The culinary centrepiece of the whole holiday. Eleven Madison Park - the only vegan three Michelin star restaurant in the world; for Alasdair especially, this is a big deal, as even when we go to other Michelin star tasting menus and there’s a vegan option, it’s typically the veggie dishes minus cheese, which is a shame when the whole point is that everything on the plate is there for a reason. The first time I have been to a three Michelin star place (not even a two before!). I think I now understand. Let’s start with the drinks. There is a binder of a wine list, centimetres thick. We come to the conclusion that the wine pairing might be too much to us (although in a genuine rarity, we do treat ourselves to a glass of champagne to start the evening), so we propose an alternative to our waiter - can we please have three cocktails each throughout the evening, whatever you think will work at each point? Of course we can! Absolutely no problem at all. We are treated to the snap pea cocktail, the banana cocktail, and the strawberry cocktail, all more complex than those sound but I shan’t reel off the ingredient list here. Suffice it to say that we were feeling it at the end, especially then the aperitif was brought out with dessert and the bottle explicitly left on the table for us to top up our glasses as we saw fit. But there was also the bonus cocktail! Prepared at the table, no less! Which, I admit, we both temporarily thought was the first one that was ordered on our behalf, and got excited that all three might be made like that. But no! This was actually just a bonus part of the first course proper (preceded by a bread course that we spent the rest of the evening remembering even 20 minutes or so and exclaiming “oh but the bread!”, a mushroom brioche with truffel and morel butter that melted and flaked like a dream come true). This was their spring celebration, a pea salad with mint, and the best damn lettuce you’ve ever had, with an almond ricotta for dipping. I shan’t recount every course in detail, we don’t have the time - a precise and delicate jenga of asparagus, artichoke fried like the sun, soba noodles made upstate, a luminescent romanesco. A single hasselback potato, prepared tableside and seasoned with a smoked potato powder and “land caviar”, is concentrated goodness of the highest order. Dessert is a multifaceted affair of a strawberry and raspberry mochi, a vanilla cream, and strawberries for dipping. There’s an amuse bouche of a sesame chocolate pretzel, dangling from a tree. The whole thing is simply remarkable. But. But but but. None of that is what I’ll take away from this evening. Sat next to us for most of the evening was a couple with a young daughter, maybe seven years old or so - who, to everyone involved’s credit, was on impeccable behaviour the whole evening, happily enjoying it and reading Matilda and The Twits when she was less engaged. When they reached the dessert, our waiter said to the little girl “we’ve got a special treat for you” and handed her a chocolate bar - “open it!”, she was told. She did, to find a golden ticket to give her a tour of the kitchen, the Roald Dahl story of her dreams. The sheer attention to detail and to providing an unforgettable experience for that little girl, simply remarkable. We were not so lucky to receive a golden ticket, but we did go home with three jars of granola (one each of cherry bakewell, and a third of black forest gateau). I’ve not eaten mine yet, but I had a bite of Alasdair’s and it’s like crack. Genuinely a high water mark for restaurants, as well it should be.