World's best restaurant is French

[Craig Camp]

Critics say world's best restaurant is French - but in California

[Lord Michael Lewis]

Has it really been a year since the last one of these? I must do something with my life.

[Chef/Writer Spencer]

WORD! Tell us something we don't know.

[Matthew Grant]

I can't help but gloat, I was at the awards last night and there was an amazing collection of chefs on display : Ferran Adria, Thomas Keller, Fergus Henderson, Giorgio Locatelli, Angela Hartnett, Mark Askew, Shaun Hill, Gordon Ramsay, Michael Caines, Tetsuya Wakuda to name a few

I think a full write up is going to be forthcoming from another Egullet member so I won't go into too much detail except to say thatJay Rayner is much taller than I imagined

[Mrs Woman]

Full top 50 list here...

Restaurant mag's 50 best

[jayrayner]

Forgive me but I wasn't intending to write it up at all. But in summary: room, champagne, restauranteurs, me running away from chefs I'd been rude about, Matthew and Andy begging me like crazy mad-eyed stalkers for introductions to chefs I'd never met , Roger Moore's eye brows and Bruno Brookes. You kinda had to be there, I suppose.

[Simon Majumdar]

Jay Rayner is much taller than I imagined

was he laying down?

S

[Matthew Grant]

Forgive me but I wasn't intending to write it up at all. But in summary: room, champagne, restauranteurs, me running away from chefs I'd been rude about, Matthew and Andy begging me like crazy mad-eyed stalkers for introductions to chefs I'd never met , Roger Moore's eye brows and Bruno Brookes. You kinda had to be there, I suppose.

Jay, you missed out the words 'too much' before the word 'champagne'.

I feel ill

[jayrayner]

The idea is you drink only as much as you want. Not every time the tray comes round. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

[Tonyfinch]

Delighted to see Carnivore in Nairobi still in (if only just) but its got to be for the experience and the atmosphere rather than just the food. A huge restaurant with a massive pit furnace in the centre and dozens of servers walking around with massive skewers of goat, impala, ostrich, ibex, ("some more ibex with your wine sir?"), giraffe etc. as well as the more conventional chicken, lamb, beef etc. its a vegetarian's deepest circle of hell (and worthy of inclusion on those grounds alone IMO)

But in the end it is just BBQ'd meat, hardly inventive cooking. There's actually better cooking going on in Kenya-at the Minar Indian restaurant in Nairobi and at The Tamarind fish restaurant in Mombasa (actually I haven't been to any of these restaurants since..er...1985 but I HEAR they're all still terrific.)

[Matthew Grant]

Carnivore is am amazing restaurant and would recommend it to anybody visiting Nairobi. I was chatting to Gerson M. Misumi (the general manager) last night and he promised me a special meal next time I came. Presumably this entails the same meal (bearing in mind it is as much as you can eat) I had before but with extra baked potatoes

[marcus]

These ratings are obviously total crap. Gramercy Tavern at #10 followed by restaurants like Bras and Gagnaire says it all. Chez Panisse #12. I could go on and on. Does anyone know how these ratings are developed?

[docsconz]

Interesting list. I'm sure there are many (at least some) of you who have been to all of the restaurants on the list. I have only been to 10%, myself - i hope to still have a lot of eating in front of me . I understand that even if some of you have been to all of these restaurants, it will likely have been over a period of time. Nevertheless, I would be interested in any of you reranking this list according to your own personal experiences.

[vengroff]

Same question as last year, WTF is The Ivy on the list? Does eating in a room surrounded by a crowd of London's B-list celebs really count for that much? Frederick's in Camden passage serves about the same level of food, and nobody would, or should, put them on a list of the world's top 50.

Also, why would you pick the London branch of Nobu over the various others? The service there is generally awful.

[Matthew Grant]

We all know that this is not a list of the best food. Basically 300 food critics nominated their top 5 restaurants and thenthe votes were counted, I'm sure Thom will correct me if I'm wrong. In the case of Nobu, chefs with multiple restaurants did not have them all added up together, only the restaurant with the highest number of votes was shown. we all have restaurants that we love but don't necessarily serve the best food don't we?

Other chefs present included Ramond Blanc and a particular highlight of the evening was when J-C Novelli looked blankly at Andy when he went to remind him of the stage he did with him several years ago! Still, Raymond Blanc must have thought we were important, he came up to shake our hands as he was leaving Locatelli told me that my favourite dish of last year was nothing to do with him "eets all to do with ze quality of ze ingredients, nothing to do weeth ze chefs". He was very short (in stature not temper).

[macrosan]

5 Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, London;  7 Comme chez Soi, Brussels; 10 Gramercy Tavern, New York.

I'll own up to having eaten at those three of the top ten in the last six months. I am entirely comfortable with the relative positions of the first two, even though I would have no hesitation in reversing their numbers. But Gramercy Tavern, although I love the restaurant and its food, cannot possibly appear in the same group in my opinion.

The problem must start with Matthews' statement that "300 food critics nominated their top 5 restaurants ". This leaves enough holes to bury the waste products of the civilized world. Which 300 critics ? How were they selected and by whom ? What was their brief ? What is meant by "their top 5 restaurants, in other words "best at what" ?

