NYCWFF: Top Chefs Reveal Jet-Setting Wish Lists

The culinary captains behind the Delta Airlines Business Class Elite dining experience took New Yorkers to new heights on Thursday, October 16 at the Delta presents Food with Altitude event, part of the 2014 Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival. Not only were the chefs serving dishes and variations of dishes from their inflight menus, but they were also spilling the secrets on which restaurants they haven't yet been to but would fly across the world to dine at.

Michael Chiarello, Esquire Magazine's Chef of the Year 2013, told The Daily Meal that if he were given a plane ticket tomorrow and could dine anywhere, he would head to Massimo Bottura's new restaurant. "[Massimo Bottura] has a technology and a technique to his cooking that, in the end, the plates are very reminiscent of their origin still."

Jean-Paul Bourgeois, executive chef at Blue Smoke, said he'd head to Taillevent in Paris. "My parents had their honeymoon dinner there, and they brought home the menu and framed it in the kitchen. It's something I remember from my childhood."

Bourgeois wasn't alone; master sommelier and three-time James Beard Award-winner Andrea Robinson also singled out Taillevent as a jet-set-worthy destination.

"I have always wanted to go to Taillevent and experience it, and of course because there is a legendary wine cellar there."

Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene and Holman & Finch in Atlanta, which serves some of the best burgers in the country, switched gears and voted to cross the Pacific for the stellar dining in Asia. Hopkins didn't hesitate when he said he'd travel for the chance to dine at Jiro Sushi, said to be the best sushi in the world.

"[Jiro Ono] is my hero," Hopkins said. "He has one of those standards about the excellence in purity of food."