High stakes in the world of gastronomy
Luminaries from the world of gastronomy are assembling in Australia for the race of their lives.
And they’re racing …
It may be one of the world’s more peculiar races, given the inherent difficulty of measuring the unmeasurable, but make no mistake: the World’s 50 Best Restaurants Stakes is a competition worth winning.
It has made more than a few chefs household names (hello Heston, Ferran, Rene) and many more millions of dollars.
During the coming weeks we are to be bombarded with names, names, names, darling, from the world of — if not the best — certainly the hottest restaurants in the world.
They — the chefs, restaurateurs, critics, influencers, sponsors — are arriving already in search of good times, great taste Down Under. They also may have their scorecards with them. It’s the first time the awards have been held in Australia and only the second time in the 14-year history they will be held outside Britain.
By the time April 5 comes around, you’ll be expected to speak Spanish (with the Roca brothers, Joan, Josep and Jordi, from El Celler de Can Roca); Danish (Rene Redzepi from Noma or Christian Puglisi from Relae); Portuguese (Alex Atala from D.O.M.) and even a bit of Schweizerdeutsch with Daniel Humm from America’s hottest restaurant, Eleven Madison Park. And on it goes.
Simply put, never in Australia’s history will so many luminaries from the world of gastronomy be in the one place at the one time.
Millions of words have been written about the awards since they launched in 2002, not all of them complimentary.
What started as an editorial idea for a British restaurant trade magazine — “the 50 restaurants around the world we reckon are the greatest, the ones we want to eat at, right now” — has grown out of all proportion. If you want a sense of just how far it has gone, tune in to the livestream next Wednesday to witness the pomp, ceremony and self-indulgence of it all. It’s quite a spectacle.
Having begun in fairly modest and rigour-free fashion, the program has developed to what it is today, with full-time staff, websites, public relations flacks and big-money sponsorship.
Leaving international benchmark systems such as Michelin snorting in its vichyssoise, W50Best has become the default yardstick for a certain sector of the progressive restaurant industry globally.
Of course, if you’re in it, you’re happy to talk it up; if you’re not, it’s a crock.
For the truth is, the system is not, and never was, about best but, rather, hot or au courant.
Many, many great restaurants aren’t there because they are passe, in the eyes of the voters anyway. Which leads us to how these votes are tallied.
To recap: the folks behind W50Best divide the world into 26 geographical zones; each zone has a regional chairperson whose task it is to assemble 40 individuals with, from whatever perspective they may come, opinions on restaurants domestically and globally. This somehow ends up as an international voting panel of more than 1000, known as the Academy.
And Academy members, who are obliged to keep shtum about it, need to vote for six local restaurants and four from outside their zone they have visited in the past 18 months.
The key word here is visit.
As a restaurant, you can’t get a vote if an Academy member hasn’t visited, and a whole PR/tourism authority industry has developed around getting Academy members to certain restaurants. Not that anyone knows who they are, of course, except for Australasian chairman Pat Nourse, the influential managing editor at Bauer Media’s Gourmet Traveller.
On top of that, votes tend to be a self-fulfilling prophecy: if a certain restaurant is being talked about a lot — among chefs, in the media, across social platforms — it is the place that gets visited by Academy members when they are abroad. And so it goes.
Victoria has played this game particularly well: witness the persistent ranking of Attica and the escalating rank of Brae. Whether through sponsored freebies, chef networking, or genuine friendships, these two restaurants have been very effective at getting the right bums on seats through the years.
That the awards are in Australia this year is no accident either: with an agenda of exposing our gastro-credentials to the world, and attracting a lot of Academy members Down Under whose downstream votes will raise our profile on this list in subsequent years, Tourism Australia has underwritten the exercise to a substantial degree.
So, to this year’s race.
One can be forgiven for thinking the same names keep going around and around. They do. For about eight years Copenhagen’s Noma rotated around the one, two or three spot; in 2013, Spain’s El Celler de Can Roca was premier; it happened again in 2015. Ditto Osteria Francescana in Modena, No 1 at present and, who knows, maybe the winner again this year.
