« The World’s 50 best restaurants » : Stop intoxicating us!
To the attention of the public and private sponsors of ‘The World’s 50 Best Restaurants.’
We, the culinary connoisseurs of all countries and creeds: cooks, critics or simply lovers of Good Food, urge you to stop giving your sponsorship and support to this opaque, obsequious ranking, where nationalism trumps quality, sexism trumps diversity and the spotlight is on the Celebrity Chef instead of the health and satisfaction of the customer.
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What do the Danish restaurant Noma, the Spanish El Bulli and the English The Fat Duck have in common? They have sent hundreds of diners home sick and in spite of this, they have each been crowned “Best Restaurant of the World” by the annual ranking of “The World 50 Best Restaurants”, whose 2015 edition will come out on the 1st of June in London.
This is not a coincidence. There are no established criteria behind the “50 Best” rating system, and no consistent and objective gastronomical or even sanitary requirements.
The abuse of ’50 Best’, which has been creating more and more buzz every year since 2002, is a secret to no one: the jury members, appointed by backroom politics, vote anonymously, without ever having to justify their choice of a restaurant or even to prove that they actually ate there!
The result? A ranking that shamelessly mixes partiality (“partner” countries, among them Peru and Singapore, are particularly over-represented), self-promotion (some of the ranked chefs are also members of the jury), and male chauvinism (only one out of the 50 was a woman in 2014).
While pledging to shake the staid conventions of haute cuisine, “The World’s 50 Best” are in fact imposing their own: the deluge of marketing, the celebrity chef circuit, and the emphasis on “innovative” ingredients – all at the risk and peril of guinea-customers.
Disgusted by their pay-to-play methods, numerous respected chefs decided to boycott “50 Best”, even at the expense of lost publicity. Let’s follow their example and say loud and clear: 50 Best, Your Kitchen Smells Fishy!
Sponsors, stop supporting « The world’s 50 best restaurants » !