The World Restaurant Awards 2019

#worldrestaurantawards @worldrestawards restaurantawards.world

Respect the exceptional.

The difference is Gaggenau.

The Kerry, the Hinterwälder-Rind and the Welsh Black are examples of remarkable breeds. While some of these breeds can trace their lineage back to Roman times, today they may only number in the hundreds. The exceptional, finest and most prized; deserve your respect and your best.

Every Gaggenau piece is distinctively designed, crafted from exceptional materials, offers professional performance, and has done so since 1683.

Be inspired: gaggenau.com/respect

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21/12/2018 14:03

The time is right for a new kind of international restaurant awards and where better to launch them than Paris? Which, as a Parisian – albeit one that currently lives somewhere between London and the Eurostar – I’m proud to point out is the birthplace of the restaurant in the Western world. But we are doing a lot more than celebrating my hometown in launching The World Restaurant Awards.

With many years experience in creating some of the world’s leading food and wine festivals, from Taste to Gourmet Escape, The Big Feastival to Tastemaker, IMG has been at the forefront of the incredible rise in the appreciation for food, drink and dining out.

Over the years, it has become increasingly apparent to us that many restaurants have a purpose that goes beyond simply feeding people. These are restaurants that have become a genuine catalyst for change, great places to eat but with a backstory to match their menu.

THESE ARE RESTAURANTS THAT HAVE BECOME A GENUINE CATALYST FOR CHANGE, GREAT PLACES TO EAT BUT WITH A BACKSTORY TO MATCH THEIR MENU

So, together with Joe Warwick and Andrea Petrini, we have created an awards that aims to tell the stories of these restaurants.

They are stories of ambition, of talent, of teamwork, of integrity and excellence... of unforgettable restaurant experiences.

We are proud to lead the way with our gender-balanced judging panel of 100 of the best-fed, best-informed restaurant obsessives on the planet: chefs, journalists, influencers and industry figures from 37 different countries.

They have clocked up roughly 286,000 miles and more than a few meals to get us here. We’d like to think that it’s well been worth the journey.

Cécile Rebbot Director, The World Restaurant Awards

MEDIA PARTNER OF THE WORLD RESTAURANT AWARDS 2019

EXTRAORDINARY STORIES BEYOND FOOD

Editor: Joe Warwick joe@restaurantawards.world Contibuting Editor: Andrea Petrini Contibutors; Laurie Fletcher, Harriet Wick, Oscar Petty, Nancy Pettigrove, Pete Best The World Restaurant Awards AN IMG EVENT restaurantawards.world @worldrestawards #worldrestaurantawards Design: Rob Kester, October Associates Word Wizardry: Tim Glynne-Jones, Balance Media None of this would have been possible without breathing exercises, lots of planes, trains and taxis, Skype, Siri, Facetime, WhatsApp, BlueJeans, meetings, more meetings, conference calls, corrections, late nights, early mornings, lost receipts, logo dramas, unexploded World War II bombs, yellow vests, Brazilan deportations, blood, sweat, tears and just a touch of the fear.

The World Restaurant Awards IMG, Building 6 Chiswick Business Park 566 Chiswick High Road London W4 5HR United Kingdom

It took a lunchtime to conceive, a decade to gestate, but The World Restaurant Awards has just been born. Forgive us for sounding like proud fathers, when the truth is that it’s taken a talented team to bring this baby into the world.

The original idea was simple: try to do something different, something that celebrated the restaurant world in a new, more relevant and entertaining way.

A truly international restaurant awards programme that was designed as an awards from the ground up.

The plan we worked on, together with the team from IMG, was to build an awards that looked at a whole spectrum of restaurants, from the humble to the haute, from the newly opened to the classic, that considered both established gastronomic destinations and thrilling new discoveries.

We wanted to create a programme of restaurant awards that were transparent and fair, that were dynamic and could reflect the changes of a fast-moving industry, driven by talent, innovation and customers that are increasingly well educated about food ethics, culinary trends and exotic ingredients.

THE ORIGINAL IDEA WAS SIMPLE: TRY TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT, SOMETHING THAT CELEBRATED THE RESTAURANT WORLD IN A NEW, MORE RELEVANT AND ENTERTAINING WAY

We imagined a restaurant awards that could do some good and talk about the things that we care about; an awards that celebrates what is great about the restaurant world as it is and hints at how it can be even better in the future.

Which is something we understand that we need to be too. We’d like to think that this is the beginning of something special. But we understand too that is only the tip of the iceberg. In terms of the sort of restaurant experiences around the world that we want to explore and discover, there’s a lot more work to be done.

We’re only getting started.

Joe Warwick Creative Director Andrea Petrini Chair of the Judging Panel

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04/02/2019 13:31

THE JUDGING PANEL OUR COSMOPOLITAN, MULTICULTURAL, GLOBETROTTING, GENDER-BALANCED PANEL OF RESTAURANT EXPERTS INCLUDES 37 DIFFERENT NATIONALITIES. WE’VE BROUGHT TOGETHER STAR CHEFS AND RESTAURATEURS, INFLUENTIAL FIGURES IN OLD AND NEW MEDIA, BOOK PUBLISHERS, FILMMAKERS, FOOD SYSTEM SCIENTISTS, ACTIVISTS AND CAMPAIGNERS

Zaiyu Hasegawa Chef Japan

Virgilio Martínez Véliz Chef Peru

Vincent Carry Entrepreneur France

Zaiyu’s interest in cooking sprouted from the bento that his mother would bring back from the ryōtei (high-end Japanese restaurant) where she worked as a geisha when he was young. After gaining experience working in various restaurants, Zaiyu launched Den in Jimbocho, Tokyo. This groundbreaking restaurant introduced a new form of Japanese cuisine, while observing the traditional values of excellent ingredients and seasonality, and has been garlanded with praise from many quarters.

Virgilio is a pioneering young chef who has helped put Peruvian cuisine on the world map, primarily through his restaurant Central in Lima. His menu is a reflection of the incredible diversity of ingredients that can be found in Peru, from the mountains to the sea. Virgilio is director of Mater Iniciativa research and interpretation centre, also in Lima, and his research includes the traditional cultivation techniques of the people of the Andes, dating from preHispanic times. Through his dedication to his indigenous culinary traditions and his skill in the kitchen, Virgilio has blazed a trail for Peruvian cooking and earned great respect along the way.

Originally a musician in the independent music industry, Vincent became a film, culture and political journalist in 1997. He became director of Arty Farty in 2002 and created the Nuits Sonores electronic music festival in 2003. In 2015, Vincent launched We Are Europe, a cooperative project supported by the European Union, which brings together eight festivals and forums in a three-year exchange and co-creation program, led by Arty Farty. He is currently working on the project Hotel 71, creative hub that will open its doors this year.

Yoshihiro Narisawa Chef Japan

Yoshihiro is the chef-owner of Restaurant Narisawa (formerly Les Créations de Narisawa) in Minami Aoyama, Tokyo. Having earned his stripes in some of Europe’s top restaurants, he set up his first restaurant in Japan, La Napoule in Kanagawa, in 1996, before opening Les Créations in 2003.

VIRGILIO’S MENU IS A REFLECTION OF THE INCREDIBLE DIVERSITY OF INGREDIENTS THAT CAN BE FOUND IN PERU, FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA

Tom Parker Bowles Media United Kingdom

Sophie Brissaud Media France

Kylie Kwong Chef Australia

Rachel Khong Media United States

Tom is an award-winning food writer with seven books to his name, the most recent being Fortnum and Mason: Christmas and Other Winter Feasts. He is Food Editor at Esquire magazine in the UK and restaurant critic for The Mail on Sunday. He is also a regular judge on UK Masterchef and Channel 9’s Family Food Fight in Australia.

Sophie is a food writer, journalist, reviewer and photographer. She has been fiddling with food-related books, editing and publishing, since 1989 and has been an active writing and editing force in gazillions of chef books. She lives in Paris and tends to avoid cheffiness unless it’s really delicious, fun and exciting. She prefers cuisines de pauvre, family cooking, street stalls, West African maquis and anglers’ soups and is proud to have learned the art of gombo in the Republic of Benin.

Kylie has become synonymous with modern Chinese cooking in Australia. As a thirdgeneration Australian, she has drawn on her southern Chinese heritage to reinterpret Cantonese cuisine, combining uniquely Australian ingredients with traditional Chinese cooking methods and flavours.

