Monday, August 31, 2026

The Top 100 Places to Eat Near A-ba's Taro Ball






  1. Rank 6. Le Palais

    Cantonese


  2. Cantonese fine dining on the third floor of the Regent Taipei, with a Michelin star and a spot on Asia's 50 Best list. The chef came up through Hong Kong's Lei Garden and built a career across the region, arriving here with a deep command of the classical repertoire. Roasted meats, double-boiled soups, wok-fried dishes, and dim sum all get the full treatment, with Taiwan's own produce quietly threaded through.


  3. Rank 8. NOBUO

    Japanese

    A Japanese façade gives way to a Scandinavian-spare interior where the room itself signals what's coming: nothing extraneous. This two-Michelin-star tasting counter builds a single menu around seafood and seasonal local vegetables, with modern technique used to pull flavors forward rather than show off. The team walks you through each dish, which sounds fussy until it genuinely helps. Clean, quiet, and layered in ways that take a moment to catch up with you.



  4. Rank 10. Mudan

    Tempura Japanese


  5. Rank 11. A

    Contemporary French

    White walls, flower arrangements, and tasting menus that read like gallery notes: this two-Michelin-starred contemporary French restaurant inside a Taipei department store commits fully to the art-world vibe. The chef builds on classic French sauces with quiet Asian inflections, and the plating is the kind that makes people reach for their phones before their forks. A mushroom cappuccino course has its own name, which tells you something about the level of seriousness on offer.


  6. Rank 12. Molino de Urdániz

    Contemporary Spanish

    A stone wall and a wine cellar anchor the room at this two-Michelin-starred tasting menu restaurant inside Hotel MVSA, where a Spanish kitchen transplanted to Taipei works through seafood with modern technique and a painter's sense of color. The cooking takes its cues from Spanish landscapes, and the plating looks like it. Dress well and clear your evening.


  7. Rank 13. Eika

    Contemporary Japanese





  8. Rank 17. Mume

    Contemporary Taiwanese

    Fresh herbs and edible flowers land on every plate at this Michelin-starred contemporary European restaurant, which makes the moody, faux-industrial dining room feel like a pleasant joke the kitchen is playing on itself. Seasonal Taiwanese ingredients fold into European technique, and the seafood in particular shows a confident hand with seasoning. Da'an regulars who have stopped reading the menu are probably onto something.


  9. Rank 18. de nuit

    Contemporary French


  10. Rank 19. Mizue

    Japanese



  11. Rank 21. Kiku

    Japanese


  12. A Michelin-starred omakase counter in Da'an where the soup course alone justifies showing up, a minced fish dumpling bobbing in kelp bonito stock that manages to feel both precise and generous. Lunch leans toward raw fish and nigiri; dinner shifts into cooked kappo territory. The chef is the chatty kind, which at an omakase counter either charms or unnerves, and here it lands on the right side.



  13. Rank 24. Sushi Kajin

    Edomae Sushi


  14. Rank 25. Hosu

    Contemporary Taiwanese


  15. Rank 26. ZEA

    Taiwanese


  16. Rank 27. Wok by O'BOND

    Modern French Taiwanese

    A small window at the entrance lets you watch the wok station before you're inside, surrounded by dark green velvet and red walls. This Michelin-starred modern French Taiwanese tasting menu restaurant takes Taiwanese and Asian flavors apart and rebuilds them with French technique, with at least one dish carrying proper wok hei. Taiwanese teas and herb-infused cocktails round out a menu that changes every season.





  17. Rank 31. Motoichi

    Tempura Japanese


  18. Rank 32. Sushiyoshi

    Edomae Sushi


  19. Solid wood countertops imported from Canada anchor a room that reads as quietly, deliberately Japanese. This is an omakase-only sushi counter, the kind where the chef controls the entire arc of the meal. Fish comes in from Japan three times a week, and the rice is seasoned with three different vinegars, which sounds fussy until you taste it. The place holds a Michelin star.


  20. A sushi counter in Da'an where the chef has been at this for over three decades, and it shows in the quiet precision of the work. Raw and cooked dishes shift with the season, sake included, so the list you see tonight probably won't exist next month. A Michelin star sits on the wall. The room rewards people who let the chef lead rather than those who arrive with a checklist.


  21. Rank 35. INITA

    Contemporary Italian

    A one-Michelin-star tasting menu tucked into a Songshan alley, where the name bundles Italy, Japan, and Taiwan into a single word and the kitchen delivers on all three. Expect ten-plus courses built on Italian technique, Japanese sensibility, and local ingredients, with the chef rolling pasta dough tableside before the final savory course. It's a serious, quiet room where the food does the talking.


  22. Rank 36. A Cut

    Steakhouse


  23. Rank 37. Ming Fu

    Taiwanese

    Home-style Taiwanese cooking served in the kind of generous portions that assume you brought people. Ming Fu holds a Michelin star, which surprises no one who has had the stuffed chicken, a whole free-range bird filled with glutinous rice, red dates, and goji berries, then simmered for the better part of a day into a golden, deeply umami broth. The menu also reaches for ingredients like mullet tripe and fresh fish maw that most restaurants don't bother with.




