted a fire. All of those squares, those maydans, have fire. I wanted the restaurant to give you that feeling of winding through a market, like you’re in the medina in Fez, Morocco. It’s a little chaotic, but it’s happy chaos. So I linked up with Chris Morgan and Gerald Addison, my co-executive chefs, who’ve both worked extensively with fire cooking. As we were talking, we realized we had a love for Middle Eastern food above all else. This led to a five-country trip, which started in Morocco, went on to Tunisia, then Georgia, Lebanon, and Turkey. You come into the restaurant, and it’s really quiet, and you’re just in the vestibule covered with textiles. It feels a little like Alice in Wonderland. There are steps and doors and you’re like, Which way do I go? But then you open the main door, and there it is: the hearth. And you instantly feel something: surprise, shock, horror, happiness—it doesn’t matter, you feel something. It’s an experience. Everything in the restaurant is meaningful. Everything has a story. There’s no stove, no range. Everything is cooked on the hearth, which has a mammoth hood covered in copper. The fire is so big and so intense that these guys are sweating through their shirts in five minutes. I don’t think we want it to be tamed; it’s just about managing it. There is something primal in the fire. The way people are drawn to it is insane. They just stare for hours. It’s like installation art. I discovered the word in Ukraine. I kept hearing it: “Everyone is meeting at maydan,” and “The revolution is happening at maydan.” I found out this word is used throughout the Caucuses, Iran, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and India. And it always means the same thing: a central public meeting place. A space for people to come together as a community, to mourn, to celebrate, to rebel. People in these places have drastic income disparities, but there’s always street food that everybody loves and that’s representative of the culture. The poor people eat there and the rich people eat there. It’s an equalizer. A maydan brings everyone together over a common emotion. And that is powerful. Photographs by It took a trip halfway around the world to design the live-fire hearth at the center of this Middle Eastern restaurant. But it takes only one meal—and a couple hours staring longingly at the huge hearth and all the charred meats and puffy bread coming off it—to realize why it was so worth it. Owner Rose Previte tells the story of how it all got started WASHINGTON, D.C. MAYDAN NO. MICHAEL GRAYDON + NIKOLE HERRIOTT Maydan’s signature flatbread 2 Reported by Andy Baraghani maydan HOT TEN 2018 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL HOT TEN HOT TEN

6 “When someone is struggling with the heat, we give them a fresh chilled cucumber. Warm water, beer, and milk help too.” When All Else Fails, Eat a Cucumber “Thai food is about cooking with patience. My best memory of my dad cooking is him pounding curry paste because nobody else could make it the way he wanted. He pounded all day, for hours and hours. Here at Ugly Baby, we make our curry paste the way my dad did: with a mortar and pestle.” 5 A Mortar and Pestle Takes Time, and That’s the Point 4 “Not only is the heat from different chiles different, but each ingredient in a dish— cumin, pepper, garlic, turmeric, galangal—complements the spiciness and adds flavor little by little. When they are combined, it’s like a bomb.” Heat and Flavor Go Hand in Hand 3 “Thai food stands out because of how generous we are with flavor. I don’t hold back. If it’s too spicy, add more sugar. If it’s too sweet, add more fish sauce or chile. Cool, crunchy herbs and veggies balance heat. It’s never a matter of too much flavor; it’s about adding more to balance everything.” More Is More “We use bird chiles because we follow the rules of the great-grandmothers and -grandfathers. We already know what is good. I don’t see anything that can replace them. Fresh, ripe red Thai bird chiles release the best aroma and flavor. We also sometimes use the bigger cayenne chile pepper for texture and color but not really for flavor.” 