roosterchef21

After travelling to France and Italy, my wife and I are now planning a move overseas. Once she has completed her Ph.D and I've finished uni, we are going to move. We absolutely adored Paris, but my wife's field has a research facility in Lyon which would be one of life's great tragedies. LOL! Italy was great too, so if we decide to just work around taking in sights...

As far as I'm concerned it's better to be safe than sorry...

It's grown in the dirt i.e pig & chicken faeces. Peel the thing. It can be quite poisonous if you aren't careful.

Stick it out and finish your degree. Who knows, you may not enjoy a kitchen so much when your 30. It's good to have that degree for any future career paths you have in mind. It may help with university entry or getting another job in a slightly different career path.

Nobu isn't in the Top 100....? Am I missing something? I am with FDE, I think the list is pretty good and is a representative snapshot of places that should be tried. It isn't a "safe" list, and so maybe not ideal for the once in a blue moon diner, so I can understand Roosterchefs comment that some will be disapointed: I have got lots of friends who "know what they like" and would find many of these places too far out for them. All lists and systems are imperfect, rating a subjective experience is always fraught with danger. I think I like this list because I believe I share the similar tastes to the judges, so it is a list that works for me. Compare that to the UK Good Food Guide and I would say I am in a very different place. Horses for courses. Number of visits/votes to win? I go with the idea that there are probably lots of different restaurants on everyone's lists, so maybe 2,000 in the pool. When the votes are spread this thinly it won't require a majority of judges i.e. 401 out of 800 to vote for the winner. To win you simply need the most votes which could be quite a low number. How do they get into El Bulli? Simple El Bulli has a critics/chefs section with a number of seats reserved for visitors from the industry, so yes lots of critics can go. And it is logical that it does. Adria doesn't make money from the El Bulli restaurant, he makes it from the El Bulli brand. To maintain the brand he needs to market it to critics, and what better way than to offer scarce tables to journalists and evangelists. Why should a UK publication have the Worlds Best Restaurant guide? Why should a US baseball competition be the World Series..... Nobu was their the last few years.

Yes, I got your points. No list nor rating is perfect, but it is a good reference point. Say I am in S.Africa for a few days and already tried some locals recommended restaurants but what to do something different. Don't have much time to do research, well, on this S.Pellegrino 50Best list, there are two restaurants in S.Africa. I will give them a try. Out of the 40 restaurants that I visited on the list, I would say 5 of them are terrible, 25 of them are from good to excellent, and 5 of them are very special, and 5 of them are simply unforgettable experience. This is a good list isn't it? Very good in fact! I have followed restaurant suggestions from my local tour guides, hotel concierges, tour books, local ppl in the street, various magazines, and I was disappointed at most of them. Yes, MOST! Yes, I understand your point that the general public put a lot of faith in the list. I would suggest you just use it the way you see it fit and no need to over think too much. If you have been to 10 restaurants on the list and you don't like 8 of them, then this list is definitely not for you. I don't disagree with that at all. I only have a problems with it's methods and what it is trying to do. I think the reason it exists is great and I'm all for that. But the sheer size of it is to me just not achievable with a degree of accuracy that I would expect. Especially with the name of the list. The World's 50 Best would state to me that is accurate without question. As I said earlier, I have friends in other industries who have been bitterly disappointed with some of the meals they have had. I do also think their are some restaurants that just shouldn't be their. Like Nobu.

That would be a majority... 30 is greater than 29. So that's a majority. Hello? Drunk? Had something a bit stiffer? If you don't like the people here or the points made simple solution. Leave. Majority means more than half dear ma·jor·i·ty (m-jôr-t, -jr-) n. pl. ma·jor·i·ties 1. The greater number or part; a number more than half of the total. 2. The amount by which the greater number of votes cast, as in an election, exceeds the total number of remaining votes.

