If you ask me there's no greater nonsense in the world of food than the 50 Best - a hilariously crackpot world ranking of restaurants. It’s so daft it’s funny. Except it’s enormously influential. People actually take it seriously.
In fact making it to Number One in 2011 transformed the fortune of that plates-of-moss purveying oddballs Noma in Copenhagen to such an extent that it almost became a household name.
Likewise El Celler De Can Roca, a restaurant I can boast of actually having once stood outside, was rocketed from Spanish small town celebrity to hiring staff simply to turn down bookings. We went to the local cantina instead, since you ask. El Bulli ring a bell? All from the Top 50. A ranking system that reads like it has been drawn up by a bunch of Sloanies on a long lunch.
Of course we’re desperate for lists. Me too. Makes life easier. Quicker. Awards give us lists and if the vast, vast majority of awards in all walks of life are blatant, unregulated, money-making wheezes then what you going to do? “Crikey. I’ve been shortlisted? Fat Guy of The Year? Amazing? Only £5,000 a table for the final? Count me in!” Except. If you’re the French. Then you’re going to be outraged about the slackness of the Top 50. And maybe a little bit, haw-he-haw, annoyed because your country has never won Le Number One spot.
You will then have your own award. La Liste. A rival to the 50 Best drawn up by the French tourist board and heard of by absolutely no-one - outside France. Until this week. Sadly the top chef on La Liste and therefore technically, as in why not, the Best Chef in The World took his own life.
It doesn’t seem like that long since another French chef Bernard Loiseau died in similar circumstances. It was actually 2003 and it’s said he decided to end it all after reading rumours his restaurant was about to be downgraded from three Michelin stars to two. On such matters in France do lives turn. But Top 50? La Liste?
Why isn’t The Michelin Guide telling us who the world’s best chef is? At the very least the Michelin Guide is trusted to independently and pretty rigorously evaluate using its own staff and its own methods. In secret. Who else does that? Who else can really be trusted? The problem is Michelin awards stars but does not put its top three star restaurants in any particular order. That’s more than an oversight. Frankly, it’s a disaster that has allowed others to steal the food ranking crown.
Michelin, of course is not without controversy. There is an ahem, slight tendency for Michelin chefs to use exactly the same techniques, and have the same type of semi-heavy Gallic foodiness wherever they are. All that usually changes is the raw materials. At the end of the day does it even matter? Of course it does? We live in information overload. Who has the time to work out for themselves what’s good or bad? But we should know what awards are reliable.
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