The foundation of her food is locally grown, organic and biodynamic produce, with a strong focus on native Australian ingredients. Her celebrated Chinese eating house, Billy Kwong in Sydney, thrives on partnerships with the local community and long-term suppliers and producers: from rooftop honey and herbs to artisan wines, spirits and beers from innovative winemakers, distillers and brewers

Rachel Khong is a writer living in San Francisco. She is the former Executive Editor of Lucky Peach magazine and author of the novel Goodbye, Vitamin, which was published in 2017 by Henry Holt and received the California First Fiction Award from the Commonwealth Club. Her writing has appeared in Tin House, Buzzfeed and The Paris Review.

Romy Gill MBE Chef United Kingdom

Chef Romy Hardeep Gill MBE is a BritishIndian chef, presenter and food writer. She is the owner and head chef at Romy’s Kitchen, which opened in September 2013 in Thornbury, Gloucestershire. She was the first Indian female chef/owner on the UK restaurant scene and was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s 90th birthday honours list in 2016. Romy contributes regularly to food publications and appears on TV and radio. She has spoken at Mad Symposium in Copenhagen and is currently working on her first cookbook.

Lotta Jörgensen Media Sweden

Lotta is a graphic designer and conceptual curator with clients all over the world. She is one of the co-founders of the renowned food publication Fool Magazine and the highly creative Fool Agency. One of her missions in life is to keep on being curious.

Tara Stevens Media Spain

Tara is a food writer and cook who splits her time between Spain and Morocco.

She travels extensively in search of delicious things to eat and drink and enjoys back alley street carts as much as any fine dining experience. She has a passion for regional home cooking and is currently working on a book about modern Moroccan cookery, based on her culinary adventures from her little cooking school in the Fez Medina.

Sven Elverfeld Chef Germany

Born in Hanau, Germany, Sven first trained as a confectioner at Stadtbäckerei Schadeberg in Bruchköbel. He rose through the ranks at various restaurants across Europe before becoming Chef de Cuisine at Restaurant La Baie at The RitzCarlton, Dubai, in 1988. He is currently Chef de Cuisine at Restaurant AQUA, The Ritz-Carlton, Wolfsburg, where he has been since 2000.

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Sophie Cornibert Restaurant Industry France

Sophie is the co-creator of Fulgurances, an editorial platform hosting events and restaurants in residence, dedicated to contemporary cuisines. Sophie sees herself as a mediator, open to the world.

Rosio Sanchez Chef Denmark

Rodolfo Guzmán Chef Chile

Rodolfo is chef and owner at Boragó restaurant in Santiago. He loves to forage for unusual ingredients, which he transforms into delicious dishes. He is married to Ale and has two girls and two boys, Margarita, Olivia, Raimundo and Bernardo.

Rosio is a Mexican-American chef born and raised in the south side of Chicago.

She worked with some of America’s most respected chefs before moving to Copenhagen to spend more than half a decade working under René Redzepi at Noma. In March 2015, Rosio left Noma to reconnect with her Mexican roots and try to apply her skills to the food she identifies with most. She dreamt of transporting the Mexican dishes she remembered to Copenhagen and began developing recipes, using the highest quality ingredients she could find. She has since opened two Hija de Sanchez taquerias in Copenhagen and her first restaurant Sanchez opened in November 2017.

Robbie Swinnerton Media Japan

Justyna Adamczyk Media Poland

Richard is the chief food critic at Bloomberg, based in London, where he has worked for the company since 1995. He has been a journalist for 40 years, 13 of them spent in Asia. Before writing about food, he was a business journalist and also a lead writer for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, specialising in Asian politics.

Justyna is the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of the Polish edition of the Gault & Millau yellow guide. A taste hunter travelling and visiting more than 300 restaurants a year all over the world, she coordinates international projects with chefs and sets business strategies for hospitality, luxury goods and the food industry. She is also a co-organiser and participant of the Polish edition of Cook It Raw, a panellist at top international food congresses and conferences, and a member of the jury at culinary and spirits contests.

Perm Paitayawat Media United Kingdom

Thai-born and London-based, Perm is a food writer and traveller. He is known for his reflective, culture-focused articles in Fool Magazine, Fare and finedininglovers.com, as well as for his obscurely worded Instagram account @theskinnybib. His gastronomyobsessed travels were the subject of a 2014 film documentary called Foodies: The Culinary Jetset.

Robbie is a British-born journalist and food writer who has lived in and written about Tokyo since 1980. He has travelled extensively within Japan, throughout Asia and around the world. He grows his own ume fruit, makes them into umeboshi and umeshu and never calls them plums.

Richard Vines Media United Kingdom

Rebecca Mackenzie Food Industry Canada

Rebecca is President and CEO of the Toronto-based Culinary Tourism Alliance, working with stakeholders across the food tourism value chain. She and her team work with communities around the world to support the development of local economies through building new business partnerships and community-driven experiences that showcase a ‘taste of place’.

Paulo Barata Media Portugal

Paulo has been a traveller and food photojournalist for more than 20 years, working from his base in Lisbon. He loves to create food documentaries and portfolios with some of the most influential chefs in Portugal and beyond, and collaborates with several food and lifestyle magazines, such as Público, Dispensa, Cook_inc, Up-TAP and Volta ao Mundo. Alongside Ana Músico, Paulo created and organises the international food festivals Sangue na Guelra and Symposium Sangue na Guelra, among other initiatives concerning food.

Paul Carmichael Chef Australia

Lover of cooking and all things hospitality, Paul is from the Caribbean island of Barbados. He has worked with some amazing people along the way in Barbados, New York City, Puerto Rico and Australia.

Paul now lives in Sydney and cooks the food of his heritage at Momofuku Seiõbo.

Olivier Reneau Media France

Olivier is a freelance journalist for Air France Madame, Ideat, The Good Life and Les Echos SL. He works as a food critic for Le Guide Lebey and Identità Golose.

Nicolas Bourriaud Media France

Nicolas Bourriaud is a curator and art critic who has curated a great number of exhibitions and biennials all over the world.

In 2009 he curated the fourth Tate Triennial, titled Altermodern. From 2011 to 2015, he was the Director of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, an art school in Paris, where he curated ‘Cook Book’ with Andrea Petrini. This was the first art exhibition to include chefs and artists. In 2015 he was appointed director of the OCO (Montpellier Contemporary), including La Panacée Art Centre, the art school and the Contemporary Art Museum of Montpellier, the latter being scheduled to open in 2019.

DIRT CANDY OPENED IN 2008 AS THE FIRST VEGETABLE-FOCUSED RESTAURANT IN THE CITY. ITS CURRENT LOCATION OPENED IN JANUARY 2015 AND WAS THE FIRST RESTAURANT IN THE CITY TO ELIMINATE TIPPING AND SHARE PROFITS WITH ITS EMPLOYEES

Nicholas Gill Media United States

A writer and photographer, Nicholas lives in Lima and Brooklyn. His work appears in publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Bon Appétit, Fool, Saveur, New York Magazine and many others. He is the co-author of the book Central, along with fellow Judging Panel member Virgilio Martínez, and cofounder of the website NewWorlder.com.

Miguel Pires Media Portugal

Miguel is a freelance gastronomic journalist and restaurant reviewer for national and international publications, including Publico, Revista de Vinhos, Eater.com and Cook_inc.

He is the author of the restaurants and gourmand shops book Lisboa à Mesa (Eat in Lisbon) and co-author of blog Mesa Marcada. He is also an amateur cook and Instagram activist.

Melinda Joe Media Japan

Melinda is an American journalist based in Tokyo. She is a regular correspondent for The Japan Times and Gourmet Sweden, and her writing has appeared in publications such as Condé Nast Traveler, Newsweek, Robb Report, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes Asia and Departures Magazine. Her work has taken her from the craggy cliffs of the Faroe Islands to the high-altitude salt flats of Chile. A certified sake and wine specialist, she has been a panel chair for the sake division at London’s International Wine Challenge since 2014.

May Chow Chef Hong Kong

Named Asia’s Best Female Chef 2017, May has garnered both critical acclaim and a loyal following of diners. Whether presenting a personal take on classic Chinese flavours in a casual American-style diner setting or elevating traditional recipes with all the refinement and sophistication of fine dining, she is committed to exploring, redefining and exalting the value of traditional ingredients and local culinary history. May burst onto Hong Kong’s foodie scene in

2013 with Little Bao, a hipster haven serving inimitable Chinese burgers. Five years later, the buzz around Little Bao is as hot as ever.