Herein lies the problem. The list is too ambitious and too big to be taken seriously. There are too many experts trying to review too many restaurants in too short a period of time with too little funds. Besides, the question remains - how can you give an accurate representation of the restaurants after only going once? Two or three visits within 6 months of each other. I thought it was an annual list? That would be once every year. The time period should be within a year. Look at Annual Reports for instance. They don't look at earnings over 18 months. What about the EPL, NBA or NFL? It's not a list of who was the best team over 18 months. Oscars? Not the best over 18 months. Nobel Peace Prize? Same. If they want to do a list they should be travelling twice or more in twelve months. How does that work? It's not what the entire kitchen team thinks it's what they think. The kitchen team should not count and if it is then it is a flawed system. Or, alternatively, the entire kitchen team should be included in the Academy. If an apprentice was on the academy I would just laugh. Look, I think the list brings much needed attention and recognition to the industry. But I also have serious doubts about the system and the list produced each year. I also have a problem with how it is percieved. A lot of people, not food focussed but the general public, put a lot of faith in the list. For the uneducated, I worry they would walk away disappointed. I know people who have gone to some of the restaurants that make the list and have done just this. Then they tell me they think our industry is egotistical and effed. By all means do the list but I take it with a grain of salt.

Ummm... No? Besides, if it happens every year that would seem to be a problem... That would be a majority... 30 is greater than 29. So that's a majority. Hello? Drunk? Had something a bit stiffer? If you don't like the people here or the points made simple solution. Leave.

How does the majority of the 800 voters get into El Bulli every year so easily to vote and have it win so regularly? You have to make up a majority vote for the win? Wouldn't you have to have 600 or so make it their every year to get that majority, especially since you could reasonably expect 20-25% not to think El Bulli is number one? And it's only open for 6 months. That's 25 a week or 5 a day. You miss one here and there the chances of other critics making up the numbers increase exponentially. Even if they don't receive 401 votes which is likely due to votes being spread over a great number of restaurants, wouldn't you need even greater numbers to get a reservation to make that majority number? And shouldn't critics eat at a restaurant at least three times in a year to have an accurate opinion? There are hundreds of contenders for the list. I'm not sure that the critics can reach a reasonable majority of those in one year. You could go to two a day and only cover 730 of the restaurants in a year. To eat two or preferably three or more times? I'm not sure anyone has the financial clout for that. You can argue that the number of people voting makes up the numbers but I'm not sure there are enough seats in restaurants anyway. Next is why are they voting over 18 months? I know food is influential but I'm pretty sure that 18 months doesn't equal a year... Maybe it is to cover those seats and have enough dining time to get an accurate representation. But restaurants change a lot in 18 months... So that gets ruled out due to previous performances from such a long period of time becoming redundant. Maybe receipts are actually important? I know a lot of eating at these kinds of places is image related. I also know that you may be looked down on by your peers for not eating at these places. A lot of these guys have to eat at other restaurants, go to industry related things and what not. The critic can't always drive the Ferrari. They have to review the Toyota too. Chefs and front of house people still have restaurants to run. Many of these guys will be at work 6-7 days a week for most of the year. Finally, it may just be a list. But the name of the list suggest to the general public that it is, in fact, the be all and end all. The media drum it up to be and I haven't heard any arguments from Restaurant magazine otherwise... You could argue this it is just a guide but the context of the wording used by Restaurant Magazine would state that it is actually the be all and end all list.

Just as an aside, when I was an apprentice, my first chef wanted to use sesame oil for deep frying!?!?!

I think the main issue is that it is made by nature. Each bone is different. Each animal may have a different life, different diet, killed at different ages and so on and so forth. It's not made in a factory; it doesn't consist of this many grams of this, this many milliliters of that, cooked for this amount of time at this temperature etc. Now, there isn't much marrow in a bone. You may be able to order the marrow separate from the bone. This might be quite expensive though. So I guess it depends. It's really luck of the draw.