Then who counted the votes ? How were the scores weighted ?

OK OK, I'm just being cynical. We all know that these awards are designed by their organizers to hype the industry, and to provide PR and press exposure for the "winners". If this hadn't been posted on eGullet, I wouldn't have bothered to read it in the paper. But then it was posted on eGullet .....

[Bux]

The idea is you drink only as much as you want. Not every time the tray comes round. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

If I may offer some mature wisdom, I might suggest you drink only as much as you can tolerate, or only to the point where others can tolerate you. Drinking only as much as I want might have me taking a glass every time the tray comes around, but following the tray for immediate refills as it makes the rounds.

I can only add that this sort of article sells magazines. There's no such thing as bad publicity and a post denouncing the magazine is worth almost as much as one paying respect to it. As had been mentioned, any award is no better than it's jury panel. Most people go to restaurants, even the right restaurants, for the wrong reasons -- food, as has been noted is not the prime reason.

I thank whoever posted the link to the top 50, but having seen the top 10, it's not important that I follow this link.

[jayrayner]

No no no. It's just a huge and terribly succesful marketing exercise by Restaurant Magazine who, good luck to them, pulled off a blinder. An arbitary list? Absolutely. Journalists love lists so everyone else can argue about them. A motely crew of critics and experts? Definately. Christ, I should know. I was one of them. (And then, when the list was published, duly dragged myself out of bed at 6.45 this morning so I could go on breakfast television to slag it off as a travesty of a sham of an outrage of a disgrace. Particularly the inclusion of 11 British restaurant, four more than France and who the hell do they think are etc etc...

But... this story appeared on the news pages of most of the Birtish dailies. It at least made the BBc. And how often do we see the generalist news press debating the relative mertis of the French Laundry over El bulli; Bocuse over Bras; Ramsay over Chez panisse? Er never.

So yes, it's bollocks and for the high-minded souls here, low rent bollocks. Me, I think it's a good thing.

[Andy Lynes]

You could almost reach out and touch the excitement and air of expectation in the crowd at the World's 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony at Hush restaurant last night. We knew he'd been invited, but would he turn up? Then all of a sudden he brushed passed us. We stifled a gasp. A little smaller then he looks in his pictures, a bit thin on top, but still retaining his boy-ish good looks. Yes, Bruno Brooks was in the house!!

Say what you like about the list itself, who appears and in what position, but there is no doubt that Restaurant Magazine managed to attract the elite of the restaurant world to London. Jay Rayner also turned up. Other chefs not mentioned so far included Neil Perry of Rockpool, Mark Edwards of Nobu and Kevin Thornton of Thornton's in Dublin. It was an extraordinary crowd to be part of and I'd like to say a big thanks to Thom for inviting me.

Shaun Hill made the best acceptance speech of the night for his "Outstanding Value" award (The Merchant House is now officially the 14th best restaurant in the world by the way) by saying that it was difficult enough to be the best restaurant in Ludlow, nevermind the world and that he was going to put his prices up. The boys from el Bulli came a close second with a lengthy oration which I'm sure was very moving, but which was made entirely in untranslated Spanish.

The crowd drifted away quite quickly after the awards finished at around 10.00ish so I had little opportunity to schmooze on behalf of eGullet, but did however manage to obtain agreement for a Q and A in the near future from a very glamerous looking Angela Hartnett.

The Restaurant Magazine staff lurked around until the end and spent the time looking like the cat that got the cream, which they had every right to. I did have a rather drunken, and I have to say very short conversation with Novelli during which I told him I had recently met up with his former executive chef Richard Guest, to which he replied "Eee is lik ma bruzzer". I think he meant that he thought of him as a sibling.

All in all, a hell of a night, one which I won't forget in a hurry. Despite downing buckets of free champers, chased down with countless hideously overpriced Tiger beers, I awoke this morning hangover free, which was a bonus.

[marcus]

So yes, it's bollocks and for the high-minded souls here, low rent bollocks. Me, I think it's a good thing.

Any publicity is good publicity. Hype over substance. Ultimately an implicit deception targetted at a gullible audience that would probably appreciate real direction. Is this really something to be proud of?

[Basildog]

Bruno Brooks?...any particular reason he was there? was he running the disco after the awards?

[jayrayner]

Any publicity is good publicity.  Hype over substance.  Ultimately an implicit deception targetted at a gullible audience that would probably appreciate real direction.  Is this really something to be proud of?

Sorry. that's a load of smug self-satisfied cobblers.

[Simon Majumdar]

Is this really something to be proud of?

it is when your other job is working for The Observer

S

Edited April 29, 2003 by Simon Majumdar (log)

[jayrayner]

Is this really something to be proud of?

it is when your other job is working for The Observer

S

Oi! Remember who's paying tomorrow night.

[Simon Majumdar]

Is this really something to be proud of?

it is when your other job is working for The Observer

S

Oi! Remember who's paying tomorrow night.

every one a coconut

S