Alex Atala Chef Brazil

Currently the most influential chef in Brazil, Alex is renowned for his innovative cuisine, focused on Brazilian ingredients, a credo which he has practised since 1999 in his garlanded restaurant, D.O.M. Firmly linked to his roots while always looking towards the future, Alex is, above all, passionate about Brazil, nature, gastronomy and life. He turns his creative energy into unforgettable experiences for those who have the opportunity to try his experiments.

With boldness and vision, Alex sees his role as one that surpasses the boundaries of cuisine and includes a responsibility to behave as a responsible citizen, valuing the small producer, encouraging young professionals and supporting the third sector.

Alexandra Swenden Restaurant Industry Belgium

Alexandra is a creative consultant without borders. She creates concepts, produces performances and always gets excited when it comes to transforming fiction(s) into reality. Her usual playgrounds are food, film, dance, design and art. She was co-curator of the international collective of chefs Gelinaz! (2012-2018), where she created 10 international performances involving some of world’s most brilliant culinary minds in different cities, including Lima, New York, London, Sao Paulo and San Francisco.

Today, Alexandra runs a new company that creates and supports long-term collaborative projects between the arts and the culinary world.

Alexandra Michot Media France

Alexandra has been a food writer for almost a quarter of a century. Until 2014, she was food reporter for the french daily newspaper Le Figaro. After four years working as a freelance writer for both french and international magazines such as L’Obs, Cook_Inc and Fool Magazine, she is currently working full-time for Elle weekly magazine and as Co-Editor in Chief for Elle à Table, a French food magazine.

Amanda Cohen Chef United States

Brian McGinn Media United States

Amanda is chef and owner of Dirt Candy, the award-winning vegetable restaurant on New York City’s Lower East Side.

Dirt Candy opened in 2008 as the first vegetable-focused restaurant in the city and was a pioneer of the Vegetable Forward movement. It was recognised with numerous awards from the likes of Gourmet Magazine, the Village Voice and many others, and among the glowing reviews it became the first vegetarian restaurant in 17 years to receive two stars from the New York Times.

Its current location opened in January 2015 and was the first restaurant in the city to eliminate tipping and share profits with its employees.

Brian is an Executive Producer and a Director for Chef’s Table on Netflix, which was created in collaboration with David Gelb. Brian also directs and produces other documentaries, including the 2016 feature Amanda Knox, which he wrote, produced and directed.

Andoni Luis Aduriz Chef Spain

Andoni Luis is chef patron at Mugaritz restaurant in San Sebastian and is undoubtedly one of the most influential chefs of our time. Throughout his career, he has prioritised both culinary evolution and an interdisciplinary approach. This has allowed him to cross the established borders and become a rebel in the kitchen.

Under his guidance, Mugaritz has achieved worldwide renown and regular awards.

Anna Morelli Media Italy

Anna was born in Belgium of a Peruvian mother and an Italian father, and grew up between Addis Ababa, Brussels, Madrid, Barcelona, London and Miami. She has worked in art, photography and newspapers, her most recent stopping point being Lucca in Italy, where she settled down with her Dutch husband and three daughters to embark on a new adventure in the world of food. Together they founded Vandenberg Edizioni in 2006, a publishing company that, in 2011, gave life to Cook_inc. With a vivid mix of high-quality food stories, chefs behind the scenes, powerful photography and eye-catching graphics, Cook_inc. is more than just a food magazine.

Bill Knott Media United Kingdom

A former chef, Bill Knott has written about food, drink and travel for the last 25 years, also appearing frequently on radio and TV. Best known for his long-running ‘Gannet’ column in the Financial Times, he is also an ambassador for international malnutrition charity Action Against Hunger.

Chihiro Masui Media Japan

Chihiro Masui left Japan at the age of four to follow her parents to New York, London and Paris. Daughter of a famous Japanese TV presenter and a no less renowned food journalist, she began her career at just 16, writing for a Japanese magazine. She has since gone on to publish 25 gastronomy books, including Anton - Le Pré Catelan with Frédéric Anton, Pisces, an art of Japan and Astrance with Pascal Barbot. She is also a columnist for the Japanese magazine Cuisine Kingdom.

Christine Muhlke Media United States

Christine is a contributing editor at Bon Appétit. The founder of Bureau X food consultancy and creator of the newsletter Xtine, she has authored cookbooks with Eric Ripert, David Kinch and Eric Werner and a wine book with Le Bernardin’s Aldo Sohm.

Chris Ying Media United States

Chris is editor of MAD Dispatches and Majordomo Media. He co-founder and edited Lucky Peach.

Clare Smyth Chef United Kingdom

Clare opened her first solo restaurant, Core, in August 2017. Located in the heart of Notting Hill, London, Core celebrates the finest British produce, craftsmen and artisans in a relaxed setting, offering an exceptional fine dining experience. Clare’s credentials are exemplary and her steep rise to Chef Patron at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay was not surprising. Her devotion to her craft, extremely high standards and meticulous work ethic are just three of the reasons why she remains the outstanding female chef of her generation in the UK.

Gert De Mangeleer Chef Belgium

HEINZ’S COOKING STYLE REFLECTS HIS RESPECT AND APPRECIATION OF RAW INGREDIENTS AND PRODUCTS, IN PARTICULAR AN INTEREST IN RARE AND FORGOTTEN VARIETIES, WHICH HAS LED HIM TO BECOME ACTIVE IN THE PROTEST MOVEMENT AGAINST THE EU SEED POLICY

Daniel Humm Chef United States

Daniel is chef/co-owner of Make It Nice, the organisation behind Eleven Madison Park, The NoMad in New York and Los Angeles, and the fast-casual restaurant Made Nice.

His cuisine is focused on the locally sourced ingredients of New York, with an emphasis on simplicity, purity and seasonal flavours.

Over the course of Daniel’s tenure, he and Eleven Madison Park have received numerous accolades, including four stars from The New York Times and seven James Beard Foundation Awards (including Outstanding Chef and Outstanding Restaurant in America).

Daniel Patterson Chef United States

Daniel is considered one of the leading culinary figures of California. His restaurant Coi’s trailblazing blend of haute cuisine and a vegetable-first ethos, mixed with a casual, modern design, earned it the critics’ approval and made it synonymous with Californian cuisine. Daniel has since cofounded The Cooking Project, a non-profit, community-based organisation dedicated to teaching cooking skills to kids and young adults. Most recently he teamed up with Los Angeles chef Roy Choi to launch LocoL, a fast-food company designed to bring good jobs and real food to communities.

Danilo Mangano Food Industry United Kingdom

Danilo is the Global Director of Premium Products & Benefits at American Express and his team is responsible for managing the Global Dining Collection global programme, as well as partnerships with world-renowned chefs and global restaurant groups. An avid traveller for business and leisure purposes, he has the chance to regularly discover new restaurants around the world during his trips.

Elena Arzak Chef Spain

Elena is the fourth generation of her family to run the kitchen at renowned Restaurante Arzak in San Sebastián, Spain. Schooled in the tenets of The New Basque Cuisine Movement championed by her legendary father, Juan Mari Arzak, she has established

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a method of collaborative creativity with her team, which fuels the continuous innovation of Arzak’s Basque, research-based, contemporary cuisine.

Emilia Terragni Media United Kingdom

Emilia is a publisher at Phaidon Press, the premier global publisher of the creative arts. Phaidon works with the world’s most influential chefs, as well as artists, writers and thinkers, to produce innovative books on food, art, photography, design, architecture, fashion and travel.

Emma Bengtsson Chef United States

Emma was appointed Executive Chef of Aquavit in 2014, after four years as Executive Pastry Chef. In her current role she has garnered some prestigious accolades and in 2018 she was named ‘Best Female Chef’ by the Best Chef Awards. Prior to Aquavit, Emma worked at some of Sweden’s most renowned restaurants, including Edsbacka Krog, Restaurant Prinsen and Operakällaren.

Esben Holmboe Bang Chef Norway

Esben is the Danish Head Chef and co-owner of Norway’s groundbreaking restaurant Maaemo. The name means ‘Mother Earth’ and the menu reflects this homage to fresh, seasonal, local ingredients.

Esben was born and raised in Copenhagen but has spent most of his culinary career in Oslo, having moved there in 2005. He has achieved a great deal at a young age and is constantly breaking new ground in Norwegian cuisine.