  24. Rank 40. Yu Kapo

    Japanese


  25. Rank 41. Ya Ge

    Cantonese



  26. Rank 43. Sushi Akira

    Edomae Sushi


  27. A Kees van der Westen Slim Jim sits at the center of this six-seat counter cafe in Da'an, and everything else organizes itself around that machine. The Folks has been a one-man operation forever, roasting its own beans on-site with a lean toward Guatemalan lots. The pace is unhurried, the bar seating feels closer to a chef's counter than a coffee shop, and a takeaway cup costs a little less if you're in a hurry.


  28. Rank 45. SENS

    Contemporary French




  29. A stripped-back specialty coffee shop that roasts on-site and keeps the menu tight, Normal Coffee is where you go when the coffee itself is the point. The sourcing is the story: alongside the usual origins, they carry beans from the Alishan Mountain Range, Taiwan-grown and genuinely hard to find in the city. Espresso and pour-overs, a smaller footprint, no lifestyle clutter. It's the quieter, more focused sibling in a growing Taipei coffee group.




  30. Rank 51. Simple Kaffa

    Specialty Coffee

    Berg Wu won the 2016 World Barista Championship, and the trophies are right there on the exposed brick wall in case you missed it. This specialty coffee shop treats a cup of pour-over with the same ceremony as a tasting menu, with staff explaining the menu in detail and checking back on your experience. Geshas run to the higher end of the price scale, which tells you the crowd skewing here: serious enthusiasts, not laptop campers looking for an outlet.




  31. A roasting room visible from the counter sets the tone at this Taipei specialty coffee shop, where the in-house slow drip takes a full day to prepare tomorrow's batch. Dark wood and a calm atmosphere keep the focus on what's in the cup, not the interior. The menu runs espresso, pour-over, and cold drip, with a side-by-side espresso set for anyone who wants to think a little harder about what they're drinking.



  32. The scent of braised pork hits you before you find the stall number. What started as a night market cart has been around forever and grown into a proper sit-down spot in Huaxi Street, bright and clean inside. The draw is braised pork rice, the sauce glossy and dark, sweet-savory and sticky in the best sense. Stewed cabbage cuts through it neatly. The Michelin Bib Gourmand crowd knows what they're doing ordering nothing else.


  33. Rank 57. Yi Jia Zi

    Tainan Chinese







  34. The front wall opens entirely to the street, so Wenchang St. drifts in with every customer. This is an espresso-focused coffee shop run by someone with a background in blend development, and the menu stays short on purpose. You can stand at the counter for a quick shot or drift toward the open edges and stay longer. The kind of place that already feels like it's been here forever, even though it hasn't.


  35. Rank 64. Serenity (Zhongzheng)

    Vegetarian Sichuan



  36. Rank 66. Xiang Se

    European Contemporary Taiwanese


  37. Rank 67. Taïrroir

    Contemporary Taiwanese

    A copper-ceiling meant to suggest Taiwan's hill country sets the tone before you've seen the menu, which at Taïrroir names its dishes to rhyme with local idioms. The chef spent two decades across Taiwanese and French kitchens, and the tasting menu puts those two traditions in genuine conversation, built around seasonal Taiwanese produce. It holds three Michelin stars, and the service matches that without feeling starched.


  38. The lamb soup here comes five ways, each cut slow-cooked with Chinese angelica until the amber broth runs clean and faintly sweet. This is an old-school Chinese soup shop that's been around forever and recently moved into a brighter two-storey space. The braised pork sauce, simmered low from pork skin and fat, goes over both the rice and the noodles, making the choice between them harder than it should be. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.





  39. Rank 72. Pàng

    Taiwanese Mexican



  40. Rank 74. Circum-

    Chinese

    The name comes from the Latin for "around," a nod to how Chinese food travels and changes as it crosses borders. This fine dining room in the Regent Hotel follows that migration, tracing emigrant foodways through history and reassembling them with French technique. The dishes land somewhere between a childhood memory and a chef's thesis, which sounds more cerebral than it eats. It holds a Michelin star.



  41. Tucked into a Neihu alleyway, this two-Michelin-star contemporary Asian restaurant draws a straight line between Taipei and Tokyo: chef Ryogo Tahara trained under Hiroyasu Kawate at Florilège before bringing that same exacting sensibility here. The menu leans into Taiwanese ingredients while pulling techniques from across the continent, landing at No. 22 on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants. Dishes arrive with the quiet confidence of people who have nothing left to prove.




  42. Rank 79. Yu Yu 1969

    Taiwanese





  43. Rank 83. Open Smile

    Taiwanese

    Braised pork is the whole argument here, slow-cooked until it hits that sweet spot between tender and giving, served over rice or noodles at a bright little Taiwanese spot that earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand. The menu wanders into scallion chicken and Sichuan peppercorn oil for variety, and a house chilli sauce is there when you want more heat. It's casual, cheerful, and the kind of lunch that makes the afternoon feel manageable.



  44. Rank 85. Jen Ho Yuan

    Yunnan Chinese



  45. Rank 87. Mipon

    Taiwanese


  46. Rank 88. aMaze

    Creative Zhejiang







  47. Rank 94. Jin Shang Hsuan

    Taiwanese Chinese







  48. Rank 100. Soft Power

    Taiwanese


Recents

  • No recent searches yet.

Eat Score

The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

    How we score →

    Drink Score

    The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

      How we score →

      Stay Score

      The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

        How we score →

        Do Score

        The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

          How we score →

          Best Place Score

          The Best Place Score rates the area around a point, not any one place. It runs on the scored places nearby: more good stuff within reach, higher score. If it looks low, we probably haven't found enough critics out here yet.