Paris By Mouth - In a city famed for its world-class cooking, it’s hard to keep track of the best restaurants in Paris, so Marie Claire has done the hard work for you instead. Bon appétit!

THE RISING STAR - Le Pur’, Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme – Having already earned one Michelin star (with more to come, surely), Chef Jean-François Rouquette is fast making Le Pur’ famous with his authentic, honest cuisine with a distinctive touch of French gastronomy. The Discovery & Nature or Trip Diary tasting menus will dazzle your taste buds with a series of inventive, elegant dishes, but if you’d prefer to do the choosing, make it the veal sweetbreads cooked with seaweed butter or the grey young partridge with juniper berries. Young, skilful Pastry Chef Pier-Marie Le Moigno will make dessert a joy, too – pink grapefruit and wild strawberries from Andalusia are served with soufléed violet meringue. Divine. www.paris-restaurant-pur.fr.

THE BRASSERIE - Vagenende – There’s plenty of history behind Vagenende: it’s housed in a former patisserie that dates back to the 19th century, and its superb Belle Epoque woodwork and beautiful mirrors remain to this day. Its menu spans a well-executed list of traditional Parisian dishes, including Burgundy escargot, marrow bone au gratin, and as a Sunday special, veal kidneys with mustard seed. For a vintage-style treat, order a seafood platter for one with fines de claire No. 3 oysters, whelks, prawns and periwinkles, and ask the staff to crank up Vagenende’s old mechanical piano.
www.vagenende.com

OYSTERS - Huitrerie Regis – You might find yourself accidentally walking by and missing this rather humble little place in the 6th arrondissement, but this is where some of the best oysters in Paris are served, so whatever you do, make sure you get a table there. Regis’ oysters come straight from the much-reputed coast of Marennes-Oléron and are famed for their refined, pleasantly nutty taste; they’re so good that you’ll want to scarf down a dozen more after you’ve finished your first, along with firm rye bread, lashings of Echire butter, and an excellent selection of wines. www.huitrerieregis.com

THE PATISSERIE - Popelini – We thought the delicate pastel-coloured macarons of Paris were unbeatable treats – then we saw Popelini’s adorable choux à la crème cream puffs and realised just how wrong we were. Named after the Italian chef who created the recipe for choux pastry at the 16th-century court of Queen Catherine de’ Medici, the Popelini pastry shop offers a modern, colourful twist, with flavours like milk chocolate with passion fruit, praline, rose and raspberry, and pistachio with Morello cherry. Our favourite? Salted caramel. Ooh-la-la. www.popelini.com

Shake It, Baby! - Get mixing, sister. Be this year’s most accomplished party hostess as you does your guests with these heady concoctions.

Round the corner from KLCC – literally a hop, skip and a jump away on Jalan Perak – is a place that deserves the attention of anyone who appreciates a glass of well-chosen wine and excellent food to back it up. MediTeca, a modern, comfortable Spanish- Mediterranean restaurant with tall windows and an expanse of blonde wood across its interiors, will exceed your expectations in that department. Trust us on this one. The wine list, curated by friendly Australian manager Alex Schulz, reveals an inviting collection that stretches from Lebanon to Chile to Alex’s family’s Turkey Flat vineyards in the Barossa Valley (he’s particularly proud of their 2011 batch of rosé). Cleverly formatted by flavour profile – whether it’s ‘Big, Bold and Structured’ or ‘Juicy and Quaffable’ that you go for – the list is also tailored towards curious and adventurous drinkers as quite a few wines are available by the glass, allowing you to get as exploratory as you can manage. As for MediTeca’s food, it more than holds its own there. Its diverse offerings of tapas and raciones (Alex explains to me that the larger raciones portions are really more for sharing, whereas tapas are meant for private, self-indulgent consumption) are ideal for anything between a sustaining side snack with your wine to a try something- of-everything meal. Fresh, springy gambas al ajillo garlic prawns infused with the gentle flavour of roast garlic and shots of cold, summery tomato gazpacho soup are standouts, but the real knockout dish is the trilogia de pulpo of baby octopus cooked three ways, all of them delightful: deep fried, tossed in spicy salsa brava tomato sauce, and braised in diabolically black squid ink. I am stubbornly reluctant to share that particular racione. “Our starters and tapas are light and summery, whereas our mains move into the domain of comfort food,” Alex tells me. Beside the classic paella, which comes with either seafood or vegetables and chicken, to be shared between two or four people, MediTeca does an amazing corillada de ternera asada, braised beef cheek with creamy potato puree and crisp julienned apple, so gelatinous you can break it apart with a fork. Those who prefer the culinary road less travelled should try the milky ajo blanco almond soup with shrimp carpaccio, sautéed prawns and sultana puree, which pairs the grainy creaminess of the nuts against the sweetness of raw shrimp flesh. Granted, it’s not for everyone, but it’s an authentic Spanish dish – and really, this has got to be the best place in the city to sample those traditional classics.

Shake It, Baby! - Get mixing, sister. Be this year’s most accomplished party hostess as you does your guests with these heady concoctions.