Frédéric Peneau Restaurateur United Kingdom

Frédéric is a restaurateur and chef based in Paris. In 2000 he launched the Café Burq in Montmartre, followed by restaurant Chateaubriand with his partner Iñaki Aizpitarte in 2005. In 2012 he collaborated with the esteemed architect Rem Koolhaas at restaurant Dauphin. Most recently he has opened Serge et le Phoque restaurant in Hong Kong and a sister restaurant in London in 2017.

Gert is chef-owner of the feted Hertog Jan restaurant in Brugge and, in the same beautiful city, tapas restaurant L.E.S.S. Heinz Reitbauer Chef Austria

Garima Arora Chef Thailand

Garima’s culinary journey began in her family’s humble kitchen in Mumbai, where she first worked as a journalist before moving to Paris to study cooking. For the last decade, Garima has worked alongside many world-renowned chefs and, guided by her desire to serve contemporary and culturally relevant food, she opened her own restaurant, Restaurant Gaa, in Bangkok. As she explored the jungle and tribal markets of Thailand together with its people, the connection between India and Thailand caught her attention. Her mission is to discover novel ways to transform local and seasonal ingredients into personal culinary experiences from India.

Gennady Jozefavichus Media Russia

Born in Kaliningrad in 1967, Gennady is a food and travel writer, columnist, freelance journalist and blogger. He regularly contributes for Condé Nast publications as well as Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Men’s Fitness, Prime Traveller, GEO, Robb Report and Magnum. Gennady has also published numerous travel books and is the presenter of Foodie, a television programme about food destinations.

Georges Desrues Media Italy

Georges is a freelance journalist and photo reporter, born in Paris, raised in Vienna and living in Trieste.

Mauro Colagreco Chef France

Mauro established restaurant Mirazur in Menton, France, in 2006, after working with stellar chefs such as Bernard Loiseau, Alain Ducasse and Alain Passard. His elegant, surprising and hearty cuisine has earned numerous accolades and earned Mauro nominations for the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres and Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Merite by French Republic. Unspoilt by the plaudits, he remains committed to showcasing the best produce from the land around him.

Heinz is chef-owner of the garlanded Steirereck in Vienna, a restaurant opened by his parents a few months before his birth. His cooking style reflects his respect and appreciation of raw ingredients and products, in particular an interest in rare and forgotten varieties, which has led him to become active in the protest movement against the EU seed policy, which seeks to limit the propagation and sale of all but the most standard fruits and vegetables.

Ivan Brincat Media Belgium

A food lover from a very young age and a journalist from the age of 16, Ivan took to food writing in 2014, creating Food and Wine Gazette in his spare time. But he’d been on the lookout for places to eat while travelling way before this. His fine dining eureka! moment came at the legendary Gambero Rosso by chef Fulvio Pierangelini in San Vincenzo, Italy, in 2006. He’s been hungry ever since.

James Lowe Chef United Kingdom

James is Head Chef and owner of Lyle’s in Shoreditch, London. He is a fervent champion of British produce and writes daily changing menus based on what he feels is best on any given day. The food is staunchly seasonal: bright, light and vibrant in the spring and summer and fortifying, comforting and wild game-focussed in the winter. Lowe had ambitions to be a pilot until dining at The Fat Duck and St John and deciding his future lay in the kitchen.

John Martin Media United States

John is the publisher and co-founder of Munchies, Vice Media’s online food and drink journalism brand, which was launched in 2014 as a joint-venture with Fremantle Limited. John leads the management and operations of the company and has expanded the brand into food products, merchandise, books, festivals and events, kitchen appliances and most recently the world’s first ever Munchies food hall. He lives in Brooklyn and is an investor in bars and hotel properties throughout New York.

JP McMahon Chef Ireland

JP is a chef, restaurateur and author based in Galway, Ireland. He is also director of Food on the Edge Symposium.

Martina Liverani Media Italy

Martina is an Italian journalist and author, who founded and is Editor in Chief of bilingual food magazine Dispensa. She is passionate about food, travel, print magazines and preserving traditional skills in the digital age. She works and lives in a small town between the Adriatic Sea and the Apennine Mountains.

Karen Leibowitz Restaurateur United States

Karen Leibowitz is restaurateur, writer and food activist. She co-founded three award-winning restaurants, The Perennial, Mission Chinese Food and Commonwealth, and is Executive Director of The Perennial Farming Initiative. She co-wrote Atelier Crenn: Metamorphosis of Taste with chef Dominique Crenn, and Mission Street Food: Recipes and Ideas from an Improbable Restaurant with Anthony Myint. Her writing has been published by Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, The New York Times, Lucky Peach and other publications.

Konstantin Filippou Restaurateur Austria

Konstantin was born in Graz, Austria, the son of a Greek father and an Austrian mother. Early driving forces for his future professional career were the multicultural marriage of his parents and the Mediterranean influence he has experienced since his childhood.

He endeavours to reproduce all the tastes and palatable experiences he has encountered in Austria and the Mediterranean region. Since 2013 he has run his own feted Restaurant Konstantin Filippou in the heart of Vienna.

Kyoko Nakayama Media Singapore

Kyoko is an ex-news anchor turned food journalist. She spent nearly 20 years working in TV in Japan, covering the news whilst also hosting a live cooking show.

After moving to Singapore five years ago, she worked as a radio DJ for Mediacorp.

Now she has a regular show at a radio station and columns in renowned magazines in Japan, such as Forbes Japan and Cuisine Kingdom in Japanese.

She also writes features in English for culinary magazines in Singapore like Tatler Dining, Cuisine & Wine Asia and Salt magazine.

MARGOT IS JUDGING CONVENER FOR THE EAT OUT ANNUAL RESTAURANT AWARDS IN SOUTH AFRICA AND FEEDS 1,500 TOWNSHIP SCHOOL CHILDREN NUTRITIOUS MEALS EVERY DAY THROUGH HER CHARITY ISABELO ‘FEEDING HUNGRY MINDS’

Laura Lazzaroni Media Italy

Luca Fantin Chef Japan

Marie Elena Martinez Media United States

As New York Correspondent for D-La Repubblica delle Donne between 20032008, Laura oversaw the relaunch of the US edition of La Cucina Italiana. In 2015 she was named ‘Journalist of the Year’ by Identità Golose. In 2017 she co-founded Bread, a boutique agency specialising in content creation, communication and strategy for food/wine/hôtellerie/design companies. Bread has gradually become the main focus of her personal and professional life and she now consults with bakeries and restaurants to help them set up a more efficient/specialised bread programme. Laura has recently become Editor in Chief of Food & Wine Italia.

Luca believes that success is no accident.

It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and, most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.

A former literary publicist, Marie Elena became a leading travel and food writer, contributing to publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and Condé Nast Traveler after a trip around the world that took in 50 countries in six continents. Subsequently engaged as Founding Editor of The Latin Kitchen in 2012, she launched her first brand, Meets NYC, in 2014, producing minifood festivals Baja Meets NYC and Puerto Rico Meets NYC. She is also, with Nicholas Gill, the co-founder of New Worlder, a Latin American culinary travel website.

Laura Centrella Media Belgium

Laura is a food journalist based in Brussels, writing for LLB and Trends Tendances. She is an art and cocktail lover, a globetrotter, a tomatillo queen and schnapps girl.

Liliana Lopez Media Colombia

Liliana is a Colombian food and travel journalist based in Mexico City since July 2017. She is the former Editor in Chief of Cocina Semana, former International Editor of Avianca in-flight magazine and former Editor in Chief of Food & Wine en Español. Currently she is freelancing for Eater, Travesías, Reforma daily newspaper, Diners Magazine, Food & Wine en Español, Gourmet Magazine an Gastrónomo, and organising gastronomic tours.

Lorenza Fumelli Media Italy

Lorenza was born in Rome and raised among music, food, art and writing. Through her passion for writing and her obsession with eating out and drinking good wine, she launched a blog. The narration takes on life as an online personal diary, where she describes every restaurant, every journey and every gastronomic experience that matters. Today she travels all over the world looking for new flavors while directing her online magazine, agrodolce.it, currently one of the top food magazines in Italy.

Manoella Buffara Chef Brazil

Manu hails from Paraná, where she is chef-owner of Manu restaurant in Curitiba.

Here she experiments with native Brazilian products, sourced from her home region and handled with strict care and attention. The result is a culinary experience that reflects contemporary gastronomy and the bounty of the Curitiba area.

Marco Bolasco Media Italy

Marco is the director of food and wine at Giunti Editore and a board member at Slow Food Editore.