2 Bird Chiles Are the Only Fresh Chiles That Matter 1 GET THE RECIPE “It’s my belief that curry paste is the key to Thai cooking. It is the base of almost all my dishes. Thai cooking has adopted so many methods from so many different cuisines from China, from Myanmar, from Thai Muslims, today from Koreans, from the Japanese. But the key to Thai cuisine, if we strip all that off, is the paste. That is the real Thailand to me.” Curry Paste Is the Foundation of Everything Hot tips Making curry paste with a mortar and pestle Seats fill up the moment Ugly Baby opens every night. Tu ka ko (fried coconut milk cakes) Kua kling (beef eye round curry) Chef Sirichai Sreparplarn Born and raised in Bangkok, Sreparplarn learned to cook from his parents. “As a Thai kid you are always in the kitchen,” he says. His father would spend hours at home pounding curry paste, and his mother worked as a chef at a hotel. “My mom was the one who taught me to never stop learning,” he recalls. “That’s why I always question myself, like, is this good enough? Am I in a comfort zone already? I have to dare to do more.” “The only way to tone down the heat is to dilute it,” the chef says, “which I refuse to do.” Walk into Ugly Baby on a Saturday night and you’ll find the tiny Brooklyn restaurant packed with diners sweating and crying (literally) from the profusion of chiles found in each dish. But the atmosphere is pure fun. “I believe heat is like a drug,” Sreparplarn says with a sly smile. “It’s painful, but you want more, more, more.” Tum kanoon (red curry with jackfruit) Sirichai Sreparplarn (back row center in orange hat) with his staff, who coordinate their colorful costumes every Saturday (this was Bowie night) The hottest restaurant in New York? It’s quite literally the hottest. The chef, Sirichai Sreparplarn, is a chile whisperer who doesn’t care if you can’t stand the heat. And the food he cooks is habit-forming: You’ll crave the fiery but purposeful heat of his Technicolor Thai dishes BROOKLYN UGLY BABY 3 NO. Photographs by ALEX LAU Sirichai Sreparplarn doesn’t compromise. At 28, Sreparplarn moved to New York City to study journalism and help his aunt with her Thai restaurant in the East Village. Later he helped lead the kitchen at the short-lived but critically acclaimed Kao Soy in Red Hook, then a pop-up down the street called Chiang Mai. His goal from the start has been to introduce New Yorkers to what he calls “real Thai cooking.” “Thai food is not about doing it fast,” he says. “It’s about low heat and spending time stirring and stirring, sometimes for hours.” The process of opening his own restaurant wasn’t easy; the chef spent a year searching for a space and looking for a loan. When he finally succeeded, he named the place Ugly Baby after an old Thai superstition: calling newborns unattractive so that the evil spirits will leave them alone. “This restaurant is my ugly baby,” says Sreparplarn. “It’s everything to me, but I’m always afraid I’m going to lose it.” Reported by HILARY CADIGAN chris morocco How Ugly Baby chef Sirichai Sreparplarn handles the heat Ingredients for red curry paste Fresh bird chiles and HOT TEN 2018 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL HOT TEN HOT TEN

NO. 4 FREEDMAN’S LOS ANGELES Genius is when you take a timeless concept, turn it on its head, and redefine it. That’s what sibling restaurateurs Jonah and Amanda Freedman have done for the classic Jewish deli: They improved an already perfect thing. Here, Jonah breaks down every careful detail, from the latkes to the lavatory Photographs by ALEX LAU Because we’re not really a deli. We don’t do stuff by the pound, we have liquor, and we’re open a little later. Other modern delis have popped up, but a lot of them were just changing the deli aesthetic, going light and bright—minimalist design with subway tile. They weren’t looking at the food and saying, “Where can we innovate? Where can we bring this idea of Jewish food to another level?” That’s where we got excited. We didn’t want the food to become sentimental or nostalgic. I grew up going to delis with my grandfather in Toronto. Sour pickles are staples of Jewish cooking, but I find them boring. Thus, the half-sour salad was born. It’s avocado, fennel, and green goddess dressing. Our latkes are done in a waffle iron. Our brisket is served with bone marrow—which just pushes it in a more French direction. We have a lot of French customers, actually. I think it’s because they realize that we’re secretly a French restaurant