10 Cutting-Edge Restaurants (Slideshow)

This Aussie eatery is outfitted with one of the most multi-talented chefs. Chef Ross Lusted has an impeccable eye for design, and it's not just the plating, but the plates themselves, that he maintains creative control over. The flavors of Europe, Asia, and the best seasonal ingredients are the creative inspiration for Lusted's palate. With beautifully presented dishes such as sake-cured John Dory with smoked milk pudding, The Bridge Room is setting the new design standard of cuisine.

This cabinet of curiosities is not something you will find hiding under the bed — or in your closet. The food that chef Makoto Ono is creating in his Vancouver restaurant, Pidgin, is intriguingly inspired cuisine. The taxidermy bird parts scattered around the interior get creepier and creepier as the (on-tap) sake continues to flow, but the food stays consistently impressive, with menu offerings such as raw scallops with pomegranate curry oil and smoked ling cod with lentils, clams, and a bacon dashi vinaigrette.

If you live in any of the five boroughs and have not been to Prospect, you should make a reservation immediately. Chef Kyle McClelland is immensely talented, known for his innovative plating and use of simple, fresh ingredients. The menu changes frequently but dishes on offer may include seared foie gras with pumpkin spice cake, maple-pecan "soil," candied pecans, and corn gelato as well as "Milk-Fed Veal & Its Cheek" with chanterelle mushrooms, "Black Rock" potatoes, squash, and garlic purée. Be sure to sit at the chef's counter for a front-row seat to all the plating action.

OK, so I guess you can't technically call this a restaurant, but could it be the future of dining? Who knows, but that is exactly why I couldn't resist including The Waldorf Project. This is a fully interactive dining experience from the brain of culinary artist Sean Rogg. Rogg creates a harmony of the senses through food, drink, dance, sound, and environment. His last installation, "Muskmelon," featured a menu in the style of a traditional tea ceremony, with a twist — the plates were carried out by four dancers in a carefully choreographed presentation. With the next event, "Color," set to launch in 2014, this is a food memory just waiting to be created.

Cutting-edge design with "pan-Mediterranean and Moroccan influences are what inspire the locally sourced cuisine," says chef Bruno Ussel. Former fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman (Stephen di Renza) is responsible for designing what's possibly the chicest looking restaurant in Morocco. The interior may be black and white marble, but the color is represented in the vibrant food parading out of the kitchen.

Tucked inside the Hotel d'Angleterre, chef Ronny Emborg creates ambitious dishes inspired by classic Nordic and French cuisine. Emborg produces elevated, delicious food that is accessible to anyone, from those looking for just a bite to those seeking a Danish feast. Dishes include slow-cooked pork belly with lemons, hazelnuts, salsify, and snails, and grilled whole monkfish for two. His recently launched The Wizard's Cookbook is filled with Emborg's favorite recipes, beautifully captured by photographer Signe Birck. 

The interactive dining menu called China2020 at Breeze restaurant in Bangkok's Lebula Hotel incorporates medicinal elements and is definitely the most molecular of the bunch. Here, chef Sam Pang Pin Lee has devised clever dice games to choose a sauce for the beef tenderloin, serves roasted duck in a Pandora's Box, and offers do-it-yourself cocktails in the form a chemistry set. Enjoy the most cutting-edge trends in food all while gazing out at the Chao Phraya River.

Chef David Kinch prepares new California cuisine with a European refinement at his Los Gatos restaurant. Kinch has a love affair with ingredients — respect for the surrounding landscape is what makes Manresa an edible escape in Northern California. While the menu changes frequently, dishes might include "garden beignets and leaves" or smoky eggplant with lightly cured mackerel and toasted rice. Kinch's newly launched book, An Edible Reflection, gives you a glimpse at how to create the thought-provoking dishes that Manresa has been lauded for.

Celebrating the "New Nordic Manifesto," chef Carl Kristian Frederiksen represents Scandinavian cuisine with his own creative additions. Frederiksen cooks simply and artfully. Whether it be his house-made rye bread (which took more than 50 tries to perfect), infused aquavit, or a perfectly cooked piece of fish, any meal at Aamanns-Copenhagen will make you wish you were from Denmark.

Chef Ryan Clift has created a restaurant that is worth the flight to Singapore. There is a primal element to the restaurant design and branding that is intoxicatingly alluring. Diners enjoy elevated food and drink in a lush tropical rainforest, just outside downtown Singapore — are we there yet? Refined dishes inspired by the vast culinary influences of Singapore are bursting off the plate, with offerings such as razor clams with purple garlic and parsley root and kingfish with yuzu sorbet and black radish. This English chef certainly has found a home away from home in Singapore.