2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:20
It is a matter of hours. Then the classic frenzy for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants it will also infect Italian enthusiasts, with heated speculations on the dominus of the only ranking that matters - like it or not - for elite restaurants (unless you want to consider the Michelin Guide as a ranking).
It will all happen overnight in New York (next year we will move to Australia instead).
We are obviously talking about the annual ranking born in 2002 from an idea of the English magazine Restaurant Magazine, and assembled on the basis of the highly criticized judgment of 837 experts in the sector.
By the way, what are the main criticisms of the eve?
The 50 Best is a list of interesting restaurants, but you can't represent the best of international gastronomy on the basis of a snobbish and expensive tool like the 5-course tasting menu with matching wines. It will also be the unifying trait of (almost) all the restaurants in the ranking but you have to be more affordable.
Being affordable is certainly not the problem of the organizers, for them it is a bit like when you enter Chanel: if you ask for the price it is because you cannot afford it.
However, there is something haughty in the idea of gourmet judges who travel around the world for the sole purpose of evaluating the ups and downs of a foreign cuisine, which they may barely know, on the basis of a dinner lasting a few hours.
And then always they, the judges, are not required to produce the receipt of the restaurants to prove that they have really been there. A story that raises more than one doubt about the reliability of the judgment, which could be influenced for example by a dinner offered by the restaurateur.
The vexed question of the pink quotas is not even cleared: last year there were only three women present in the testosteronic 50 Best (Elena Arzak, daughter of the famous chef Juan Mari of the homonymous restaurant in San Sebastian; Pia Leon co-chef of her husband Virgilio Martinez in Central in Lima, Peru; Helena Rizzo del Manì in Sao Paolo, Brazil). Same numbers as in a chess tournament.
The turnover at the top of the rankings is excessively slow, the usual names are always at stake for the top positions, genre Oscar of cinema.
For example, Noma in Copenhagen, first 5 times in the last 6 years, awarded as much as Meryl Streep in the role of leading actress. In the same time frame, El Celler de Can Roca from Girona, Spain, has won twice, the most recent last year.
As for our Massimo Bottura, we hope he will do like Leonardo di Caprio, who, despite the praise and general esteem, only won the Oscar this year. The star of the Osteria Francescana in 2015 came one step away from victory, finishing second. We cheer for him for evident merits and because he is the most highly rated Italian for the victory, as we all did with Sorrentino's La Grande Bellezza.
From the Bel Paese, in addition to last year's top 50 Italians - Enrico Crippa, Piazza Duomo of Alba at number 27 and i Alajmo brothers, Le Calandre in 34th position, there should also be Davide Scabin, Combal Zero, Rivoli (TO).
The exclusion from the ranking from number 51 to number 100 (in which the only one to honor us is Niko Romito, Reale Casadonna di Castel di Sangro), had made us think of a bad year for the chef, who lost a Michelin star of the two he had. But luckily, someone in authority thinks otherwise.
We don't count much on it, but there may be surprises: 8 names have slipped from the first 50 in 2015 to 51/100 this year, one wonders who will replace them.
We will keep you posted.