It's just a boring list from the critics who are trying to beat the Michelin Guide. Chef's care about three Michelin stars not making a list of questionable values. Half of it, to me, is just ego's and marketing. I tend to think that it's for making a quick buck. Any list with a Nobu in the top 50, ADPA not even in the top 50 and Tetsuya's ahead of Quay... Please.

painted a better picture of Gagnaire’s intellectual approach and the deep thought that he applies to structure in his cuisine. b] ‘God put all those ingredients on Earth…why not use them all?’ Thus did this plate illustrate an important detail of the chef’s cuisine: there are no rules. Actually, the only limits he appears to allow himself to accept are those surrounding the quality of his ingredients and a desire to pursue a more organic direction in molecular gastronomy. Pierre Gagnaire is considered one of the most progressive and modern of chefs, there remains a distinctly classic stroke to his style. Regularly deemed as baroque, there are aspects of his meals that resemble those from the eighteenth century. This is most identifiable in the delivery of his dishes. The effect of this is three-fold. There is the same visual thrill; a generous notion of the kitchen engendered; whilst one is also left a little intoxicated – maybe even intentionally overwhelmed – by the multitude of assorted savours and aromas. Naturally, Gagnaire being Gagnaire, nothing stays as it is. In his own words, his is a ‘lively approach which takes risks and, as my critics say, occasionally goes overboard. I trust that these people will forgive my over-enthusiasm!’ You get the feeling he's there with his ingredients enjoying himself He is undeniably someone who seems to divide opinion: diners love his food or hate it; his meals are incredible or terrible. Effective, colourful and intimate, his is a cuisine that I find especially attractive and deeply personal. However, this being said and really for this very reason, I feel that I would not eat at any of his restaurants were he not in the kitchen that day. His cooking is so ingrained in his personality and mentality that was he not at the stove, I cannot believe that my assessment would be the same as if he were… Genius is not a label I bandy about very willingly - there is indeed one chef, although increasingly I am recognising it in another, whose talents I sincerely ascribe that term to. However, Gagnaire is an exceptional character. ‘Wizard’, maniac, mastermind, alchemist, the ‘Matisse of cooking’, are just some of the titles bestowed upon him. In all fairness, each is probably as accurate as any of the others…and to my mind, he is as much a chef as he is an intellectual; as much an artist as he is scientist; as mad as he is brilliant. ‘My goal is to infuse my cooking with feeling and intelligence. People need poetry, tenderness and well-made things…and being 'good' means opening up the range of emotions.’

Where to start... Well, I used to be a chef. I worked in some pretty good restaurants in my time. A couple were in the World's 50 Best list. I really enjoyed my job. Then this changed. When I was 22 I dislocated my shoulder in a Cooking Comp. Had a shoulder reconstruction. This was all fine and dandy. I was young felt invulnerable and just kept working. I got married when I was 24. Over this time until now my thoughts on life changed. I was never home, work being the major time consuming aspect in my life. Pay was horrible - working 100 hour weeks for 45k per year. The bosses were terrible; either bringing their personal life to work or just being nuts. Seen enough fights to last me a lifetime. Ended up having a second reconstruction. I'm 27 now and have decided to go to University. I'm studying Journalism to become a food & travel writer. Here's why you shouldn't. Firstly, hours are not conducive to a relationship let alone a social life. Eighty to a hundred hours are common. We aren't kidding when we say that either. The last place I worked I worked 18 hours a day 5 sometimes six days straight. Some places will be a seven day a week operation. This usually means you will be called on at least once a month to work an extra shift (week) including the ones you have just worked. Next, bosses are usually horrible. They are quite often arrogant and have no social skills. Some will be on drugs. Some will be on serious drugs. Most will like a drink or two. Don't argue with them. They may be wrong but chefs are usually princesses in their own little world. They won't admit this though. Your gonna work your ring out. Twenty kilogram sacks of (insert food item here) dragged around, prepping functions for 3-500 pax in a day, emptying stock pots where one mistake you break your arm or pour boiling stock over yourself - and then get screamed at by the chef despite you arguing that this is incredibly dangerous, a prep list the length of your arm - you'll be sweating in half an hour if your in a busy - the list goes on. You'll be under a lot of stress - I've worked with soldiers, policemen and even an Emergency Room doctor who have quit. I'm not saying it's as stressful as those. But when they did quit they claimed it was getting very close to what they were used to. Each dish has to be perfect or at least close to it. Pay is horrible. The people you work with will claim you do it for the love of food and passion. That's a complete load of bollocks. Those guys have been doing it since they were sixteen and haven't had a meaningful relationship in a long time, if ever. If you make $10 an hour consider yourself lucky. When I first started I got paid $5.21 per hour. Before tax. The people you work with will claim to know everything. Or at least they will bag people with university degrees and people form other walks of life. In other words forget everything you know because it won't matter. The emergency room doctor I was talking about is an example. For functions we wanted to have a communications diary between front and back of house. They do a similar thing in an Emergency Room between nurses and doctors. He was told in no uncertain terms by a number of people to "get f...d This is a kitchen not a hospital. If it doesn't work in a kitchen it won't work in a hospital". Another one was a financial analyst and actuary. We were trying to get our food costs down a few percent. He made a suggestion that was quite relevant and could have made a massive (20%+) difference. He researched it and did the numbers. Same sort of comments were made... So this is just a start. I'm trying to tell you this because it's a job that I love and I hate to see people quit after six months. It's depressing. It may be different for everyone but SERIOUSLY CONSIDER WHY YOU WANT TO DO THIS!

