Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants expected to recognise David Thompson’s Nahm and Long Chim
While most of the world watches the Oscars, Australia’s culinary community anticipates its own Academy Awards.
A number of Australian chef/restaurateurs are likely to do well tonight at Asia’s premier restaurant awards, to be announced in Bangkok around midnight AEST.
The Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants awards, sponsored by S. Pellegrino/Acqua Panna, is one of two regional subsidiaries of the controversial and much talked about World’s 50 Best Restaurant list published each year anointing the so-called “best” restaurants from all over the world from 1 to 50. The other regional awards are for Latin America.
Tonight’s annual rankings of restaurants across the entire Asian region should see several Australians working in the South East Asia figure prominently.
Sydney-raised chef David Thompson was recognised by the awards Academy last month with a lifetime achievement award; two restaurants with which he is involved are potential 50 best nominees tonight. Nahm, in Bangkok, was in 2014 named Asia’s best restaurant by this list and seems highly likely to remain in the top 10 for 2016. In 2015 Nahm was ranked number seven. It is also possible that’s Thompson’s less formal and newer Singaporean restaurant Long Chim, a version of which recently opened in Perth, will make the list for the first time.
Another Sydney chef who spends a lot of time in Singapore, the Japan-born Tetsuya Wakuda, will figure prominently. His (very) high-end restaurant at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, Waku Ghin, made it into the top 10 last year (number 9) and will certainly be at the pointy end of the 2016 list again.
Australia’s best hope for an impressive ride up the charts this year is the Perth-raised Chef David Pynt who’s world travels led him to Singapore in 2013 and the launch of the restaurant he operates, Burnt Ends. The restaurant was ranked tat number 30 last year and many sources suggest Burnt Ends will go a fair bit higher this year. The restaurant relies on coal and wood burning grills and ovens almost exclusively for its exciting haute barbecue food.
Burnt Ends is one of many Singaporean restaurants connected with the entrepreneur Peng Lo, the man responsible for the redevelopment of The Old Clare in Sydney’s Chippendale with its restaurants Automata, Silvereye and Kensington Street Social.
The other Australian chef whose restaurant is a fixture in the 50 Best list for Asia is Dylan Jones, an alumnus of Thompson’s Nahm who, with his Australia-educated Thai wife Bo Songvisava, runs the impressive high-Thai Bangkok restaurant Bo.lan and another smaller Thai bistro, Err. Bo.lan was 37 on the 2015 list and, as a result of relatively new, smarter premises, may have garnered the momentum to go up the list this year.
Last year’s Best Restaurant for Asia — and 10 on the World’s 560 Best List, was the Bangkok fine diner Gaggan. A surprising result.
Our tip for the Number 1 position tonight is the Tokyo restaurant Narisawa, owned by chef Yoshihiro Narisawa. It is currently ranked 8 on the World’s 50 Best list.
More details at theaustralian.com.au as the 2016 Asian restaurant Oscars are announced tonight.