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The World’s Fifty Best Restaurants announced its 2015 list on Monday in London, featuring some the most popular restaurants from Spain, Italy, England and other countries. While no India-located restaurant could qualify into the top 50, (with only New Delhi based Indian Accent to the top hundred, at #77), Gaggan Anand’s eponymous Indian cuisine restaurant, Gaggan, in Bangkok, features at #10.
Here’s what the award is all about.
The award and the academy
The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list is created annually by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy, with Diners Club as its main sponsor. The Academy comprises of almost 1000 members, who are all selected their expert opinion of the international restaurant scene. To give a fair representation to the global restaurant scene, the Academy divides the world into 27 geographical regions, each of which has a chairperson appointed specialising in their part of the restaurant world. These chairs each select a voting panel of 36 (including themselves) – ensuring a balanced selection of chefs, restaurateurs, food/restaurant journalists and gourmets. The list then is compiled according to the votes from each of the panels, representing the different geographical regions.
Criticism
Reports in The New York Times and The Guardian, said the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list has long been criticised for favouritism, opacity and sexism, with many chefs “saying that its judging is arbitrary”. The list recently came under attack from the ‘Occupy 50 Best’ an online campaign by self-described “the culinary connoisseurs of all countries and creeds: cooks, critics or simply lovers of Good Food”. Recently, the website of the protest movement was also shut down briefly following a copyright complaint by World’s 50 Best.
The Top 10
1) El Celler de Can Roca, Girona, Spain
Chef: The Roca brothers
Cuisine: Modern Spanish
Winning trait: “Curiosity and creativity”, rooted in humble start and “familial warmth”.
2) Osteria Francescana, Modena, Italy
Chef: Massimo Bottura (pictured), Takahiko Kondo and Davide Di Fabio
Cuisine: Contemporary Italian
Winning trait: “Italian fare with artistic flair”
3) Noma Copenhagen, Denmark
Chef: René Redzepi and head chef Daniel Giusti
Cui: Seasonal, terroir-led Scandinavian
Winning trait: “Ability to remain fresh and assimilate culinary cultures other than its own”
4) Central Lima, Peru
Chef: Virgilio Martinez and head chef Pia León
Cuisine: Avant-garde Peruvian
Winning trait: “Celebrates Peru’s biodiversity and ancient Andean heritage...inventive creations”
5) Eleven Madison Park New York, USA
Chef: Daniel Humm and chef de cuisine Chris Flint
Cuisine: A New York twist on modern European
Winning trait: “Perfect balance between great food and impeccable service”
6) Mugaritz San Sebastián, Spain
Chef: Andoni Luis Aduriz
Cuisine: Techno-emotional Spanish
Winning trait: “Complete sensory experience in stunning surrounds...24 individually tailored courses”
7) Dinner by Heston Blumenthal London, UK
Chef: Ashley Palmer-Watts and Daniel Svenson
Cuisine: Historical British food reinvented for the 21st century
Winning trait: “Celebrating bigger, more boisterous flavours ... teleporting age-old recipes into the 21st century”
8) Narisawa Tokyo, Japan
Chef: Yoshihiro Narisawa and Kanako Sakakura
Cuisine: Japanese with strong French influences
Winning trait: “Restrained and highly thoughtful without being...anything less than generous”
9) D.O.M. São Paulo, Brazil
Chef: Alex Atala
Cuisine: Contemporary Brazilian with Amazonian ingredients
Winning trait: “Reshape Brazilian food using the country’s rich natural resources, while respecting the environment and working with local producers and indigenous communities”
The Indian Connect
Sitting pretty at number ten is Gaggan Anand’s “boundary-pushing restaurant”, eponymously named Gaggan, and specialising in Indian street and regional cuisine, served with a modernist twist. Anand credits the street food of his hometown Kolkata, and a formative stint in experimental restaurant El Bulli on Spain, as the two prime inspirations for his restaurant’s menu. Based in Bangkok, Gaggan has also topped the new list of Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, released by the economy.
