Mooncusser

Mooncusser runs a tasting menu built for people who get restless inside tasting menus: four courses, two choices apiece, small bites bookending the meal, and a pre-dessert cheese course that earns its place rather than padding the night. The format argues for itself. You get structure without the usual tasting-menu fatigue, and enough choice that two diners at the same table can eat two different meals.

The kitchen's real trick is range. This is a seafood restaurant that refuses to stay inside any one coastline — cod gets mango mustard, trout comes smoked and paired with flavors that don't show up elsewhere in a city full of seafood houses. The spicing is confident rather than showy, and it lands. Service and room match the ambition; this isn't a kitchen coasting on a format, it's one using the format well.

A Michelin Selected listing and a spot on a national recognition list back up what the plates already show. Some diners flinch at the price — fair, tasting menus always draw that complaint — but the value case holds up course for course. This is a kitchen worth the seat.