masquerading as a Jewish deli. We’re the black sheep of Jewish delis. CO-OWNER JONAH FREEDMAN There’s a culture of delis in L.A. In the summer of 2016 I was at Langer’s with my sister. We were sitting there, looking around, realizing that this place was about to close and it was four o’clock in the afternoon. We said to each other, “What if this place were a little younger, a little cooler, had some great music playing, and a menu geared toward a more modern customer? And what if we could access it at ten o’clock at night? What would that look like?” And that’s kind of where everything started from. The brass, the French sconces from 1910 Paris, the Morris & Co. wallpaper, the tank on the toilet that’s decorated with 24-karat gold-leaf trim…it’s a little f*#% you to restaurants that were clean and spare with pure white walls. I wanted to fill everything. Our bar is made from an old hearth we found. A local tattoo artist, Aron Dubois, did our logo. Our napkins have an illustration of a flamingo drinking a martini; it’s a little bit Miami. The idea is: Okay, what if young people took over a grandma’s house and made it cool? —JONAH FREEDMAN IT’S ALL IN THE DETAILS There’s a story behind every plate, pickle, and pipe (yes, pipe) at Freedman’s. Jonah Freedman tells us a few of them THE MATZO BALLS “We wanted them superlight and airy. I think [former L.A. Times critic] Jonathan Gold called them quenelles. Rather than one hulking thing, there’s a dozen or so. It’s a nicer, more palatable soup experience. We serve them in Luminarc Amberline cookware we found in Koreatown.” THE ROTARY TELEPHONE “It has a dial tone. The idea is, if you don’t have your phone, you can make a call. Similar to Cheers, you can receive a call at the bar. I would love if one of the employees answered the phone and went into the dining room and called out to someone. It’ll happen one day.” THE CHAIRS “We have wicker chairs and Modernica chairs; we’re mixing different eras throughout the restaurant. Because your grandparents, as they go through time, they collect things. And all of these eras exist at once.” THE ELECTRIC KNIFE “This is our super-strange version of high-low. The brisket is sliced tableside, but it’s not a particularly nice cut of meat. Not only that, but it’s cut with our ‘dad knife,’ which is just a battery-operated Waring.” IF THESE WALLPAPERS COULD TALK... “Rather than selecting one single wallpaper to cover the entire restaurant, the aim was to create different spaces and dining experiences with each new wall,” says Freedman. For example: THE REUBEN “We hired Liz Johnson as our opening chef. We were like, Hey, you’re super non-Jewish, and we’re going to have you make briskets and Reubens. We swap the traditional corned beef for our pastrami, which is brined and smoked in-house.” “The color, the light stitching of the leather— it’s inspired by Hermès watches. We had them custom made.” THE BATHROOM “The porcelain is hand-painted in 24-karat gold-leaf trim. As for the gold plumbing on the urinal, that was incredibly hard to get our hands on. That was deep web.” THE BAR “Delis were a place to sit and talk. That’s a huge part of our bar. It’s made from an old 1940s fireplace mantel that we found in L.A. I know it’s cheesy and everyone talks about the hearth, but that’s where people meet.” THE PICKLES “The pickles are made in-house, the sauerkraut is made in-house, the pumpernickel bread for the happy hour toast is made in-house. All the bagels are hand rolled and made in-house.” THE BRISKET “Our brisket is done like Jewish-Texas barbecue, with loads of tarragon on top, braised for hours. You get rye bread, you get pickles, and the idea is that you create this massive sandwich out of everything.” The Bathroom “The wall opposite the bathrooms is left blank. This is meant to kind of clear your visual palette for the moment before you enter the bathroom and see the amazing It’s vibrant, fun, confusing. It’s like Boca Raton meets M.C. Escher.” The Banquettes “The wallpaper along the banquet is a It seemed like a nice everyday wallpaper: not too dark, but had enough patterning to feel cozy and intimate at night, like a well-worn British country home. The many browns, tans, and oranges play off the saddle-like cognac leather cushions.” The Bar The bar area is filled with richer, darker tones: browns and burnt orange. It feels a little more like a speakeasy: dimmer, boozier. The wallpaper used along the bar to create that kind of Prohibition-esque atmosphere is a The Dividing Wall “The wall that separates the kitchen from the dining room is clad in . This took double the time to install than all the newly manufactured wallpaper did. It was like trying to put up newspaper. It was thin and delicate and had to be done with a very gentle hand. The background is a kind of burgundy color, and the flowers are grayish-white, which play off the marble counter below.” The Hallway “Reinforcing the bird theme that’s present through the restaurant, we selected the . It depicts perched birds with strawberries in their mouths. It’s a relatively light scene but has dark greens and browns that complement the dark green wainscoting below. The color scheme seems kind of country club to me.” THE LATKES “We shred the potatoes, put them in the waffle iron, freeze them, then fry them. The outside gets crispy and renders the inside soft and mashed potato-y. It’s like molten chocolate cake.” THE BANQUETTES Cole & Son print called Miami Morris & Co. print called Golden Lily Morris & Co. print called Compton. 1940s deadstock floral wallpaper Morris & Co. wallpaper called Strawberry Thief Reported by MICKEY RAPKIN . . HOT TEN 2018 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL HOT TEN HOT TEN

Things may get messy, but Nyum Bai is prepared. Nyum Bai’s tables are laden with condiments like sugar and chili sauce for adding extra flavor—if you need it. THE FISH-PASTE-FILLED DIP THAT TASTES (AND SMELLS!) LIKE MY CHILDHOOD THE PORK CHOP THAT BRINGS BACK A GOLDEN ERA —ROSE PREVITE I was born in a refugee camp in Thailand after my parents fled the genocide in Cambodia in the 1970s. I was two years old when I came to the States. But even though I had never been to Cambodia, I was still connected to the country because of the stories I heard growing up. I always had this longing to go—well, I want to say go “back” to Cambodia since it felt so familiar to me. The first time I went back, I had just dropped out of nursing school after realizing it wasn’t for me. I was 23 or 24. It was so trippy. Everywhere I went I was like, Wow, these are all the foods I grew up eating. This noodle soup dish, listed on the menu as kuy teav Phnom Penh, is what inspired me to start Nyum Bai. It’s the soup my mom would prepare for me THE NOODLE SOUP THAT STARTED IT ALL Photographs by At her deeply personal restaurant in the East Bay, Nite Yun reimagines the Cambodian food of her childhood, from soulful bowls of Cambodian noodle soup to flavorful marinated pork chops, all set to a psychedelic Khmer playlist. Here are three dishes that transport Yun back in time OAKLAND NYUM BAI NO. 5 ALEX LAU Reported by HILARY CADIGAN and my brothers on weekends. There are three main parts: rich broth, rice noodles, and meat toppings. Then the garnishes: crispy garlic, black pepper, cilantro, green onions, and lime. When I was in Phnom Penh, I started my mornings eating it at my favorite noodle stall. That’s where I had my epiphany. Halfway through eating the soup, I started thinking, Oh my gosh, this is so good, but no one in America knows about it. If people know anything about Cambodia, it’s the genocide. But in Phnom Penh life was just happening all around me. People had moved on from the war; they were living, celebrating, having a good time. Cambodia has such a rich and beautiful history. And I thought people needed to know more about Cambodian food because it is so damn good. This simple marinated pork chop with rice, bai sach chrouk, reminds me of my childhood. My mom would marinate the pork overnight in coconut milk, soy sauce, and garlic, and then my brothers and I would come home from school, pan-fry it ourselves, and eat it with rice. If we wanted, we could put an egg on top. As far as I can remember, back to five or six years old, I was always in the kitchen with my mom. I didn’t realize I was learning how to cook, but I helped her cut vegetables or pound lemongrass because I really didn’t have anywhere to go. Growing up, we were isolated from the community. I think my parents were just shocked when they arrived in America. They didn’t know what to do; they didn’t speak the language. It was very difficult