Over 1000 reviews in the 2019 IG Guide

Monday 3rd December 2018, 1 pm: the 12th edition of the Guida ai ristoranti d’Italia, Europa e Mondo di Identità Golose, the 4th entirely online, is available online for free, to everyone. As we publish this piece, there are 1.024reviews, that is to say +117 compared to last year (in 2018 there were 907), a number which goes beyond the one thousand goal, and depicts the growth of fine dining in Italy and abroad.

Of the 1.024 establishments, 722 are in Italy and 302 in44 countries in Europe and around the world, with 3 new countries included this year: Ecuador, Georgia, Iceland. There are 85 pizzerias(we had 68 last years), and 58establishments directed by chefs under-30 and 403by chefs under-40, which shows our attention to young kitchens, as they are almost half the restaurants reviewed.

However, you shouldn’t trust these numbers. They might change as soon as tonight: this is the destiny of an online guide, which can change at any time, by definition, be it because a restaurant suddenly closes or a chef changes. This is the beauty and the difficulty of our project, points out the curator of the Guide, Paolo Marchi, in the 2019 Introduction: «Moving online has freed us from the cage of the printed layout: printed pages had turned into a prison». Having endless prairies requires knowing how to ride across them, having the right picture at every moment, not just when the project goes into print, but all year round.

Gianluca Gorini, Karime Lopez and Ricard Camarena, 3 of this year’s awarded chefs 

We’ll soon point out all the names of the 207 new restaurants in 2019, which were not in the guide until the other day. For now, we can recall the 14 awards given to the 2019 Young Stars, which we gave earlier at Terrazza Gallia in Milan, the location of the presentation of the Guide for the second year in a row: Gianluca Gorini (best chef, see the reason), Karime Lopez (best female chef), Ricard Camarena (best foreign chef), Alberto Gipponi (surprise of the year), Lucia De Prai (best pastry chef), Remo Capitaneo (best sous-chef), Gennaro Battiloro (best chef pizzaiolo, it’s the first year for this award), Anna Cardin (best female sommelier), Emanuele Izzo (best sommelier), Alberto Tasinato (best maitre), Valentino Cassanelli (best bread basket), Alessandra Dal Monte (best food writer), 3 generations of Alajmos (best family), Giuseppe Lo Iudice and Alessandro Miocchi (beer in the kitchen).

We’re also happy to mention this year’s Storie di Gola, which include the favourite places of some of the most important maîtres in Italy and in the world. Indeed, we asked maîtres, because the dining room service is slowly taking its revenge after being forgotten for many years. So thanks to Nicola Ultimo for his portrait of Milan, and Beppe Palmieri for Modena and Bologna, Raffele Alajmo (Venice), Catia Uliassi (Senigallia), Marco Reitano (Rome), Cristiana Romito (Abruzzo), Enrico Baronetto (London), Giovanni Alajmo (Paris), Stefania Giordano (Bilbao), Jonathan Benno (New York).

This year too, we have Storie di Gola. Featuring ten prominent maîtres

The total recommendations in the 2019 Guide are in fact much more than 1027 because almost every review (around 900) also includes the chef’s favourite place. On top of these we have 200 recommendations given by the maîtres who wrote our Storie di Gola: so we are well above 2000 recommendations. This is a representation we try to keep as faithful as possible thanks to 101 collaborators who write from Italy and far beyond. Among them, we greet Matteo Bizzarri, Paolo Campana, Rocco Catalano, Alessio Cutrì, Giovanni Farinella, Margo Schachter and Maurizio Trezzi who debuted this year. Final technical note: as of today, you can also find the "Nei dintorni" (in the surroundings) option, which shows restaurants around you. Enjoy.

Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso