Is there really a best restaurant in the world?
The Australian Financial Review has a completely irrelevant Sunday magazine called Life and Leisure. Irrelevant because the leisurely lives it is talking about and is aimed at are the lives of the extremely wealthy. I seriously wonder sometimes who reads it. But I do skim it - well we all like to know how the other half lives don't we? Although in this case I think it's more the top 1% - or even less, certainly not half anyway. We are quite well off but I won't be spending a few thousand dollars on my next dress thank you very much or staying in a hotel that seems to be priceless.
Anyway - this Sunday there was an article promoting the World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards, that are being hosted this year in Melbourne. It's the fifteenth year of an award that was set up by an English magazine called Restaurant. Last year was the first year the Award ceremony/circus was held outside of London - in New York. And this year it is in Melbourne. Which I guess is an enormous honour. I don't know if the plan is to continue circulating around the world or to return to London, but either way, however proud one is of one's home city, one is tempted to say why Melbourne?
"If you want diversity, great food, ... and buzzing environment, I would say Melbourne." Heston Blumenthal
I'm guessing the answer is a very successful push from Tourism Australia under their Restaurant Australia campaign. Did they pay a lot of money - a bribe as it were? Or did they just spend a lot of money on promoting Melbourne - a bit like an Olympics campaign without the bribery and corruption (one hopes). Either way I'm sure money was involved. And why Melbourne rather than Sydney? Not that I'm objecting, being a Melburnian now I guess. Well one reason might be that the only Australian restaurant in this top 50 list is Attica in Melbourne (no.32) and the next highest on the list is Brae which is in country Victoria. David and I tried to book it for our Golden Wedding Anniversary - without any luck I have to say. Still there are excellent restaurants in Sydney too - and all of the other Australian cities and countryside. Whatever the reason - well done Tourism Australia, which has apparently hugely boosted the tourist income from food related things, beyond their target in fact, since starting on its Restaurant Australia campaign.
The big event will take place in our UNESCO Heritage Exhibition Building in conjunction with the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival - the organisers of which no doubt also had a part to play in enticing them here. Here it is with our two from the list, Ben Shewry of Attica and Dan Hunter of Brae.
"I would rather eat in Melbourne, than Paris." Anthony Bourdain
Last year's winner was an Italian restaurant by the name of Osteria Francescana, located in Modena, Italy, whose chef and owner is Massimo Botturo. I looked up their website, which is rather beautiful. Their menu is an artwork in itself and deserves to be framed - just like we have framed Paul Bocuse's menu.
The bill would be worth framing too. Their dégustation menu costs €220 (AUD$310) and the main dishes on the à la carte menu are a mere €80 (AUD$113) each. And that's without the wine! But to give them credit, at least they did have some prices there - sometimes the owners of these restaurants are very coy. And no doubt you have to book months in advance. There's no impromptu dining at any of these places - unless you are famous.
And here is a small gallery of pictures - what the restaurant looks like, the man himself and some of the food. Small portions of course.
As you can see the place is very luxurious - I think there are only twelve tables and there is expensive art work on the walls. He also has the coveted three Michelin stars and has been in this place for some twenty years. So what makes him so special that he gets to be number one?
Frankly I have no idea. He was no. 2 for a couple of years. What he did last year to make him no. 1 I don't know. Is he really that much better than everyone else? Is it at all possible to decide on the best restaurant anyway? No doubt there are things the judges are supposed to consider above the food - the wine, the ambience, the service. But I bet cost doesn't come into it. He seems to be cooking food that is a little different - well very different from what we would eat, but not totally weird and experimental. I could sort of understand why previous awards went to El Bulli for example, because they were so wildly experimental there. You could argue for pushing boundaries as art I suppose.
"The “tasting menu”, de rigueur in high-end restaurants, consists of up to 15 small courses, all designed to knock the socks off the kind of diner who doesn’t impress easily (that is, the kind who watches MasterChef). It isn’t enough for the food to be delectable. It must be gasp-inducing. And photogenic: restaurant customers routinely post pictures and comments on social media while a meal is still in progress." Jane Cadzow
The judges of this particular award are around 1000 people from around the world who have to put in seven nominations, no more than three from their own country - and they are supposed to have eaten at their nominated restaurants within the last 18 months. They are all foodies - not ordinary people. And they would need to have money to be able to judge you would think - otherwise how could you dine in expensive restaurants around the world? They might only have to nominate seven, but presumable they have tried others and rejected them from their own personal lists. And they are their own personal lists. They won't have eaten at some of the restaurants on the final list of award winners. It's a sort of best of a selection - the ones that come up the most. And this is self-reproducing surely. What about the new places that people don't know? I would imagine there is an 'in' list of places to go and that these are the ones the judges go to. What about the millions of others? And I should say that there have been critics of the Awards and how they are run. But then there would be wouldn't be. There are critics of every kind of award there is - because really there is no 'best' anything at all. It so depends on personal and subjective taste - food literally and more than anything else. This is never clearer than reading through Trip Advisor reviews. Sometimes you wonder whether the reviews are of the same place, they differ so widely.
But we ordinary people do eat in these critically lauded places sometimes - to celebrate something significant - or simply for pleasure. And I guess we rely on such awards to tell us where to go. It's too much of a risk to blow considerable sums of money on somewhere completely unknown. So the Award givers have a responsibility to get it right. Jane Cadzow tells a nice story of two women - public servants - clerks who when asked why they were eating in one of these places said, “they often ate at high-end places, in fact were working their way through a bucket-list of them. “I said, ‘How can you afford to do this?’ And the response came back, ‘We’re never going to be able to afford to buy a house, so we’re going to have a good time.’ ” And why not? I think my husband would regard this as a frivolous attitude, and that if they worked hard they could get that house - but I suspect that they really can't. "Millenials" he would say in a tone of gentle scorn.
But really what is the best restaurant in the world? Mum's kitchen? And why does it have to be 'fancy' restaurants that get to the list. Why can't a simple restaurant serving up perfect whatever, day in, day out, get an award of similar prestige? For there is certainly an enormous amount of prestige in winning this or any other award. People have committed suicide or had nervous breakdowns over it. (Another post I think)
“Showing off is what it’s all about. This is where ego and art get ahead of commercial reality. It’s all about, ‘Look at me. Look what I’m doing.’ ”