Margot Janse Chef South Africa

Margot is a chef, creator and facilitator. She is Dutch by birth, South African by choice.

A self-taught chef, she rose to become Executive Chef of The Tasting Room, Le Quartier Francais in Franschhoek for 21 years until April 2017. Currently Margot is judging convener for the Eat Out annual restaurant awards in South Africa and feeds 1,500 township school children nutritious meals every day through her charity ISABELO ‘Feeding Hungry Minds’.

Marie-Claude Lortie Media Canada

Marie-Claude is a restaurant critic, business columnist and feminist. She is currently a journalist at La Presse in Montreal, where she has been since 1988.

Andreja Lajh Media United Kingdom

Andreja is an ex-art director in visual communications who fell in love with food at a very young age. After 18 years in advertising, she exchanged the world of visual communication for the wonderfully colourful and passionate world of food.

Andreja is founder and editor of Haut de Gamme, a webzine that features some of the greatest culinary talents. She is also in charge of international collaborations, events and communication for some very exciting restaurants around the world, and is building up JRE UK & Ireland, supporting young talents in the food world.

Argot Murelius Media Sweden

Mark Best Chef Australia

René Redzepi Chef Denmark

Mikael Jonsson Chef United Kingdom

Argot is a gastronomy and travel writer for Swedish daily newspapers, glossies and trade press. She profiles culinary innovators and chefs for White Paper, the magazine tied to White Guide (Scandinavia’s premier restaurant guide), and has written numerous articles for the international press, frequently providing photographic content to accompany her words. She is a core member of the White Guide group, the Executive Editor of the groundbreaking restaurant guide/app 12forward, a translator and project manager for the Global Gastronomy Awards.

Mark is one of Australia’s star chefs, having made and ridden media waves across the globe and travelled far and wide. Not content to simply run one of the country’s most progressive fine dining restaurants, Marque in Sydney’s Surry Hills, he decided to open a bistro in Melbourne and another in Sydney. His vigilance, his rigour, his sharp intellect and his insatiable need to create new things form a large part of what makes up who Mark is as a chef and a restaurateur – one of the most independently minded cooks in the city. Mark makes menus of blood, he inspires young chefs, he serves what he likes. His priority has always been to challenge – to delight is just a side effect.

To truly thrill is divine.

René is Head Chef and co-owner of noma in Copenhagen, which closed its original location in February 2017 after 14 years, and reopened a year later in a new location on Refshaleøen, with an even stronger focus on seasonality. In 2011, René founded MAD, a not-for-profit organisation that brings together a global cooking community with a social conscience, a sense of curiosity and an appetite for change. In August 2017, MAD launched VILDMAD, a programme and app for people of all ages, designed to teach everyone how to be a forager and how to cook everyday meals with wild ingredients.

Mikael is a Swedish former solicitor and food blogger turned chef, based in London. He is chef and owner of Hedone restaurant, where he plays a very handson role in the kitchen and ensures a strict adherence to his culinary principles.

Chido Govera Entrepreneur Zambia

Chido is a social entrepreneur from Zimbabwe and a Young Global Leader Fellow with the World Economic Forum, committed to engaging women and girls in socio-economic development and to reach their full potential. She is the founder of The Future of Hope Foundation, through which she fulfils her commitment to ending poverty, abuse, self-pity and victimhood at grassroots level in Africa through food security. The simplified sustainable mushroom farming method provides food security by converting organic residues into food, motivating people at different levels to take on entrepreneurial opportunities in both the developed and developing parts of the world.

Arlene Stein Entrepreneur Germany

Arlene is the founder and Executive Director of the Terroir Symposium, a catalyst for creative collaboration and social and environmental responsibility in the hospitality industry. Since 2006, Terroir has convened international and Canadian industry leaders annually at a two-day symposium in Toronto – and since 2014 at off-shoot events across Europe and North America – for education, networking and inspiration. From her current home base in Berlin, Arlene travels around the world to research responsible food systems and gastronomic innovations.

Geeta Bansal Media United States

Margaret Lam Media Japan

Geeta is a chef, food writer and global traveller pursuing a passion and curiosity for food and those around it. She is on a quest to connect with chefs and cooks and share their stories, as she believes a chef’s cuisine is reflective of the life they have lived and the story they have to tell. Geeta has a unique perspective for conversations, friendships, libations and memorable tastings that has been refined over many years of travel.

Margaret was born in Hong Kong, moved to the US and is now based in Tokyo and Kyoto. She travels around the world for food and everything beyond.

Selassie Atadika Chef Ghana

After over a decade spent in humanitarian work with the United Nations and years of self-teaching in the culinary arts, Selassie completed course work at the CIA. She brought her innovative approach to African cuisine home in 2014 and now runs a food enterprise called Midunu in Accra. Midunu is a culinary lifestyle company that celebrates Africa’s cultural and culinary heritage and embodies ‘New African cuisine’. Midunu employs ‘underdog’ ingredients to deliver Africa’s bounty to the table. With an eye towards biodiversity and sustainability, it curates white-linen nomadic events, private dining, retail and lifestyle products, and a bespoke event space.

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Alexandra Forbes Media France

Alexandra is a food, drink and travel writer from São Paulo, Brazil. She started her career more than 20 years ago at Jornal da Tarde in her hometown and has since written extensively for Brazilian and international publications such as Lucky Peach and Food + Wine (US), Gourmet Traveller (Australia) and Vogue, Casa Vogue and Glamour (Brazil). When she isn’t travelling to eat or writing, Alexandra volunteers her time at Refettorio Gastromotiva, a social project she co-founded with the non-profit Gastromotiva and chef Massimo Bottura. She currently lives in Bordeaux.

Pim Techamuanvivit Chef United States

Pim is chef-owner of Kin Khao Thai restaurant in San Francisco and Executive Chef of Nahm at the Como Metropolitan Bangkok. Her new restaurant, Nari, is scheduled to open this spring in San Francisco and you can follow her adventures on her blog, Chez Pim.

Dan Barber Chef United States

Dan is Head Chef and co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns and the author of the The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food. He has developed a vision for regenerative cuisine – a way of eating that supports good agriculture and improves the soil’s ability to create tasty and nutritious food. He recently founded Row 7, a seed company bringing together chefs and plant breeders in the development of new varieties of vegetables and grains that make an impact in the soil and at the table.

Yotam Ottolenghi Chef United Kingdom

Yotam is a cookery writer and chefpatron of the Rovi, Nopi and Ottolenghi restaurants and delis. He writes a weekly column in The Guardian’s Weekend magazine and has written seven bestselling cookbooks: Plenty and Plenty More (his vegetarian collections); Ottolenghi: The Cookbook and Jerusalem (co-authored with Sami Tamimi); Nopi: The Cookbook (co-authored with Ramael Scully) and his baking and dessert cookbook Sweet (with Helen Goh). His latest cookbook, Simple, was published in Autumn 2018.

Ana Roš Chef Slovenia

Ana is an award-winning Slovenian chef, a sport and travel enthusiast, a graduate in international and diplomatic science in Italy, a polyglot and much more. She is a self-taught cook and with her cuisine she wants to express the seasons, her locality, her own character, her travels and her femininity. She and her partner Valter Kramar own Hiša Franko in Kobarid, Slovenia, which is recognised as one of the leading restaurants in Europe.

David Chang Chef United States

David is chef and founder of Momofuku in New York City. Since opening in 2004, he has been honored as a Food & Wine ‘Best New Chef’, Bon Appétit ‘Chef of the Year’ and has won five James Beard Foundation awards, including ‘Outstanding Chef’ and ‘Best Chef New York City’.

David has been recognised as a Time 100 honoree, was named GQ’s ‘Man of the Year’ and has appeared on Fortune’s ‘40 Under 40’ and Esquire’s list of the ‘most influential people of the 21st century’. He founded Majordomo Media in 2018 and has collaborated with Academy Awardwinning director Morgan Neville on a Netflix original documentary series called Ugly Delicious.

Cathy Chao Media Taiwan

Cathy’s mantra is to enjoy a creative life, communicate with people, appreciate cool restaurants and chefs and always draw inspiration from them.

Hong Thaimee Chef United States

Originally from Chiangmai, Thailand, chef Hong is one of the most visible faces of Thai food in the US. As chef-owner of three New York City restaurants, she brings her True Thai flavours to a broad New York audience. She is a chef and entrepreneur, humanitarian activist, inspirational speaker and ambassador for Thai food. With her own restaurant as a base, Hong has grown substantial catering and education businesses, all driven by her desire to serve people and spread the word about real Thai flavours.

Andreas Caminada Chef Switzerland

Andreas is a leading Swiss chef with many accolades to his name. Since 2003, he has been the leaseholder of the Schauenstein Castle Restaurant Hotel in Fürstenau, Switzerland. In 2015, Andreas launched the foundation Fundaziun Uccelin, with the goal to provide chefs and front of house teams with the opportunity to enhance their knowledge and skills by offering training in their crafts.

Hélène Darroze Chef France

As a fourth-generation descendant of a family of chefs, French-born Hélène is an internationally recognised Chef de Cuisine.

She currently works at Hélène Darroze at The Connaught in London and at Hélène Darroze Paris and Jòia par Hélène Darroze in Paris. Hélène completed a degree from L’Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Bordeaux before joining Alain Ducasse’s team in 1992 at the prestigious Louis XV restaurant in Monaco. She was awarded the 2015 Veuve Clicquot World’s Best Female Chef prize and since 2014 she has been on the panel of the French TV cooking show Top Chef.

João Wengorovius Media Portugal

Massimo Bottura Chef Italy

Massimo is an innovator and restaurateur, with a reputation as one of the world’s most creative culinary figures. His internationally renowned restaurant Osteria Francescana is widely regarded as one of the finest in the world. His dishes explore the deep roots of the Italian kitchen while making reference to history, art and philosophy. In 2015, Massimo founded the not-for-profit organisation Food for Soul, together with his wife Lara Gilmore, followed by five other not-for-profit projects.

Helen Hollyman Media United States

Helen is a food writer, editor and cookbook author. She is the Founding Editor in Chief of Munchies, the world’s first global millennial food website and digital media video channel from Vice Media. Helen, a former cook, truffle dealer and radio host, launched eight international versions of the culture site. She got her start at Food & Wine Magazine and has worked under award-winning pastry chef Christina Tosi at Momofuku Milk Bar and for food writers Mark Bittman and Amanda Hesser. She has written for a variety of publications, including Vice, GQ, Saveur, Lucky Peach and Time Out.

Bo Bech Chef Denmark

Bo is one of Denmark’s most well-known chefs. He made his name after climbing the ranks working with the likes of Alain Passard, Marco Pierre White and Alain Senderens. In 2004, Bo launched Paustian in Copenhagen, which received wide acclaim. These days, he presents the Danish take on Kitchen Nightmares, amongst other TV series, including Køkkenkrisenm, while working at the helm of his restaurant Geist.

Juan Arbelaez Chef France

Juan is a Colombian chef living in Paris. His dream was to cook and he realised it: today he has six restaurants where he cooks every day. And after all these years, hosting TV shows, travelling and lots of other things, he knows that his only love is to cook.

Céline Pham Chef France

Céline is a young, creative chef who is redefining fusion food with a fresh, contemporary take on Franco-Vietnamese cuisine. Her signature style brings together flavours from her Vietnamese roots and techniques learned during her formal French training. Céline describes Vietnamese cuisine as a quest for balance: subtle, delicate and green. She transcends this heritage, inspired by her grandmother.

Jale Erentok Restaurant Industry United Kingdom

As the founder and CEO of 2PAx and previously CEO of Busaba Eathai restaurant group, Jale has spearheaded some of London’s most innovative and successful hospitality concepts. Working alongside the restaurateur Alan Yau, she has been instrumental in leading various concepts, from fast casual to fine dining, including brands such as Wagamama, Hakkasan, Yauatcha, Busaba Eathai, The Duck & Rice and Park Chinois. She is also CEO of hospitality consultancy firm Smalleats, which supports a growing community of pioneering restaurateurs, chefs, producers and supply chain managers working towards a productive and sustainable future in the industry.

Peter Gordon Chef United Kingdom

Peter was born in the New Zealand town of Whanganui and developed a culinary curiosity that led him to travel through Asia for a year; a life-changing experience and a major influence on his culinary style. In 1986 he became Head Chef at the original Sugar Club restaurant in Auckland, a role that would make his name as a chef. In 1989 he moved to London, where he gradually introduced his eclectic cooking style, now called fusion, and won wide acclaim. These days, Peter has restaurants in London (The Providores and Tapa Room) and Auckland (Bellota and The Sugar Club).

After working in advertising agencies for more than 20 years, João, the former Lisbon CEO of global advertising agency BBDO, spent four years exploring the themes of creativity, authorship and the search for singularity through haute cuisine. Following his training at the Alain Ducasse Centre de Formation in Paris, he travelled around the world to discover what we can learn from 21 of today’s most inventive and influential chefs, beyond cooking. The result of this work is the book We, Chefs. He has used what he learned to inspire institutions and individuals to think differently.

Dr Afton Halloran Scientist Canada

Afton is an external consultant to the Nordic Food Policy Lab of the Nordic Council of Ministers and Editor in Chief of the Solutions Menu: A Nordic Guide to Sustainable Food Policy. She is also a freelance consultant in sustainable food systems transitions. For the past 11 years, she has worked for academic institutions, NGOs, CBOs, intergovernmental organisations, companies and the United Nations, covering the topics of small-scale farmers’ organisations, urban agriculture, future foods and food policy. Afton also sits on the Board of Directors for Funkis Fabriken, a cross-disciplinary sustainability research centre in Sweden.

Christine Hayes Media United Kingdom

Three years ago Chris took a newly created role at market-leading food media brand BBC Good Food, working across print, digital and live events. This heritage brand comprises Britain’s biggest-selling food magazine and largest food website. Prior to this, Chris launched and edited the food lifestyle magazine Olive. Its aspirational content, photography and design attracted brilliant chefs, writers and photographers.

The Pro vs Punter restaurant review proved to be the magazine’s most popular format (next to recipes) and reviewers included John Torode, Huey Morgan, Janet Street Porter and Tom Parker Bowles. Olive’s clear threepillar format (recipes, restaurants, travel) generated licensed editions worldwide.

LA ROSÉE BLANC

&

LA ROSÉE NOIR

www.haviland.fr 12 la rosée.indd 1

24/01/2019 17:15

Q&A DANNY BRENNAN

Danny Brennan, PR and Communications Director for Laurent-Perrier UK, has been with the company for 18 years and has seen the restaurant business evolve before his eyes. Joe Warwick caught up with him over breakfast at The Wolseley on London’s Piccadilly to discuss Champagne with pizza, sustainability, Paris nightclubs, French horse racing, Afternoon Tea with his daughter and the joy of Cornish pubs.

Eighteen years is a long time. You must really enjoy your work.

“It’s a labour of love. And while I’m mainly focused on the UK, in the last five years I’ve had a more international dimension to my role, which has allowed me to experience more restaurants in the US and Europe. I haven’t made it to Tokyo yet but I do work with that market and hope to get their soon.

“My work is mostly about meeting partners.

They could be luxury brands, they could be restaurants, they could be hotels. We do a lot around the world of gastronomy. One of my main focuses now is, of course, The World Restaurant Awards.

“Most of my time is spent collaborating and trying to innovate with restaurants, whether they be street food or fine dining. We have a very varied approach to our restaurant selection. What we’re seeing more and more is an appetite for relaxed dining.”

But you can still drink Champagne?

“You can drink Champagne with pizza, hamburgers, lobster rolls and tacos. At Taste of London this year we’re going to be championing street food and street art. We’re working with a charity called Passage to rehabilitate homeless people into the hospitality industry and the Goring Hotel in London has created a catering academy that is an extension of that.”

So let’s talk favourites. What would be your Arrival of the Year?

“There’s nothing quite like it on Earth: the relaunch of Annabel’s club in Berkeley Square in London. They spent £50m on the interior design. You walk in and there’s a Picasso – £35m, I believe – behind the receptionist. The loos – I’m talking about the loos before we get to the food – the loos are so opulent, so off the chart. I also enjoy the food there. The breakfast is something else.

We can go there next time.”

Where else new has impressed you?

“I love Ikoyi. I think it’s the most adventurous opening of recent times. We worked with five restaurants at Taste of London last summer and we worked with a chap called Igor Vaintraub from Indie Ecology. The whole idea was about Laurent-Perrier sharing the same values as the chefs and Igor. It was all about sustainability. All these people buy produce from Igor and they all buy our Champagne. We have a respect for nature and we care very much about what we do in our vineyards. Igor cares very much about what he does in his fields and the chefs buy into these suppliers and that provenance and share those same values. So we did a masterclass with Igor and Ikoyi and a few other restaurants. At Ikoyi I tasted things I’ve never seen, heard of or tried. And the presentation was amazing.”