for them to assimilate. After the refugee camp in Thailand, we moved to Texas for a few months and then to Stockton, California, where there was a bigger Cambodian community. We lived in an apartment complex with a lot of other Cambodian families, but we kind of stayed to ourselves. My parents don’t talk much about Cambodia; the memories are just too painful. But the time they talk about most is the carefree ’60s and early ’70s, the golden era, when Cambodia was a happening country and all of the artists and the musicians would go to Phnom Penh to make music, to be part of the scene. All that was taken away from them by the regime. I wanted to bring that back—the scene, the music, the color palette, even the name Nyum Bai (which means “eat rice”). I wanted to have my parents’ generation and the younger generations celebrate this time and hopefully heal as well. When I was young, my house always smelled like prahok, a really flavorful fermented fish paste that’s the base for a lot of classic Cambodian dishes. But I was so used to it that I didn’t know until people would come over and be like, “Damn, your house really smells.” My mom would take the fermented fish and chop it up with a cleaver until it was really minced. I remember the smell of cutting lemongrass, mixing it in with the garlic and shallots and lime leaves. To make prahok ktiss, she would stir-fry the paste with pork belly and let it simmer so the fat would incorporate with all the other flavors and create this thick creamy dip for raw veggies. It’s time-consuming, so my mom would make it only for special occasions: birthdays, celebrations, temple visits. I was hesitant to put this on the menu at first because it was so different and weird, but all the customers who have tried it have come back just to order it. –NITE YUN a compilation of Khmer rock music from the ’60s and ’70s, curated and remastered by Rattanak Oudam of the Cambodian Vintage Music Archive. Listen to more recordings from Cambodia’s golden age of rock and roll: GET THE SOUNDTRACK The best tracks we heard all year were on the Nyum Bai playlist, Diners flock from near and far to eat at Nyum Bai, located in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood. Nyum Bai started as a pop-up but opened a brick-and-mortar location in February 2018. The restaurant’s walls are lined with vintage record covers from Cambodia’s golden age of rock and roll. Nyum Bai chef-owner Nite Yun a glimpse Inside Nyum bai CAMBODIA VIA CALIFORNIA HOT TEN 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL HOT TEN HOT TEN 2018 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL HOT TEN HOT TEN

“We do a salt and sugar cure on the salmon, then we put it through a session in a smoker with applewood burning at 175 degrees for five minutes. We’ll chill it, do another five-minute session, then cool it once more. We’ll serve it a little colder than room temperature.” “We heavily salt the fish’s skin and use a torch to heat the salt, which solidifies and cooks the skin. Afterward, we drop the fish into an ice bath and the salt falls off. We do this to preserve a layer of fat between the skin and the flesh. That fat adds a major boost to the flavor.” “Gizzard shad is one of the oldest sushi being made today in the Edomae style of sushi (a 200-year-old tradition of curing or cooking fish before serving). The shad is heavily salted for 30 minutes, then rinsed with vinegar, then rested in a vinegar marinade for another 30 minutes.” “The menu starts with freshly boiled octopus from a market in Fukuoka, Japan, which we wrap in nori and serve atop vinegar-washed Calrose rice. Our rice is a little bit saltier and more robust in flavor, so we don’t have to rely on too many condiments for seasoning the fish.” TREVALLY JACK MACKEREL SHIMA-AJI SOY-MARINATED TUNA MAGURO ZUKE YELLOW-STRIPED BUTTERFISH TAKABE SMOKED KING SALMON SMOKED SAKE ROLLED OMELET TAMAGO GIZZARD SHAD KOHADA STAR SNAPPER FUEFUKI-DAI SHORT-SPINED SEA URCHIN BAFUN UNI ATLANTIC SALMON SAKE OREGON DUNGENESS CRAB KANI SCALLOP HOTATE OCTOPUS TAKO Impeccably sourced fish, perfectly seasoned rice, and relentless attention to detail define every bite at this transcendent sushi bar. Chef Cody Auger takes us through a few pieces of his ethereal Edomae-style sushi Portland, OR NIMBLEFISH NO. 6 “An egg crepe with a