What about Chinese? Chairman Mao does Hunanese cuisine really well. It's bloody hot though! Chillies are your friend... Or you could try a Chinese Seafood restaurant for live lobster, abalone or mud crab. Golden Century it's called. What about Bistro Moncur. It's just like going to Paris without the plane ticket. If you can get in, try lunch at Marque on Friday for $45. It may actually be the best value lunch in Sydney. He's ex Alain Passard, it has three chef's hats and is fantastic. It's not simple food but is amazing value for three courses! The other I really like that is simple is Sean's Panorama. It overlooks Bondi Beach, incredibly simple, well prepared food and is just a nice atmosphere. I really enjoy it.

Did you want high end or were you happy to go somewhere else? If high end, did you want "modern" for want of a better word cuisine or would you be happy to try a simpler, produce driven place? If somewhere else, any avoidances? For example, don't like Chinese food or hate seafood.

For future reference, Neil Perry, of Rockpool and Rockpool Bar & Grill fame is in the process of writing a booked based on the recipes from Rockpool Bar & Grill. Really looking forward to it.

You could maybe make a smoked salmon gelee? Make a stock out of the smoked salmon using leek, onion, carrot etc and a piece of smoked salmon. Bring it to the boil and then turn it all the way down so it doesn't bubble or boil to keep it really really clear (i.e consomme). Then set it with gelatine or agar. Agar would be interesting, as you could have a cold soup with warm gelee. You could add a couple of other things there if you want, maybe some confit egg yolk if you have the equipment or a goat's cheese sorbet. But I'd try and keep it as simple as possible.

Yes, I think we can and should be comparing ourselves to Parisian (and New York, San Sebastien, Lyon, Madrid etc etc) standards. If we want to be marketed and are marketed as a world class dining destination, and compare our restaurants to other restaurants in the world, then we should be comparing to the best. How can we possibly improve if we don't? It seems to me that the restaurants want to be compared against the overseas contingent and their dining style is "Michelin rateable" i.e it has the quality of cooking, service and ambience that would not look out of place in a Michelin Guide - albeit with an Australian touch. I know most chef's would love to know that if the Michelin Guide came out here where they would stand. The other guides (GFG, Gourmet Traveller) would struggle to have the same level of importance against an internationally recognised, world class guide. Price wise, you are spot on PhilD. I'm not sure that we have the quality of staff available to staff restaurants like gastrotemples overseas. Not a lot of staff come over here for Stagiere, it's usually the other way around. For what we get, food and service wise, the price is not relevant to the quality we receive in comparison to what we can get overseas. As previously mentioned, consistency has always been an issue. At a high end restaurant, charging as much as they do, you expect at least a certain number of dishes and the service to be at a certain level for at least 90% of the time. Getting into lower quality restaurants, it gets worse and worse.

