What do the world’s top chefs and restaurateurs talk about when they get together? At the recent #50BestTalks event, held as part of the World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards in Italy, it was everything from the profound to the ridiculous.

Listen in: From Bruno Verjus of Table by Bruno Verjus in Paris, awarded eighth place in the top 50: “I don’t cook food, I cook landscapes.” Well may you snort, but Verjus brings a new spontaneity and emotion to cooking that’s precise and disciplined. He also wants us to stop thinking so hard about dining: “Food and wine don’t have to be explained; they must be felt.”

Also intriguing is chef Jeremy Chan of Ikoyi in London (placed 15th) with his personal mantra “to cook from the inside out”. His food is such a personal expression of who he is, he says, that he could never dine in his own restaurant: “Ikoyi is where I output my life experience into food. It would be like eating part of myself.”

The charming Dominique Crenn, whose restaurant, Atelier Crenn, in San Francisco placed 96th in the extended top 100 list, dislikes Instagram and resents the need for photogenic food. She pleaded with young chefs to avoid the use of AI and develop their own voice instead.

Daniel Calvert of Tokyo’s Sezanne (seventh) agrees that Instagram is a double-edged sword. “They’ve seen everything before they even come to the restaurant,” he says, “and are upset if we’re no longer doing what they’ve seen.”

Proud Bundjalung woman Mindy Woods, who received the Champions of Change Award, spoke movingly of closing Karkalla, her Byron Bay restaurant, and transforming it into a series of immersive outdoor experiences. “My culture doesn’t belong inside brick walls,” she says. “It lives and breathes on country.”

Junghyun (JP) and Ellia Park of top Korean/American diner Atomix in New York (12th) say: “Our fine dining is about us, our life and our story.” Adds JP, “People tell me it’s not Korean enough, but it’s Korean enough for me.”

The themes were overwhelmingly about personal expression ahead of professional success, the chefs’ stated objectives being to evoke an emotional response in diners instead of an analytical one. Given that this lot are the current leading lights in global hospitality, we have interesting times ahead.

theemptyplate@goodweekend.com.au