- The World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony will be held in Singapore for the first time ever
- It’s been held every year since 2002 and was last held in Bilbao, Spain
- Massimo Bottura’s Osteria Francescana returned to the top of the rankings in 2018
- The Singapore Tourism Board will be working with the 50 Best on a student program around food
The World’s 50 Best organisation is set to reveal it’s highly anticipated 50 Best Restaurant list for 2019 in Singapore tonight. The highly controversial list that most critics deem as “sexist” and “eurocentric” has made some big rule changes for the qualifying restaurants this year.
The list will not include any of the previous number one restaurants on their list. Their argument for doing so is to counter the critics that call the list “unfair” and will hope to create “a more diverse and inclusive list in the long-term.”
In an official statement earlier this year, World’s 50 Best said: “We are refreshing our voting rules with the creation a new programme called ‘Best of the Best’. All restaurants that have topped the annual poll of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna, over its 17-year history will now ascend into this group. They will be feted as all-time greats, and it also means that they will no longer be eligible for the annual ranking.”
Interestingly though, this new rule change has not come from the organisation but the world’s best chefs themselves.
Time reports that: “According to a source with knowledge of the process who asked for anonymity because he did not have permission to speak publicly on the subject, the core group that began pressing in earnest for the change last year was driven not only or even primarily by an attempt to unclog the top, but also by an effort to avoid the decline in reputation that some notable chefs have suffered once they fell from first place.”
The number one position is highly coveted with past awards going to Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana, Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park and Joan Roca of El Celler de Can Roca. It will be interesting to see if the world’s most talked about event in the culinary world can overcome past criticisms of being too male and western focused with its 2019 edition.
Many believe that one of the main reasons for the restructuring of the awards is because since the list was launched in 2002 only seven restaurants have held the number one spot.
Eater reports that “René Redzepi’s Noma was the best restaurant in the world on four occasions, and Spanish restaurant elBulli, the list’s first winner, was no. 1 five different years. In fact, the entire top five tends to includes the same names year after year. The change would force voters to consider other, newer restaurants (a restaurant doesn’t need to be open for any length of time to be eligible). And maybe, just maybe, voters will have to take a look at restaurants that don’t fit into the usual World’s 50 Best Restaurants rubric of expensive, European-leaning tasting menu venues.”
To tackle the criticism that the list is”sexist”, the organisation has an even gender balance across its voting panel of 1,040 individuals. That means they now have over 500 female voters.
The number one position is highly coveted with past awards going to Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana, Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park and Joan Roca of El Celler de Can Roca. It will be interesting to see if the world’s most talked about event in the culinary world can overcome past criticisms of being too male and western focused with its 2019 edition.
