Yet another Top 50/100

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The restaurant/foodie world collectively held their breath for the latest edition of the San Pellegrino World's Best 50 Restaurants, which was published at an awards ceremony yesterday.  This year's list yielded a few surprises, and some of my criticism from last year hasn't been addressed... not that the "academy" really gives two hoots about what I think anyway...

It's no surprise to anyone that El Bulli is no longer on the list, given that it is closing at the end of this season.  The French Laundry continues its fall and is now out of the Top 50 (#56 this year).  This puts it one place behind Les Amis in Singapore, 19 places behind Amber in Hong Kong, 29 places behind Iggy's in Singapore and a whopping 46 places behind sister restaurant Per Se.  As anyone who has eaten at both the French Laundry and these Asian restaurants will tell you, that is just ludicrous!

Well, at least the French have themselves one restaurant within the top 10 this year, as opposed to zero last year...

There are a total of 10 restaurants from Asia in the Top 100 - 3 from Japan, 3 from Singapore and 4 from Hong Kong/China (Amber was tagged as being in China).  The total has shrunk from 12 last year, while Japan is a little less "under-represented" compared to HK and Singapore.  Interesting to see that the top two from Japan remained the same creative restaurants which seem to appeal more to Western palates.  I hit both of these places on my Tokyo trip last year, and did like them both myself.

Here's the list of places I've been to from the Top 100:

8. Arzak
10. Per Se
11. Daniel
12. Les Creations de Narisawa
14. L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, Paris
16. Pierre Gagnaire, Paris
18. Le Bernardin
19. L'Arpege
20. Nihonryori RyuGin
27. Iggy's
29. Martin Berasategui
37. Amber
44. Maison Troisgros
47. Restaurant de l'Hotel De Ville
55. Les Amis
56. The French Laundry
60. Hakkasan
64. Bo Innovation
72. L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, Hong Kong
76. Caprice
94. Akelare

One always wonders who gets to vote for this list.  While only the identity of the regional "Academy Chairs" are published, the website does publish a list of 39 restaurants in the region of Hong Kong (I thought the region was Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan?) which are "Academy Recommended".  I couldn't help laughing while browsing through this list, as the names Cecconi, Ruth Chris Steakhouse and Tokio Joe pop up.  What does this list actually mean?  This is the list of restaurants in Hong Kong that got votes from members of the Academy during the annual voting?  Please say it ain't so!

Anyway... I'm sure the foodie community will have some heated discussions on this topic over the next few days, then forget all about it until next April...