Yes! London & Sydney is an excellent comparison. They both have outstanding restaurants, as well as the lesser, good quality restaurants (i.e Bib Gourmand level). But they aren't up to the standard of say, Paris or New York. On the Bib Gourmand rating, places such as Bistro Moncur, Sean's Panorama, Bodega, etch and Buzo would be at this level. There's a fair few at the one star level, with a couple of three hatters in Guillaume and Becasse making up the top level of this category. At two star level, most if not all of the rest of the three hatters I feel would be at this level. Recently, Nicholas le Bec was (still is?) out here doing dinners. I feel that he is up to and exceeds the standard of all the three hatters. Comparatively, Quay, which is meant to be the best restaurant in the country at the moment, I didn't feel was anywhere near the quality of Le Bec's flagship restaurant in Lyon. I believe that Le Bec is at the upper end of the two Michelin star level and he may actually reach three stars one day. On Tetsuya, potentially he is as good as if not better than some of his peers, but he isn't up to the standard of a truly great chef along the lines of Passard or Gagnaire. I feel that some of his food is same same texturally, and the whole meal doesn't seem to reach the kind of level of most three stars. He has a superb skill in the balance of flavours though, better than most. On the food press, it frustrates me quite a bit that a critic can be a friend of a chef or owner, and still claim to produce a completely unbiased review. They may say they can, but they are humans. The Michelin Guide, despite it's amazing ability of being slow to react (Bocuse & Blanc at three stars? I don't think so.), is impersonal and accurate most of the time. It doesn't feel as though the inspectors have made friends with the owner/chef, and their slogan of "Famously Anonymous" should be followed by all critics. The fact you have never seen the face of a Michelin Inspector in most cases gives them a distinct advantage over any other food critic. The Gault Millau is in the same boat. Food critics with their face in the paper or on TV makes their reviews seem a little tainted if you know what I mean. Michelin Guide inspectors seem like the SAS of the food guide world to me. You will never see their face, but they do a far better job, secretive and are far more professional than the locals. I'd be really interested to see what the Michelin Guide would say about some Australian restaurants, and how the local press would react to having the boat rocked and their precious ego's hurt. I'm sure that there would be less than three three stars and more than likely none. The food press are funny about the Michelin Guide. They complain about it, call it wrong but then promote it when it suits there own purposes. Sydney is still an excellent dining destination to visit. Sydney on the world scene is kind of like the Sydney-Melbourne battle on the local scene. Sydney has a lot more high end restaurants but less of the mid range restaurants where as Melbourne has the mid range but less high end. Hope that comparison make's sense.

I've managed to get into Bachelor of Communication (Journalism) at university. I was thinking I might start a blog on my experiences in the course, getting an internship and then a job and what I did to get there. This would all depend on family and work commitments as well as the study workload. Would anyone be interested in this if I do decide to start a blog? Not much point doing it if no one would be interested and I can focus on university. As a background, I'm a former chef at the beginning of a career change. I'm a little bit sick of kitchens, with the poor working conditions and bad attitudes that come with it. I don't mind the hard work - in fact I quite enjoy it - but I am now looking at a career with better pay relative to the hours I work. I'm also looking forward to seeing my family more often (i.e again). I moved at the end of last year, and felt it was a good time for me to make the step while still maintaining my love and passion for food, wine and travel. I'd been thinking about leaving the industry for a good two years, after missing a number of important family events over an 18 month period. I really want to be a food & travel writer, not so much a critic, but Bill Bryson meets Lonely Planet. I'd like to travel, writing articles about my experiences in hotels, sights, restaurants and producers, as well as wineries. I'd like to give people tips on places to go for all budgets with my own personal spin on it. At least that's the plan.

I also agree that the top end of Australian restaurants are at the one or two star level. Food wise, they can be up their, but are usually lesser quality or inconsistent. Service is a lot more casual, but I think almost as good and the settings are usally never up to the same standard. I disagree with critics at some of the publications who think that our restaurants are better than anything overseas. Seems to me to be part publicity part I'm friends with the chef. A lot of the major critics are part of 50 Best Restaurants in The World judging panel which a lot of people on here, who dine regularly at the restaurants on the list, disagree with.

I can't.... Messy messy drink.

I quite enjoyed il Bocconcino which is just near the Colosseum. It's in a side street away from the main roads but it is really simple and really quite a good restaurant. I'll hunt down the address again if I can find it. La Rosetta was good too but a little overpriced I thought. Here's the address Via Ostilia, 23 00184 Roma, Italy and the website http://www.ilbocconcino.com/