These kinds of numbers quite seriously mean never having an empty dining room ever again for their proprietors.
For locals such as Attica, which is the only Australian restaurant in the 50 (33), it means that every gastro tourist landing at Tullamarine already has booked a table at the small, groundbreaking suburban dining room well in advance.
For what it’s worth, my prediction is that 2017 will be the year of the new world: awards ceremony in Melbourne and top spot for Eleven Madison Park, making it the first American restaurant — for this list anyway — to be named World’s Best. Eleven has a lot of financial backers including super-influential restaurant entrepreneur Danny Meyer, but the faces of the restaurant are Italian-American Will Guidara and Zurich-born chef Humm.
And, I have a sneaking suspicion the No 2 slot will stay in the Americas: move over Italy and Spain, Lima’s Central, owned and run by chef Virgílio Martinez, will achieve the highest position for a Latin American restaurant. Just a hunch; we’ll see in eight days.
In the meantime, most Australian eyes — naturally enough — will be on the Australians, be they here or working abroad.
LOCAL
Attica, Melbourne: Perennial favourite, will retain its grasp on the 50 but likely to slip into the 40s this year, having peaked at 21 in 2013. Good recent form includes a renovation; expect a bump next year as a result. Consistent owner-chef-trainer Ben Shewry a favourite with the stewards.
Brae, Birregurra: Under the whip of chef Dan Hunter, Brae is running hard at the line. We fully expect the remote gastro-destination to become Australia’s second restaurant in the final 50 this year, improving on 65 last year and a debut of 87 in 2015. Strong recent form includes a book from Hunter produced by publishers to the stars, Phaidon.
Sepia, Sydney: Alas, one of our greatest restaurants, featuring chef Martin Benn, has gone out the back door, having debuted with the One to Watch Award at 84 in 2015 and subsequently never mentioned again. The award is a kiss of death: Sydney’s Marque won it in 2010, peaked at 61 two years later and was banished thereafter.
Momofuku Seiobo, Sydney: In the two years Barbadian chef Paul Carmichael has been in Sydney he has completely retrained his boss David Chang’s stable in the ways of haute Caribbean, and seen plenty of influential diners. Our tip: Seiobo will appear tonight at the tail end of the 51-100.
The Bridge Room, Sydney: Never been on the list, probably never will be. One of Australia’s finest dining experiences, under chef Ross Lusted, the Academy somehow seems to miss.
Quay, Sydney: Synonymous with Sydney fine dining, Quay, whose chef is Peter Gilmore, has been in the 100 for seven successive years. But not this one, I’m afraid.
Orana, Adelaide: Dark horse, this one, but Orana is unique in its indigenous produce narrative and it wouldn’t surprise me if chef-owner Jock Zonfrillo had entertained a few Academy types in the past year. A tail ender.
INTERNATIONAL
The Ledbury, London: Novocastrian Brett Graham — Australia’s most accomplished chef — has constantly finished ahead of the majority in the past five years, hovering between 10 and 20. It’s a vote for common sense. Expect him to finish around the 15 mark, again.
Waku Ghin, Singapore: Tetsuya Wakuda’s premium Japanese eating experience went out the back door last year after peaking at 39 in 2012. Don’t expect a comeback.
Nahm, Bangkok: David Thompson may be spending most of his time back in Australia these days, but Nahm’s incredible success still owes much to the Sydney-raised chef’s stewardship. We won’t see any sudden movements from Nahm, but it will be closer to 50 than one this year, off a finish at 36 in 2016. Guessing about 48.
Burnt Ends, Singapore: The cult of personality — big Dave Pynt, the Perth-raised chef, is extremely popular among his peers — will have helped get more of the right people through this tiny haute barbecue restaurant during the voting period. Burnt Ends did extremely well this year at Asia’s 50 Best (10) and I’m tipping a top-50 result for 2017. Just.
The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list 51-100 will be announced tonight. The 50 Best will be announced in Melbourne on the evening of April 5.
To follow the livestream, go to: www.theworlds50best.com