Yes, they are the gold standard IMO. I flew “ANA First” last year from NRT-LAX, and I just didn’t want the flight to end it was all just so amazing! Literally some of the best food I’ve had in my life on that flight, along with 21 year Hibiki whiskey (yes, the same as from the movie “Lost in Translation”). ANA’s “The Suite” was awesome, you don’t even feel like you’re in an airplane.
The Asian carriers in general are excellent. I’ve flown numerous times in business long haul with ANA, JAL, Singapore, and Cathay. All are absolutely top notch, with outstanding food and service. I’ve never flown Emirates, as it usually just doesn’t make sense logically for me to use them from Asia to the western US. But they are definitely way up there as well from what I hear.
The European carriers are way more hit and miss. Someone mentioned Turkish, but after seeing some of their reviews last year I was not impressed.
I flew KLM business from AMS-SIN last year, and definitely not doing that again. The cabin crew was nice, but the seats and food were way below even what the US carriers offer. Also the airport experience with KLM at AMS was shockingly bad. Lufthansa has enough bad reviews that I am hesitant to ever try them.
For US carriers, I fly mostly United and they’ve REALLY improved in the last year. Cabin service (Polaris) is quite good now, and the food is pretty decent too. They treat Global Service/P1K members quite well. The Polaris lounges in SFO and EWR are nice, although every single domestic lounge is now so busy I just don’t even bother. They need to do something about increasing the bar to entry for the lounges, as elitist as that sounds. They just simply aren’t usable at this point.