If you missed the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants 2008 ceremony at the imposing Freemasons Hall in Covent Garden last night, don't spit your chips. It was pretty much the same as the 2007 awards, with El Bulli, The Fat Duck and Pierre Gagnaire again taking first, second and third places.
The rest of the 50 Best differed only by two new entries and four re-entries (those who have been in the top fifty earlier, and scraped back in again).
El Bulli's ebullient Ferran Adria (pictured) even made the same "proud to be Spanish/humble to be a chef" speech, once again calling on his Spanish compatriots to join him on stage. At least he softened the blow to the miffed French and English present by doing so "because it might be the last time we will all get together like this". Or was that a reference to the current rumour that he will soon be moving on from El Bulli to do more of his own art/science/food thing?
I don't want to take anything away from El Bulli, but its win is
still surprising, given that the members of the judging panel
(comprising 682 chefs, restaurateurs, food writers and critics in 23
world regions) were supposed to vote only for restaurants they had
visited during the previous eighteen months.
As El Bulli only opens for only six months of the year, and all seats are booked on the day they are released, I am amazed that so many judges were able to get in. I was a judge, and I couldn't. I suspect that some judges found it easier to go along with their peers' existing endorsement of El Bulli rather than actually get out there and find a challenger. If so, it casts some doubt on the validity of the awards.
But the whole thing needs a shake-up. It was good to see Fergus
Henderson and Trevor Gulliver's St. John leap up a massive 18 places to
number 16, and I applaud the brilliant Rene Redzepi of Copenhagen's
Noma for moving up into the top ten.
At this rate, Heston "Bridesmaid" Blumenthal had better watch out, he might be beaten to the altar by Noma. Or might we just see St John hailed as Best Restaurant In The World, hallelujah.
What are these awards? They started life as a publicity vehicle for Restaurant
magazine in 2002. The first couple of years were a bit dodgy, with very
few of my fellow judges actually visiting the restaurants they voted
for (I know, because half a dozen of them emailed me to ask who they
should vote for because they hadn't been anywhere lately…); and with
anomalies such as The Ivy getting in above the likes of Italy's Gambero
Rosso, France's Troisgros and America's Chez Panisse.
Britain had 14 entries in the 2005 awards, which was being overly kind to ourselves. Since then, the organisers have gone to great pains to institute a fairer and more equitable voting system, and this year, there are six British restaurants in the final fifty (Fat Duck at 2, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay at 13, St John at 16, Hakkasan at 19, Le Gavroche 22, and Nobu at 30).
But, and it's a big but, there is still a ludicrous absence of any
restaurant from Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore or
Bangkok in "The World's Fifty Best Restaurants".
Even the Michelin Guide conceded in 2007 that Tokyo was one of the world's great food cities, awarding it more Michelin stars than any other city - even if it was partly because they scented a great commercial opportunity. Yet not one of those lauded restaurants has managed to break into the fifty.
Note that Hakkasan and Nobu managed to get in, however, by virtue of being in London. Is this because the European panellists don't know anything about the restaurants of Asia, yet the Asian panellists know as much about the restaurants of Europe as they do about their own? Or is it because there are too many judges based in London, who can get to Hakkasan twice a week but would not know that Hutong in Hong Kong even existed?
I suppose it is all about money. It always is. As the dynamic New York restaurateur Drew Nieporent said last night "this industry used to be about passion and food and lifestyle. The lines are blurring. Now it's all about business".
The World's 50 Best needs to stop and take a serious look at how it divvies up the world. Otherwise it will be henceforth known as "The S. Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants 2008 As Seen From Way Over This Side Of The World."
it is all a sham for the most frivolous and idiotic people of the planet. I've eaten in Hakkasan and I've had better in a Singapore food market. This kind of thing has to stop when so many people are living in poverty in the world. I think whoever makes this list should be made to eat grass for a week or at least stop doing it please FOREVER.
Posted by: loppo | Tuesday, 22 April 2008 at 09:39 PM
Is the reality of life that many people live in poverty in the world, although there are another reality of good restaurants! you cant denay both, so Im from the north of argentina and know very well that. Congratullations to Ferran Adria, Heston Blumenthal, Pierre Gagniere, and all those genius from the kitchen that make a wonderful world!
Posted by: Yocasta Pott | Tuesday, 22 April 2008 at 10:10 PM
So few from Asia...My HK based friend and I (in Seoul) were discussing this & were equally surprised, too! I guess every list has it's quirks and hoping they iron this one out in time for the next one.
Posted by: superlocal | Wednesday, 23 April 2008 at 01:55 AM
I'm British and love to eat in the top London restaurants when I'm in town. But I also live in Asia and endorse the comments of those who think the region is under-represented. Best food city in the world - Singapore without a doubt. Most underrated cuisine - South Indian/Sri Lankan.
There are also great restaurants in Perth and Melbourne.
I take the point that the judges can't realistically visit all these places every year so maybe you need another testing method based on opinions from those of us who (sadly) seem to spend all our time travelling and eating.
Posted by: Vic Faulkner | Wednesday, 23 April 2008 at 04:18 AM
So taking into account the word 'best' it means the restaurant that has received the most publicity and that the chef may be famous? It may be that the food is delicious but the best restaurant label has more to do with location (trendy) and celebrity (looking good and being noticed) when those who seek to be noticed can eat with the comfort that they are recognised even for the type of 'location' food they put in their precious stomachs and everyone knows about it (including those that lesser mortals may name drop to...oh by the way, we ate at Nobu last ngith and it was simply divine)....
