Unique restaurants from around the world

Anyone who owns a garden knows that nothing compares to making a meal with fresh produce you’ve grown yourself. Imagine a restaurant where the menu selections are prepared using the freshest possible ingredients, and by freshest, we mean harvested in the field at sunrise of the same day you are dining. Welcome to De Kas, an old greenhouse in Amsterdam that was due to be demolished in 2001, but was saved by an ambitious Michelin star chef, Gert Jan Hageman, who converted the unique eight-metre high glass building into a restaurant and nursery. Mediterranean vegetables, herbs and edible flowers are grown and harvested at the greenhouse and garden near the restaurant, and Hageman can be found in De Kas’ nursery daily, working the soil, planting, weeding and harvesting herbs and vegetables.

Be sure to wrap up as warmly as you can before visiting these unique restaurants in Finland because two of them are made completely of snow and ice! The Lapland Hotel’s SnowVillage features three restaurants, The Snow Restaurant, The Ice Bar and The Log Restaurant, which has the same menu as the Snow Restaurant but is open all year and is a bit warmer. The Snow Restaurant serves classic Finish cuisine including salmon soup and reindeer fillet and is expected to reopen December 12, 2019. The Ice Bar offers blankets to their clientele to stay warm in their candlelit bar, serving Nordic-themed cocktails and hot chocolate.

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With a menu that promises ‘Want great service? We suggest you try elsewhere’, it is surprising that the Stage Door restaurant is one this harbour town’s best-loved institutions. But in reality, the steaks are great, the beer is cold and the service is fast and friendly. It is located in the centuries-old Phoenix Hotel, and every nook and cranny of the quirky wood-panelled pub is filled with original 1940s and 1950s metal advertising signs, dolls, gramophones, vehicle number plates and an amazing collection of Pez candy dispensers.

Opened in 1979, this eclectic restaurant decorated with classic toys from the 1930s and 1940s started as a small one-room eatery, and today has grown into a multi-themed restaurant occupying all three storeys of the house it originated in. Staff are known as ‘bubble scouts’, each wearing a different crazy hat. Moving trains are on all three floors and photographs of old-time movie scenes and stars adorn every available wall space. ‘It’s always Christmas at the Bubble Room’ is a theme made evident by the presence of the many Father Christmases, the Elf Room, and year-round Christmas lights. Music from the 1920s to 1940s serves as the soundtrack for The Bubble Room, and the bright and cheerful pastel colours of the venue make it a near-hallucinatory experience. Favourites on the menu are original items offered since the restaurant’s early days such as Socra cheese (a cheese served flamed tableside), Bubble Bread, and many of the colossal-sized desserts.

But if traditional cuisine is more your style, head to Lyon in France.

Of all the unique restaurants on our list, this one is absolutely the least healthy, so if you’re trying to stick to a diet, steer clear of Heart Attack Grill. Wait staff are dressed as nurses, customers’ orders are called prescriptions, and customers themselves are referred to as patients – Heart Attack Grill really leans into their theme of giving you a heart attack. And they honestly just might. With Single, Double, all the way up to Octuple Bypass burgers, ranging in size from 250g to 1kg of beef, just your main dish could have over 37,000 kilojoules. You can add on Flatliner fries and order disgustingly unhealthy drinks. Your ‘nurse’ will take your blood pressure before you eat, and you can opt to be weighed in, too.

If travelling alone, you may want to find ideal cities for the solo traveller.

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Source: RD.com