Steve Coogan has eaten at more acclaimed restaurants than most food writers—without ever having to write a review. In Michael Winterbottom's hilarious series The Trip, Coogan and fellow British actor Rob Brydon improvise entire films with colorful commentary on over-the-top tasting menus and celebrity impressions that'll make you laugh until you cry. They play caricatures of themselves who are assigned to write food reviews for the UK's Guardian newspaper through Northern England, Italy, and Spain, but really it's just a few hours of seeing who can make the other break character first. (Usually the Michael Caine impression competitions will do one of them in.)
This year, Coogan stepped into a more dramatic food-centric role in The Dinner (in theaters now), the film adaptation of Herman Koch's disturbing novel. The story of two families' connection to an accidental murder takes place throughout the course of an extravagant tasting menu, Coogan reveals that the food was so realistic that after they called "cut," he "just sat there and carried on eating the prop food, because it tasted so good."
With all of these incredible dining experiences peppered through his career, we asked Coogan to reveal the Top 5 meals he's had in his life.
1. “Dirt” at L’Enclume
"The first Trip movie we did in the UK, we had an amazing dinner at L'Enclume, which is in the Lake District in England. It was an incredible experience to have a tasting menu by Simon Rogan, a Michelin-starred master chef in the UK. It was one of those dinners where the food provokes discussion, and everything's always interesting and subtle and nuanced. It has almost a narrative to the way you eat the food. Sometimes it takes longer to describe the food than it does to eat it, but all in all, that was an unforgettable experience. They served this dish that looked like soil, but it didn't taste like soil. [Editor's note: The "soil" is deep-fried globe artichoke leaves and malt powder, sprinkled over goat cheese mousse and artichoke purée.] All I remember is being blown away by it. It takes two and a half hours to get through the menu, but it's worth every minute. Look, if you're on a first date, I would say, go do a tasting menu. Because if you've got nothing else to talk on, you can talk about the weird food."
2. Sweet Prawns at Mr. Chow
"Some of the best meals I've had in my life have been in Mr. Chow restaurants in Los Angeles and New York City. I have to sing his praises for re-interpreting Chinese food with a European twist. Actually, my favorite thing I've ever eaten in my whole life is the glazed prawns. They just melt in your mouth. It's a shiny, sweet, clear sauce on the prawns, and it's tossed with candied walnuts. It's just heaven."
3. Spanish Butter at Etxebarri
"Etxebarri in Spain—where we went for The Trip to Spain—is one of the Top 10 restaurants in the world, and everything is sourced from their own farm. I remember the butter. The bread and the butter were some of the best food I've ever tasted. It just shows you that even really simple food can be incredible. Literally, it was just the bread and the butter. I could have eaten that all night. I can’t pinpoint what it was about the butter—it may have been sour milk or something that gave it a tangy, almost yogurty flavor. [Editor's note: it was goat milk!] It was very subtle and almost aromatic."
4. Fish and Chips...Anywhere in Britain
"Even though I love sophisticated tasting menus that are über-inventive, my favorite foods are peasant food. My ultimate best meal wasn’t at a particular restaurant: just fish and chips in a British pub. On a cold winter's night, if you're in the mood for it, it's a killer. I would normally never eat cheap, supermarket white bread, but when you're having fish and chips in England, you have to eat it with your fried cod, chips, and mushy peas. It's carb heaven, but you get a little vegetables with the peas."
5. Forced Rhubarb Four Ways and Sticky Toffee Pudding
"At Hipping Hall in Yorkshire, I had a dessert that involved what we call in the North [of England] ‘forced rhubarb.’ It’s kind of like the veal of the vegetable world, because they grow the rhubarb in dark warehouses where they starve the rhubarb of light, so it has to strain to reach the light. This makes the rhubarb naturally pink and not green anywhere. Generally rhubarb is quite bitter and you have to add a lot of sugar to put it into any dessert, but forced rhubarb is naturally sweet. In this dessert, it had four different kinds of rhubarb. [Editor's note: A version of 'rhubarb and custard' is still available during Hipping Hall's afternoon tea and includes rhubarb tea cake, jam, meringue, Kombucha, and dehydrated rhubarb.] That was heavenly. I had that eight years ago and still remember it as the best dessert I think I ever had."
"Wait...no, there is another one that ties it. In the first Trip film, we had a sticky toffee pudding at The Inn at Whitewell. It’s very sugary toffee pudding with cream on it. That is just saturated fat and sugar. It’s food that is like having a general anesthetic. It tasted fantastic, but it kind of wipes you out, because you get a sugar rush."