Best Transylvanian Restaurant

An intense-looking man with very short dark hair and a Bela Lugosi accent, Charivari chef and co-owner John Schuster grew up in the Transylvanian region of Romania. He worked as a chef in Vienna and Budapest before opening his first restaurant in the Black Forest of Germany. So as you might expect, Schuster's shredded veal "Zurich-style," as well as all the rest of the Austrian, Russian and German cooking at Charivari, is stunning. Particularly spectacular is the Alsatian seafood choucroute, a platter of sauerkraut in Riesling wine sauce topped with lobster and fish. And don't miss Schuster's white asparagus festival every spring, when he cooks four or five white asparagus dishes each night.