World’s 50 Best Restaurants Announced Today
Today’s the day when the list (well, one of them) of the top 100 restaurants in the world is halved to fifty, with a winner chosen from that group. San Pellegrino will, for the seventh year in a row, dish out its World’s 50 Best Restaurants award at a London ceremony later today.
Vying once again for the top spot will be Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli, in Roses on the Costa Brava in Spain - last year’s winner - and Heston Blumenthal’s the Fat Duck, in Bray, Berkshire, the runner-up for the past two years and winner of the award for Best Restaurant in 2005.
The U.S. contenders are Alinea, Charlie Trotter’s, Chez Panisse, Daniel, Jean Georges, L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon (NYC and Las Vegas), Le Bernardin, Masa, Nobu, Per Se, and The French Laundry.
The selection criteria are Euro-slanted, with North America having only one judge, Beard foundation award winner Steve Dolinsky (whose name the folks at Pellegrino mis-spell) and Europe having eleven, but the criteria seem designed to reduce that bias at least a bit.
I’ll report back on the winners later tonight or tomorrow.
Update: It’s El Bulli. Again. The French Laundry won highest-rated U.S. restaurant, coming in fifth. Gordon Ramsay’s eponymous outlet came in at #13. Fergus Henderson won highest climber as his St. John climbed eighteen spots to #16. Only four of the restaurants in the top 50 hail from countries that are not the U.S. or located in Europe–Australia (2), Brazil, South Africa. None are from Asia.
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