bunch of dashi that’s been folded and flipped a number of times is a super-traditional piece of sushi eaten at the end of the meal. It takes us about 45 minutes per day to make the omelets.” “Scallops will always be better the fresher and better quality you can get. We source scallops from Hokkaido, Japan, through a relationship I built with a fish purveyor while working at previous restaurants.” “We get a live, local Dungeness crab. We boil it, clean it, and shell it, then we take the crab innards, or the kani-miso, and toss that in with the crabmeat. We wrap all of that meat in nori and serve it.” “This is a sustainably farmed Atlantic salmon from Victoria, B.C. Because we want the sourcing to really shine, we keep the preparation minimal. We’ll only do a traditional 30-minute salt-and-vinegar cure on the salmon. We’ll dress it with a finishing clump of grated daikon.” “People are falling in love with uni all over, not just in sushi. Like most sushi, the secret to uni lies in who your source is. I have a great source for this in Japan. We wrap it in nori and serve it. The result is a briny piece of sushi that ends very sweet.” “Fuefuki-dai is a really prized shiromi, or whitefish: It’s one of the nicest whitefish you can possibly get. We lightly salt everything on the skin side and let it sweat a little bit. By pulling out the water, we’re also concentrating the flavor. We’ll age the fish for eight to ten days, serve it cool, and top it with wasabi.” “This is a very classic Edomae preservation of tuna. We cook the outside of the fish with hot water and marinate it in a soy-based marinade for 20 to 30 minutes. It will continue to marinate after we pull it out, so we don’t want to do it for too long.” “This fish is fairly rare to see in the wild. Most restaurants source theirs from year-round aquaculture farms in Japan, but we prefer ours wild-caught and in-season. We wash it with salt and top it with grated ginger.” Photographs by ALEX LAU Reported by Jesse Sparks ANY WAY YOU SLICE IT More scenes from Nimblefish Hanging at the table before the sushi arrives at Nimblefish, a joint collaboration of chefs Cody Auger and Dwight Rosendahl and wine guru Kurt Heilemann. Chef Cody Auger preps short-grain Calrose rice for service in a hangiri, a rounded, flat-bottomed wooden tub used for rice-making. Want a chance to watch Auger’s agile knifework in action? The bar seats are the best in the house. Auger slices through yet another gleaming piece of fish. HOT TEN 2018 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL HOT TEN HOT TEN

NO. 7 CHE FICO SAN FRANCISCO Does America need another Italian restaurant? If that restaurant is Che Fico, the answer is a definitive yes. From practically the moment it opened, this place has been humming like a restaurant in its second decade. Every employee wears a smile, the servers know the menu back to front, and the exacting chefs have mastered pizza, pasta, and the world’s most flawless rustic desserts Photographs by ALEX LAU Che Fico Chopped Salad “I wanted to do a chopped salad, but I asked myself, How does this work with the ethos of our restaurant? My idea was: Keep the essence of the chopped salad—the chickpeas, the salami, the cheese, the dressing—but have everything else rotate around whatever’s growing locally.” GET THE RECIPE Spaghetti with Lobster Pomodoro “I put a version of this dish—with nduja that we make in-house—on the menu, and it was my favorite pasta, but I think people were scared of ordering it because of the word nduja. So I looked at one of my sous-chefs, and I was like, I’ll put lobster on it. The next day we sold 40 of them. It’s now one of our signature dishes.” GET THE RECIPE —David Nayfeld, chef “This dough is almost 50 percent butter. We try to be really hands-off when rolling it to keep it extra flaky. The citrus version came out of desperation, to be honest. It was January, and there was really nothing else to use, so I thought, Heck, let’s try baking grapefruit and see what happens. I loved it.” —Angela Pinkerton, pastry chef GET THE RECIPE Chocolate Budino with Candied Walnuts “Probably 75 percent of Italian restaurants in America have a chocolate budino on the menu. I wanted to make ours really silky and smooth, so I use a little less egg and I add some very grassy olive oil for richness. I like a