Who would you award the prize for Atmosphere of the Year?

“For me, it’s not just of the year, it’s forever – every time I walk into the Buddha Bar in Paris. I used to go there every year with a group who went to the Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp. We used to have our gathering there. I know DJ Ravin from London and he does all the music so I’m very close to the place. Every time I walk down that staircase I know I’m going to

EVERY TIME I WALK DOWN THAT STAIRCASE I KNOW I’M GOING TO HAVE A GREAT TIME. I’VE GOT GREAT MEMORIES IN THAT PLACE

have a great time. I’ve got great memories in that place. The atmosphere for me is off the charts. I love it.”

What’s your Enduring Classic?

“Le Gavroche. I love the people, the environment, the food. I love the whole experience. Michel Roux Jr’s food is exceptional, it’s a real treat. I do not plan anything after lunch there. The wine list is exceptional, the sommelier, who we work with very closely, is great and the service and hospitality are world class.”

What has been your Event of the Year?

“The World Restaurant Awards aside, I’d like to talk about my ‘experience’ of the year, which involved taking my daughter Isabella to Afternoon Tea at The Dorchester.

She’s eight. We went after we’d watched the English National Ballet performance of Sleeping Beauty. All the children got face-painted and they performed right in front of you while the show was narrated. It was a lovely experience and a great family occasion. That was my Event of the Year.”

You must have a place you would nominate for the Forward Drinking award?

“Kerridge’s Bar & Grill in London. Why? Because it must be the only restaurant in a

5-star hotel that pulls a decent pint. And for me that has to be ‘forward drinking’.”

Any suggestions for House Special?

“Oysters at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, which is near our offices in New York. I love that place. It could be an Enduring Classic too. I try to go there every time I’m over.”

Off-Map Destination?

“I love Cornwall and it’s the Ferryboat Inn in Helford Passage near Falmouth. The Wright Brothers are there. It’s a wonderful pub, an utter joy.” laurent-perrier.com Laurent-Perrier UK is proud to support Hotel School, which teaches hospitality skills to homeless and vulnerable people, matches them to sustainable employment and supports them in their first steps into work.

Hotel School is a joint venture between The Passage (London’s largest voluntary sector homeless resource centre) and The Goring Hotel. hotelschool.org.uk

THE WORLD RESTAURANT AWARDS X HAVILAND

HAVILAND, THE ARTISTRY BEHIND OUR TROPHY

The trophy collected by our Restaurant of the Year tonight is an elegantly simple work of art, created by the highly skilled artisans at Limoges porcelain house Haviland. A pure white dinner plate mounted on a steel pedestal, representing a globe, the trophy captures the essence of what this event is all about – as Haviland porcelain has done for many other prestigious events since it was founded by David Haviland in 1842.

Haviland has been a key player in the story of French excellence for just over 175 years, gracing the finest tables and adding a touch of style to the most opulent occasions.

Royal families and heads of state have been enchanted by the charm and exceptional quality of Haviland porcelain.

David was always eager to push the limits of his craftsmanship, always striving to perfect and innovate with new decorative techniques. Today, the company continues his quest by reinventing the soul of the clay 14

AN ANCESTRAL KNOW-HOW, ROOTED IN LIMOGES

and exuding an ancestral know-how that is rooted in Limoges. The craftsmen and artists preserve, transmit and maintain their craft by combining tradition and modernity.

Through their shaping of the kaolin clay and their mastery of the fire, they become genuine storytellers, all starting from plain, white pieces.

In contrast with the piece featured in our trophy, Haviland porcelain is famous for its bold artistic designs in vivid colours and gold. Before receiving the prestigious ‘Haviland Limoges France’ stamp, each piece is fired at 1400°C, then the enamelling gives it its exceptional brilliance and its translucent appearance. So pristine, you could eat your dinner off it! www.haviland.fr

The prestigious Restaurant of the Year trophy, designed and made for The World Restaurant Awards by Haviland.

BIG PLATES THE 12 ‘BIG PLATE’ CATEGORIES FOR THIS INAUGURAL EDITION OF THE WORLD RESTAURANT AWARDS WERE CONCEIVED TO CHAMPION EXCELLENCE AND INTEGRITY WHILE TRYING TO BETTER PROMOTE THE DIVERSITY OF THE INTERNATIONAL RESTAURANT COMMUNITY

ARRIVAL OF THE YEAR FOR NEW RESTAURANTS OPENED SEPT 1, 2017– SEPT 30, 2018

ATMOSPHERE OF THE YEAR CONSIDERING RESTAURANT SERVICE, ACOUSTICS AND OVERALL AMBIENCE

WINNER — INUA TOKYO, JAPAN

WINNER — VESPERTINE LOS ANGELES, US

Take a skinny, long-haired eastern German boy. See him turn his back on his 24 hour party teen days and take the vows at the kitchen altar. Imagine him working his way through the most prestigious tables in the fine dining Deutschland of the old days, then one day discovering, almost by chance, the frantic young René Redzepi and his Scandic posse turning the world upside down. Home is where the heart is – so Thomas Frebel makes Copenhagen his new Heimat.

Until one day this pivotal scene takes place in Tokyo: It’s the very beginning of the spring of 2015, close to the closing up of the mythical Noma pop-up in Japan, when the German crossfit addict finally speaks his heart to his bearded Danish mentor.

“Japan,” he says, “that’s where I want to spend the rest of my life.” And that’s how Inua was born.

Inua, from the Inuit language – the spirits and the life force of the forest running wild.

A restaurant where state-of-the-art Nordic techniques meet the very best Japanese products, sourced from the land and from the sea. Like the crossing of two rivers, a new identity finally finds its way in.

Go foraging up north with chef Frebel, sleep his sleepness nights in the cold of a mountain Ryokan, get your soul blessed by the vision of enchanted nature. There’s a form of deep spirituality at play here at Inua, a sense of space and time, a goal in life that goes beyond the four comforting walls and doors of a new restaurant. Take Inua for what it is: a living organism in process. Let him grow, it’s gonna be big. inua.jp

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Also On the Shortlist — Angler San Francisco DaGorini Bologna Kjolle Lima Virtus Paris — Longlist — Angler San Francisco Brat London Bywater America Bistro New Orleans Chuncho Ollantaytambo Comice Paris DaGorini Bologna Dialogue Santa Monica Estimar Barcelona Hakkoku Tokyo Inua Tokyo Janse & Co Cape Town Kith and Kin Washington DC Kjolle Lima La Mercerie Marseille Lankan Filling Station Sydney Majordomo Los Angeles Matilda 159 Melbourne Mil Maras Nyum Bai Oakland Oteque Rio de Janeiro Poly Sydney Prado Lisbon Sabor London Sorrell Dorking Virtus Paris

More spaceship than restaurant, its warped red steel exoskeleton four storeys tall, Vespertine appears like a hallucinogenic sci-fi dream brought to life: an insane architectonic utopia on the industrial outskirts of LA, in Culver City.

All of this to feed 25 each night. It’s a oncein-a-lifetime experience, a trip, a deep-dive into a hypnotising, nature-oriented cuisine.

Expect haunting food from outer space. It’s a meditation chamber, where you can float outside of time, dining and gliding on the ambient soundscape that the Texan band This Will Destroy You was commissioned to compose.

Our inspection team noted that Vespertine “created an entirely new world within the state of California, thinking of every last detail, resulting in a completely singular experience. Jordan Khan’s Vespertine is the purest expression of the labyrinthic mind, a one-of-a-kind chef. Think Stanley Kubrick, think David Lynch, two spiritual mentors always ahead of their time.”

This is not a restaurant for those who think restaurants only exist to feed people and anything else is pretentiousness.

This is definitely one for those who think restaurants can transcend their primary purpose, become art and be a multisensory installation that can feed the mind as well as the body.

