THE VERDICT (Rest.)

*****
While none of these meals is a cheap experience and El Bulli has become downright expensive inspite of the fact that the wine list in not too terrifying. The fact that I can still clearly remember, name and taste many of 39 teeny courses I had there goes a long way to justifying the $600 a head price tag.

It cost us about $2500 to eat exceptionally well across these five great places - plus another $5000 for travel and accommodation. Over the years I have frittered away much more money on unmemorable meals but that's the thing about eating in great places. They may seem expensive but when they deliver like these five they are more than worth it. After all this is a foodie's trip of a lifetime to rival touring the West Indies with the Australian cricket team or following the Socceroos to the World Cup.

And what of those memories; what are the themes rifting through these five amazing kitchen. Perhaps most important is the love of the “flavour of green”.This expresses itself at El Bulli in a dried chervil powder whisked with water (in the style of Japanese macha green tea powder) to make a strangely unsalty green broth. Or, later in the meal, it reappears as spoonfuls of almost tea-tannic bright green dried mint and grains of brown sugar sent skittering across the thin ice of a bonsai-sized frozen “pond” of water in the simplest of palate cleansers. At Can Rocait's a complex dessert like Jordi Roca's “green chromatism”. At Mugaritz and Noma it manifests as a love of wild greens and the continued interest in fresh herbs and edible flowers.

There also seems to be a decreasing focus on traditional red meat dishes in favour of seafood and vegetables. This may be, in part, because four of the restaurants are so close to the sea and is thus a reflection of the interest in dishes that build notions of “terroir” (or reflect the restaurants' sense of place); albeit in ways that aren't quite as literal as Joan Roca distilling the flavour of the local soil. Some, like Adria and Aduriz, are also starting to explore the notion of iodine as a desirable flavour profile.

But what of this list itself? Is this Top Five the right top five best restaurants in the world? Should Thomas Keller's Per Se or French Laundry still be in there? Yes, for sure. Should Pierre Gagnaire's idiosyncratic and eponymous Parisian gastrodome also have retained a spot in the top five? Almost undoubtedly. And what of those Japanese restaurants that the likes of Ferran Adria cite as their great inspiration? Surely there should be a kaiseki restaurant in there. And you'd also suggest that given that only The Fat Duck and El Bulli have the top ranking of three Michelin stars (Can Roca, Noma and Mugaritz only have two), there are another 88 or so three star restaurants who might suggest they deservea spot as well. The trouble is you can't fit twenty places into a Top Five list!

The reason why El Bulli, The Fat Duck, Noma, Mugaritz and Can Roca make it into this Top Five is simple. A list like this can only ever be a reflection of those that help compile it, and of the restaurants at the time that it was compiled. These things change. Each one of these top five places are classed as “innovative” by the Michelin Guide and casting an eye down the rest of the list in seems like innovation is the key factor in making in to the upper reaches of Restaurant's list. Personally I'd blame all those food writers and chefs, so often obsessed with the shiny and new, who vote!

For me after this trip and some 120 courses across the five restaurants -as well as some significant back-up dining just to set then in context- the realization is that at the top end of the restaurant town there are a lot more delicious places than there are gobsmackingly innovative ones but it is this that those unique places that the Top Five most reflects. As a critic who has eaten at many of these other contenders my feeling is that the order is about right, give or take a Thomas Keller restaurant.

Restaurants are like cravats - your favourite depends on your own mood and your needs at that time rather than which has the prettiest pattern. For me, however thanks to its reckless pursuit of the new El Bulli has to be the leader of the pack. A meal here should be the aspiration of any serious food even if, or perhaps because, you will careen from dishes that plunge you into paroxysms of pleasure to those that might confound or even disgust you- undercooked kidney anyone? It will however never be boring and will always leave you asking why, how and whether this is the future of food. My wife's question is whether you want to engage in an intellectual dialogue with your dinner, or just eat it.

Ask me where I'd like to eat every week for a year however and I'd tell you Noma or Mugaritz. Theirs is the sort of clean, pretty, produce-driven soul food that's easy to digest, served in a relaxed interior free of any pomposity. Ask me where I'd like to have my birthday each year and I'd tell you The Fat Duck given the theatrical wows, intricate experimentation and surprising yumminess - even if, when every dish is put down, you expect the waiters to fling their arms wide and sing out,“ta-daaah!”

Ask me the Woman I Love where she would like to go for dinner and you'd get a very different answer and a very different order to me - but then she's no foodie. For her El Bulli was interesting but never ever as delicious as El Celler de Can Roca which rather throws that list on its head. She'd have Can Roca and The Fat Duck at the top of the list, then Noma, Mugaritz and finally El Bulli but her parameters for enjoying a meal are different to mind and far more purely pleasure driven.

And here's the heart of why eating at five of the world's top restaurants in close succession was so fascinating. It not the fact that they are so different; it how connect with different people in very different ways. Yet it is also these differences that expose the major flaw in any attempt to stratify restaurants. It's always going to be a case of comparing apples to oranges, or in this case comparing flaming sorbets to exploding olives.