savory touch in the sweet dishes, so I dust the candied walnuts with salt.” GET THE RECIPE —Angela Pinkerton, pastry chef —Ben jackson, CHEF —David Nayfeld, chef Of course the charcuterie is cured in-house. Wood-fired pies fresh from the oven Pastry pro Angela Pinkerton (in back) gets in on the tasting with chef David Nayfeld (in blue shirt). JD Herrera rolls out sheets of pasta using a mattarello (rolling pin) for Che Fico’s handmade tagliatelle and pappardelle. Pastry powerhouse Angela Pinkerton Grapefruit- Orange Crostatas Reported by and Julia kramer chris morocco HOT TEN 2018 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL HOT TEN HOT TEN

NO. 8 YUME GA ARUKARA CAMBRIDGE, MA Behind a small, spare counter hidden in a college food court, Tsuyoshi Nishioka prepares a single dish: the best niku (beef) udon you’ll ever eat, made with the silkiest noodles you’ll ever slurp. Here’s what goes into this profound bowl Photographs by Elizabeth Cecil it was because that was the only thing I craved. Then I went to Setouchi Seimen in Osaka, one of the more famous udon restaurants in Japan, and that really changed it for me. I only wanted to eat udon. Specifically niku [beef] udon. Udon is very simple—flour, water, and salt—but it requires so much technique and talent to make so that the noodle isn’t too hard or too soft. It should be bouncy. A few years ago, I asked the owner of Setouchi Seimen to teach me. I worked from early morning to late at night, mixing the dough, stomping it with my feet to flatten it out, and then stretching and pressing it to make it smoother. It’s not easy to find this classroom-like setup inside Lesley University, but Nishioka has developed a loyal following of college students, local families, and noodle obsessives. Once I got back, I considered closing Yume Wo Katare temporarily one summer and starting an udon shop. I love udon that much. If I want to eat something else, I’ll just stop making it and move on. I only serve what I want to eat. Then I found this space—and got a $35,000 udon noodle-making machine straight from Japan. It’s the same one I used at Setouchi Seimen. Whenever I make udon, I get this feeling, like when you find the person you like. It’s hard to say, but it just gives me goose bumps. Every day I eat about four bowls of niku udon. Minimum. I’m always thinking about how to create the best tasting version. And every day it gets better, so I never get tired of it.” —Tsuyoshi Nishioka Lead cook Tomohiro Shinoda examines each strand carefully. He hopes to open his own noodle shop in Seattle some day. Chef-owner Tsuyoshi Nishioka takes his niku udon seriously—but himself less so. THE PERFECT BOWL Chef Tsuyoshi Nishioka breaks down his unforgettable niku udon Noodles Nori Scallions Broth Beef Lemon Grated Daikon Noodles Nori Scallions Broth Beef Lemon Grated Daikon Come right when the restaurant opens and you’ll get a glimpse of Nishioka churning out noodles with a $35,000 machine from Japan. He’s constantly tweaking the dough to mimic the one at Setouchi Seimen in Osaka. Right now it’s made with Australian udon flour, Japanese sea salt, and local Cambridge tap water, which, once softened, is similar to Japan’s supply. Nishioka scatters crisp slivers of nori over the bowl; they cling to the noodles and balance out the soy-slicked meat. “Scallions just make things taste better,” Nishioka says, plus they’re nutritious (fiber! vitamin A!), which is why he heaps them on. The secret to this umami-rich chilled broth? Two types of bonito flakes—katsuobushi (skipjack) and sababushi (mackerel). Thinly sliced rib eye, similar to shabu-shabu, is simmered in a bit of soy sauce, water, and sugar. Then the beefy cooking liquid is reduced and the beef is dunked into it a second time to reheat before going on top of the cold noodles. Squeeze it over the beef, Nishioka instructs, to balance out the savoriness of the meat with some acidity. Nishioka thinks about his udon in layers, and this cooling pile of grated daikon complements the fishy broth, meaty beef, and bracing scallion and lemon to make the perfect bowl. Reported by Elyse Inamine “When I first opened my ramen shop, Yume Wo Katare, HOT TEN 2018 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL HOT TEN HOT TEN