It’s the party season—and we’re pretty sure you’ll agree that no bash is complete without a handful of impressive cocktails. Marie Claire has teamed up with Circus in Pavilion (currently the hottest bistro and cocktail lounge to get your tipples in the city) to bring you four of its finest. So grab your shaker, slice your garnishes and get your ingredients together—although of course, if you’re too busy rushing around and attending other peoples’ parties, you can always slip into Circus and have them make one (or two, or three) for you there. Well, no rest for the wicked after all.

Madison`s Marvel - Australian chef Kelly Delaney has much to be proud of at this Jalan Bangkung eatery.

Most restaurant owners might consider a chef-led restaurant a risky investment, considering that a chef can make or break the place, but not Ed Soo. “We wanted something new, and it’s a rarity in Malaysia to sell the chef – so that’s what we’re doing,” he tells me. And in this case, Chef Kelly Delaney – formally of Auge Ristorante in Adelaide – more than makes Madison’s. Holding her own on Jalan Bangkung in partnership with Maxim Image, the owners of Opus Bistro, Cava, and Leonardo’s, the modern yet cosy little restaurant offers a selective contemporary European menu, clearly defined by Chef Kelly’s skilled, authoritative hand in coaxing out the most honest flavours of everything that passes through her kitchen.
There’s plenty of the chef’s personality present in her dishes, such as her incorporation of crunchy candied speck (a juniper-flavoured ham) into a starter of seared scallops and sweetly spiced pork belly croquettes with crispy cauliflower – a gourmet deep fried treat, if ever there was one – and her boozy Chianti jelly circles, which accompanies a rich, gamey parfait of duck and chicken liver. Despite the focus of the restaurant falling on Chef Kelly, her approach to each dish is admirably to celebrate the simplicity of the flavours, as opposed to adopting a showy, look-this-way attitude towards her food: a blushing pink seared duck breast comes lightly spiced with parsnip cream and cubes of blood orange jelly, and the mushroom ravioli – ample, pillowy mounds accented with speck and crunchy asparagus, all bathed in a velvet butter sauce – says comfort food all over. Meanwhile, the pan-seared market fish (on the day of the review, it’s seabass) is white, firm and unfailingly fresh, and served with crispy potatoes, broad beans, baby radishes, and more of that delightful speck.

Mex Luxe With its unusual menu and – most importantly – its non-clichéd flare, Fresca takes authentic Mexican cuisine to the next level.

Hands up, those of you whose experience of Mexican food has been limited to a neon-lit restaurant chain, a pseudo-Tex Mex menu consisting of deep fried everything, and staff who bellow ‘Hola’ at you mercilessly upon your arrival and departure. That, too, was all I was familiar with until I stepped into Fresca Mexican Kitchen & Bar—an elegant, wood-lined restaurant at the front of The Gardens in Mid Valley—and had my impressions of real Mexican cuisine turned upside down, in the very best way. “Fresca means fresh or cool, which is the type of lifestyle or experience that we offer here,” explained Fresca’s founder, Lim Meng Jan. “This is authentic Mexican food—it’s not Tex Mex. It’s very versatile cuisine, something Malaysians will like because of the chilli flavours.” And take note, the menu—which lists each dish in its original Spanish name —is both comfortingly familiar (the tacos, burritos, enchiladas and fajitas are all there) and refreshingly different (dare you try the Pollo con Mole, chicken with a chilli and chocolate sauce, or the Costilla Asada short ribs?).

Cup Couture. Hot cuppas don’t get any more haute than at the new TWG Tea Salon & Boutique

As far as tea varieties go, TWG surely takes the cake. With over 450 types of fine harvest and exclusive tea blends from all over the world in stock at the new TWG Tea Salon & Boutique in Pavilion, you`re going to have to return quite a few times before you work your way through the menu. Even the food is infused with the brand’s iconic tea blends, from the TWG Tea Lasagna with a tomato and basil sauce laced with Moroccan Mint Tea, to the Napoleon macarons with salt caramel and Napoleon tea.

Heart and Heritage. The Tranquerah`s food comes steeped in Nyonya authenticity – and thank goodness for that.

For those of us who aren`t from a Peranakan background, it can be really hard to tell what counts as proper Nyonya. Celebrity chef Florence Tan, the doyenne of Malaccan Nyonya cuisine, has conceptualised and developed The Tanquerah’s recipes herself. With dishes like the Nyonya laksa, Kerabu bendi and ikan goreng cili, you can truly indulge in a Nyonya cuisine. The Tranquerah is a place where its heart is clearly in its dishes, with food that’s cooked by people who know what they’re doing.

Fatty Crab, New York
Choose between their West Village branch or the one on the Upper West Side. Beside their signature chilli crab (served with a side of white toast), Fatty Crab’s all-time favourites include their beef short rib rendang, pork and watermelon salad, and fatty duck. Finish off with a dark chocolate Fatty Bar, which comes with roasted almonds, chilli and Maldon sea salt—hoo, boy.Ning, Manchester and York
Ever since he set up his own restaurant and cookery school in Manchester in 2006, Chef Norman Musa—originally from Butterworth, Penang—has been making waves across the UK and Malaysia’s culinary scenes. Known for its chic interiors and friendly staff, Ning (which has just opened a second branch in York) continues to delight with its cucur udang, murtabak, char kuey teow and Chef Norman’s signature ikan goreng asam manis. All proof that it really is cheerier up north.