Posted by: len | Wednesday, 23 April 2008 at 08:14 AM
Why don't the organisers institute a 'hall of fame' category so that if any one restaurant wins three years ina row it is automatically given that special status, thereby freeing up the rest of the world's restaurants to go for the top spot? Then the thing can evolve and we can all move on. If Spanish cuisine is as good as these results would suggest then it would also allow other Spanish practitioners to be recognised, not just Adria.
New entry Extebarri near Bilbao sounds a genuinely amazing place, where the chef chooses very specific types of wood for the different charcoals for his open grill. This sounds far more interesting than any 'tangerine flower pate with pumpkin oil' from Adria that apparently 'demands psychological reflection' more than it requires swallowing. Give me real food over brain food every time.
Posted by: nigel | Wednesday, 23 April 2008 at 08:15 AM
Can we assume then, that all who voted for the 50 Best have been to all of the restaurants in the world? Else, how can they be sure?
Posted by: Mimi Sheraton | Wednesday, 23 April 2008 at 04:38 PM
Terry, I was a judge as well for the Restaurant magazine survey and am constantly and equally upset by the geographical spread of the results. I have just posted a short rant about this on my personal blog: http://chubbyhubby.net/blog/?p=530. As a result of having been in both the F&B industry and the media scene in Asia for over a decade, and having been witness to the constant ignorance of Asia by surveys such as Restaurant magazine's, I and others have decided to launch our own guide. The Miele Guide, supported by German kitchen appliance manufacturer Miele, will be the first independent and authoritative guide to Asia's best restaurants. We hope to launch at the end of October this year. You can learn more here: http://www.mieleguide.com/.
Posted by: Aun Koh | Thursday, 24 April 2008 at 02:11 AM
I am another TOP 50 RESTAURANT voter, and must agree that the "winners" seem more about following the foodie pack than about where the voters actually dined in the past 18 months. But many of us do take our responsibilites seriously, and follow the rules. The lock-step adoration of El Bulli, or the French Laundry for that matter, is way out of tune with what's really going on across the world. And what's happening on your plate at those two hackneyed joints is too much and not enough at the same time. Drew Nieporent almost got it right-restaurants used to be about craftsmanship and passion, now they're about advertising.
John Curtas
Las Vegas, Nevada
U.S.A.
Posted by: John Curtas | Thursday, 24 April 2008 at 02:29 AM
This is a good piece, Terry and you are pretty much spot on. The award was my idea back in 2001 and, interestingly, the thought was never on it being a publicity stunt, though it became one pretty quickly.
The idea that I had was that a greasy spoon might make the 50 and so might a humble sushi bar in Japan. I remember visiting a restaurant in Bangalore that used banana leaves for plates but that had the best masala dhoas's I had ever tasted and was visited by the great and the good of India as well as the rank and file. It was constantly busy and completely wonderful. That remains my ideal for the worlds 50 best restaurants. The restaurants should be abut something more than just the food. They should be about life.
It has become a gastronomic award which was never the idea. But, then again, I said the idea was mine but I had very little influence thereafter. I feel if the award is to get back any sort of credibility it must readdress itself in terms of what is "best"
Chandos Elletson
Lancashire
UK
Posted by: Chandos Elletson | Saturday, 26 April 2008 at 09:18 AM
Terry,
I found both of your articles quite interesting regarding the top 50 restaurants. Disclaimer: I own one of them.
The way the regions are split up is to blame for the absurdities in the list. No Tokyo restaurants, no Chinese restaurants in China (but Hakkassan is there).
Let's look at it from a purely statistical viewpoint. Let's say you have 25 different sets with a varying number of members in each set from 80,000 to 2.5 million. Then you select .01% of each set (the "best") and give 62 equal votes to each of these. Obviously, the member of the set with the fewest members has the greatest likelihood of garnering votes... in this case by a wide margin.
Now, what are those sets... they are the way the regions of the world are split into committees without regard for the population of each set. China has about 2.5 million restaurants by the estimates I could find... and 31 votes. The top .01 of China yields 250 top restaurants. In the UK and Ireland, there are about 180,000 restaurants... and thus about 18 to split among 31 votes. Thus, Nobu London makes the list, while Nobu NYC (the original, and frankly better restaurant) does not -- after all, North America (1.1 million restaurants in the U.S. alone scattered among a much larger land mass) has about 8 Nobus. It is also why the Spanish dominate (small country, 31 votes) and why a restaurant like xyz in a country that has about 3 michelin starred restaurants gets so high up on the list.
The sets need to be normalized for two things 1) the population of restaurants in each region and 2) the number of votes per visit that a restaurant receives. Then, the committee needs to consider the votes that members can make outside of their region... voters in Germany are far likelier to vote for a restaurant in Spain, Italy or the UK than they are for one in China, Japan or the US just because it is closer (though outside their region, technically).
Finally, they need to remove all chefs (who hardly dine out and don't get a normal experience when they do), restaurant owners (who vote for their friends), and inside industry consultants (conflict of interest) from the voting panels. Does that not seem obvious?
Now, such lists are fun and are good PR for the magazine and the restaurants. However, this seems to have taken on a life greater than the original plan. They need to get a statistician on board who knows how to normalize sets. Then let the voting begin.
Posted by: anon | Sunday, 27 April 2008 at 04:48 PM
Our restaurant is in the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants 2008 too. Exactly our restaurant is the first resaurant from russia which came to st.pellegrino award. We are very glad about it so we'll work harder. Thank S.pellegrino and thank's our customers!
Posted by: Serz | Thursday, 08 May 2008 at 06:01 PM
Nice one Terry. What these surveys need are a good editor to fiddle the results.
Posted by: Ed | Friday, 09 May 2008 at 04:13 AM