For our anniversary, Natasha and I followed up on a hot tip from a couple of sources and managed to get in to Atelier Restaurant, which resulted in the singlemost exciting culinary experience that either of us have ever been a part of. I don’t think I can recommend it enough – Chef Marc Lepine and his team of mad experimenters presented us with 12 unbelievable courses that completely defied expectations.

Natasha enjoys a bowl of Truffle Popcorn

There was something (or everything) in every dish that had been transmuted through his unconventional kitchen into some new shape or texture. A carrot in the form of a bath bead. Blue heirloom potatoes. Shattered limes. Liquid nitrogen noodles. Powdered butter. Foamed … I don’t even know what the foam was. Delicious.

The shape changes aren’t gimmicks, either – each (creatively named) meal demonstrates the chef’s master understanding of taste and texture combinations. My favourite meal was the “Tomatrix Reloaded”, a series of tiny sweet garden tomatoes, each one infused, sprinkled with, wrapped in or sprayed with some novel flavor pairing that made every bite sing. The wild boar was cooked (sous-vide in a thermal immersion circulator) to perfection, the scallops were seared (by heat gun) perfectly.

The serving staff are really excellent, too. Like a ceremony, after every dish they remove your cutlery and provide you with bizarre new eating instruments matched to the next meal. The anticipation precipitated by delivering a spoon to our table was enough to put my imagination in overdrive between courses. We were extremely well attended to during the meal and they were very knowledgeable and accommodating about our litany of allergies, which I think they took as a challenge.

Highly highly recommended. A really exceptional experience.