Behind The 50 Best

Not everyone on this earth is convinced there is a god, let’s not speak of the infallibility of some thousand jurors who every spring make the great chefs of the planet happy or sad. We’re referring to the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, edition number 16, the first far away from London, the first in New York while next year it will be the turn of the first in Melbourne, Australia. Edition 2016 was also the first to be won by an Italian restaurant, Osteria Francescana in Modena, guided by Massimo Bottura. Three Michelin stars for the Italian chef, three for El Celler de Can Roca, second, and three also for Eleven Madison Park in New York, third. You never get this far up unless you’re already acknowledged in your respective country.

The Fifty Best is not the Bible. Its results are the outcome of rules given by the British organisers. Perhaps only a magazine on the banks of the Thames, The Restaurant Magazine, could invent such rules and not, for once, the French, who are masters in self-marketing and promotion.

The British after all don’t represent an indisputably leading nation when it comes to cuisine. Indeed they compile lists in France as well, on top of the guides they invented, except they start and end in the very same place: vive la France! It’s too easy, and anachronistic too.

«It’s an exceptional form of global promotion», we were saying the other day, on Saturday 18th, with Carlin Petrini in Bra, in the Langhe region. And then there was that mechanism that makes the success of the Academy Awards, the Golden Ball, and so on: «Paolo, how can it be that French giants such as Régis Marcon and his son Jacques are not in the list, and Alexandre Gauthier is only 62nd? I was startled». The same answer applies to those who complain there are “only” four Italians in the list: The Fifty Best do not intend to copy the hierarchy of the Michelin guide but in fact want to point out how haute cuisine is not a French, euro-centric prerogative. They try to represent the weight of each single country in a sort of stock exchange of wine and food tourism, with the planet divided into 27 areas. Voters only have one obligation: they cannot indicate more than four restaurants from their area out of seven in total.

Given their historical importance, France and Italy, a total of 934 starred restaurants, respectively 600 and 334, should be divided for instance into Paris and the Rest of France, and Italy from Milan to Florence and then from Rome to Palermo. If this was the case, though, I could vote for seven Italians and the mechanism would break.

So there are 50 restaurants for 23 countries, and this is what makes the success of the event. Including the 21 flags flying in the second part, from the 51st till the 100th place, where you can find a bit of everything, including eight French chefs and two more Italians, Niko Romito 84th and Umberto Bombana in Hong Kong 86th. The fact Andrea Petrini was replaced by Nicolas Chatenier as the person responsible for France for now has only determined the collapse of Inaki Aizpitarte’s Chateaubriand, from 21st to 74th, a much debated theme between the establishment and the nouvelle vague. It’s a bit too little.

As for Italy, Bottura was 1st, Enrico Crippa 17th (from 27th in 2015), Massimiliano Alajmo 39th (-5 places) and finally Davide Scabin 46th from 65th; two years in the purgatory for him who was 51st in 2014.

Bottura got off the stage with two trophies, one as the first place in the world, and one as the first in Europe. Eleven Madison Park in New York, is 3rd in the global list and 1st in North America and Central in Lima, fourth, is the number one in South America. Narisawa in Tokyo leads in Asia, South African The Test Kitchen in Africa and finally Attica in Melbourne leads in Oceania.

France applauds Alain Passard for his lifetime achievement award, Pierre Hermé best pastry-chef and Dominique Crenn best female chef. Debuting Ferrari Trento Art of Hospitality crowned the dining room service at Eleven Madison Park guided by Will Guidara, while Maido in Lima received the Lavazza Highest Climer Award for its superb leap from 44th to 13th. Finally, one has to stress how Christian Puglisi’s Relae in Copenhagen won the Sustainable Restaurant Award for the second year in a raw. The other two sponsors, Acqua Panna S.Pellegrino and Grana Padano, were also Italian.