NO. 9 DRIFTERS WIFE PORTLAND, ME There’s no better place on the planet to drink natural wine than right here. How did Brooklyn transplants Orenda and Peter Hale go from running a little bottle shop to transforming their town, glass by glass and dish by dish? Photographs by ELIZABETH CECIL Natural Progression The very winding road to Drifters Wife August 2014 After working at New York City restaurants —including and —for a decade, Orenda and Peter Hale decide to get out of town. They dream of doing their own thing: a little café. On a whim they head to Portland, Maine, new and unfamiliar turf for both of them. Reynard, Diner, Marlow & Sons January 2015 As they settle into the community, the Hales run into a problem: They fell in love with natural wine back in New York, so they decide to go into retail instead. They convince their favorite importers (SelectioNaturel, Louis/Dressner) to sell them bottles previously unavailable in the state. The Hales open their wine shop, Maine & Loire. There are no natural wine shops in Portland! Herb-Rubbed Cast-Iron Chicken with Pan Sauce “Adding a weight [on top of the bird] renders more fat and produces an extremely crisp skin. People have been cooking chicken this way forever, so it’s not as if I’m doing anything new. I use what I have [to weigh it down], and that just so happens to be a beautiful rock I found while snorkeling off the Maine coast.” GET THE RECIPE September 2015 Funky, pricier natural wines prove to be a hard sell in Portland. So the Hales figure the only way to get locals into it is by popping open the bottles to try with a few snacks. , installing an eight-seat counter, a few tables, and a tiny kitchen outfitted with two induction burners, an electric oven, and a lowboy fridge. The Hales call Ben Jackson, a former sous-chef at Reynard, and his wife, Alexis, a front-of-house veteran, with a proposition: “Move to Portland and work for us.” They move the wine racks to the back of the shop and open Drifters Wife up front Eggplant with Cashew Butter and Pickled Peppers “I love lamb shawarma, and this eggplant dish is inspired by it, flavor-wise. We hard-roast the eggplant to replicate the char on the outside of the meat, and the cashew butter is the ‘white sauce.’” —Ben jackson, CHEF GET THE RECIPE January 2016 After one whirlwind visit the Jacksons fall in love with Portland and soon start working at Drifters Wife, with Alexis as a server and Ben as chef. December 2017 Ben conjures up a new menu every day at Drifters Wife based on what he gets from his farmers and what won’t fit in his fridge (though the crisp-skinned half chicken shows up on the menu most nights). And the Hales change the by-the-glass list nearly as often. Their landlord offers them the vacant restaurant next door to the shop and construction begins on Drifters Wife 2.0. Napa Cabbage Salad with Parmesan and Pistachios “I spend a lot of time staring at produce in the walk-in. One time, I ordered way too much cabbage and spent all morning pacing, trying to figure out how to make it go away. So, I made this fresh salad out of it, with vinegars I made myself from leftover wine, which isn’t hard to pull off and just superior as a product.” GET THE RECIPE February 2018 After a winter renovation by local wood shop Joiya Studios, the Hales and Jacksons debut the new Drifters Wife. It houses both the wine shop, located at the entrance and sectioned off by black-paneled walls, and the new restaurant, with 60 seats, a bottle list in addition to the by-the-glass one, a six-burner range with a convection oven, a real walk-in fridge, and a Spanish-style plancha for Ben to experiment with. But he still uses the old induction burners, and the team works the same: Ben cooks whatever he likes and the Hales pour whatever they like. Bon Appétit’s best new restaurants of 2018. August 2018 Well, here we are. Drifters Wife is named one of —Ben jackson, CHEF —Ben jackson, CHEF Checking the crowd-fave chicken Inside the breezy new space Flowers greet you at Drifters Wife. The Drifters Wife crew, from left: owners Peter and Orenda Hale, head chef Ben Jackson, cook Alex Morgan Reported by and Molly baz elyse inamine HOT TEN 2018 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL 1 – NONESUCH 2 – MAYDAN 3 – UGLY BABY 4 – FREEDMAN’S 5 – NYUM BAI 6 – NIMBLEFISH 7 – CHE FICO 8 – YUME GA ARUKARA 9 – DRIFTERS WIFE 10 – CALL HOT TEN HOT TEN