It’s a disruptive, divisive experience and one that doesn’t come cheap at $250 per head, prepaid online, before adding drinks and service. But for those who can connect with what Khan is trying – and succeeding – to achieve, it’s an experience worth the cost. vespertine.la

Chambre Séparée

Also On the Shortlist — Astoria Seafood New York Chambre Séparée Gent Machneyuda Jerusalem Punk Royale Copenhagen — Longlist — Amass Copenhagen André Carne de Res Chia Astoria Seafood New York Chambre Séparée Gent Contramar Mexico City Eleven Madison Park New York Firedoor Sydney HaSalon Tel Aviv Ka Jok See Phuket Machneyuda Jerusalem Mirazar Nice Nobelhart & Schmutzig Berlin NOK by Alara Lagos Noma Copenhagen Punk Royale Copenhagen The Wolseley London Vespertine Los Angeles Villanos En Bermudas Bogotá Yardbird Hong Kong

COLLABORATION OF THE YEAR REWARDING RESTAURANTS FOR THEIR WORK WITH THEIR SUPPLIERS

ENDURING CLASSIC EXCEPTIONAL RESTAURANTS OPEN FOR AT LEAST 50 YEARS

WINNER — PARADISO X GORTNANAIN CORK, IRELAND

WINNER — LA MÈRE BRAZIER LYON, FRANCE

When Ultan Walsh of Gortnanain Farm in Co Cork, Ireland, quit his post-doctoral research post at University College Cork to grow unusual vegetables, the first thing he ever sold was to Paradiso, chef Denis Cotter’s vegetarian restaurant in Cork.

Eighteen years later, Paradiso now takes up to a thousand artichokes a season from Gort na Nain.

For Cotter, working with Walsh was a game-changer. “He had an interest in growing things it was assumed you had to import. It changed the way we work. Our approach is now more responsive than recipe-driven.”

There are countless examples of close chef-farmer collaborations but Cotter and Walsh’s is marked out by its longevity and synergy. Cotter describes Walsh (a part-time bouzouki and mandolin-maker) as “brilliant at everything he does”. Cotter, in Walsh’s words, “walks the walk”. “If you go to Paradiso, it’s not an expensive restaurant. It’s very much a Cork restaurant where Cork people go to eat.” For both parties, the collaboration is an ongoing friendship and creative partnership. paradiso.restaurant gortnanain.com

Also On the Shortlist — Frantzen x Jacob Marsing-Rossini Mirazur x Huilerie Saint Michel Single Thread Farm x Bloodroot Blades Vespertine x This Will Destroy You — Longlist — Aponiente x Jerez IODO Bon Bon x Cantillon Brat x Flourish Produce De Jonkman x North Sea Chefs Foxy Restaurant x Ferme des Quatre Temps Frantzen x Jacob Marsing-Rossini Hiša Franko x Fisheries Research Centre of Slovenia Joe Beef x Hinterland Winery Maaemo x Roddie Sloan Maximo Bistrot x the Chinampas in Xochimilco Mirazur x Huilerie Saint Michel Noma x Richard Hart Paradiso x Gortnanain Farm Single Thread Farm x Bloodroot Blades The Jane x Natural Tableware The Perennial x The Land Institute Vespertine x This Will Destroy You

La Mère Brazier

Eugénie Brazier, the mother of French cooking, died in 1977, but in Lyon, where she forged her reputation, her legacy has never been forgotten. It lives on at La Mère Brazier, the multi-award-winning restaurant she opened in 1921 at the age of 26, which was revived in 2008 by Mathieu Viannay.

Despite the pressure of such a legacy, he has made the restaurant thrive once again.

Viannay restored the original tiles, preserved the signage and mullioned windows and hung the walls with blackand-white archive photography. And Brazier’s best-known dish, Poularde de Bresse demi-deuil (‘chicken in half mourning’) – a whole chicken with slices of black truffle layered between skin and flesh – remains on the menu in truffle season, along with a number of her iconic dishes.

But while retaining much of the history of the place, Viannay has added some innovative touches to the menu, such as fricassée of abalone, hazelnuts, Jerusalem artichoke and nashi pear; buckwheat galette with oyster, andouille and caviar; and sablé Breton with confit yuzu, mandarin sorbet and kalamani cream.

“People were expecting me to fall on my face,” says Viannay, but he has pulled it off with a vengeance. lamerebrazier.com

Also On the Shortlist — Elkano Bilbao Hyotei Kyoto Paul Bocuse Lyon Peter Luger New York — Longlist — Allard Paris Arzak San Sebastian Bentley’s London Brasserie Lipp Paris Caffé Sicillia Ragusa Cervejaria Ramiro Lisbon Chez l’Ami Louis Paris Dooky Chase New Orleans Elkano Bilbao Grand Central Oyster Bar New York Honke Owariya Kyoto Hyotei Kyoto Il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia Milan Karim’s Delhi Kronenhalle Zürich La Mère Brazier Lyon La Tour d’Argent Paris Le Petit Nice Marseille Madalosso Curitiba Martha Lou’s Charleston Misono Kobe Muehltalhof Unternberg Nicos Mexico City Paul Bocuse Lyon Peter Luger New York Rules London Russ & Daughters New York Swan Oyster Depot San Francisco Sweetings London The Ritz London Wilton’s London

ETHICAL THINKING REWARDING ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

EVENT OF THE YEAR RECOGNISING RESTAURANT RESIDENCIES & POP-UPS

FORWARD DRINKING FOCUSING ON FRESH IDEAS IN LIQUID REFRESHMENT

WINNER — REFETTORIO VARIOUS LOCATIONS

WINNER — REFUGEE FOOD FESTIVAL VARIOUS LOCATIONS

WINNER — MUGARITZ SAN SEBASTIAN, SPAIN

Cooking and sharing a meal around a table may seem a simple gesture but, as Massimo Bottura of the world-renowned Osteria Francescana in Modena, puts it, “It might just be the most revolutionary thing you do all day.” Bottura and his wife, Lara Gilmore, started the not-for-profit Food for Soul project in 2016 to tackle “two faces of the same problem”, namely food waste and food insecurity. Some 450,000 dishes later and Food for Soul has expanded from Milan to Refettorios in London, Paris, San Francisco and New York, with plans to open in Mexico, Asia and Africa. “The more Refettorios we open, the more we learn from different cities, different sectors of society and different cultural realities how to do our job better,” says Bottura. “The message,” says Gilmore, “is going much further than we ever imagined.” foodforsoul.it

The Refugee Food Festival started, says its co-founder Louis Martin, with “a very simple idea”: that restaurants could open up their kitchens to refugee chefs for an event. Martin and his partner Marine Mandrila turned their idea into reality in 2016 with the inaugural Refugee Food Festival in Paris, bringing together 11 restaurants, eight refugee chefs and 1,000 guests. Such was its success that as the festival enters its fourth year, it will see some some 150 refugee chefs of 42 different nationalities cooking at 200 restaurants across 16 cities, from Paris to Cape Town to San Francisco. “Our aim is to spread the message and the values behind the project,” says Martin. “We hope to accelerate the integration of refugee chefs and create a more welcoming environment for refugees by leveraging the incredible power of food.” refugeefoodfestival.com

Also On the Shortlist — Blue Hill at Stone Barns New York Noma Copenhagen Saint Peter Sydney Silo Brighton — Longlist — Amass Copenhagen Attica Melbourne Blue Hill at Stone Barns New York Bo.lan Bangkok Cabbages and Condoms Bangkok Cala San Francisco Chez Panisse Berkeley Crepes & Waffles Various locations Emma’s Torch New York Food for Soul Various locations Gustu La Paz La Ferme Bio de Pigerolles Pigerolles La Lanterna di Diogene Modena Leo Bogotá Longjing Manor Longjing Mary Pop-In Brussels Mil Maras Noma Copenhagen Orana Adelaide Oteque Rio de Janeiro Relae Copenhagen Rutabaga Stockholm S’Apposentu Siddi Saint Peter Sydney Shoun Ryugin Taipei Silo Brighton 18

Also On the Shortlist — Al Meni Rimini Game at Lyle’s London Parabere Forum Oslo The Presidential Train Porto — Longlist — 20th Birthday Party, Mugaritz San Sebastian Al Meni Rimini ArktiskMat Mosjøen Ein Prosit Malborghetto Feria Masticar Buenos Aires Food on the Edge Galway Game at Lyle’s London Healthy Boy Band Vienna LA Food Bowl Los Angeles MAD Copenhagen OzHarvest CEO CookOff Various locations Parabere Forum Oslo People’s Kitchen Collective Oakland Refugee Food Festival Various Locations SOE Kitchen 101 Reykjavík The Presidential Train Porto

Pioneering Basque Country restaurant Mugaritz has had all the superlatives thrown its away over the 21 years of its existence. It is, variously, “the most important gastronomic phenomenon of the world in recent times”, “the most adventurous restaurant in the world”, “the most experimental” and “nothing short of inspired”. Credit for that belongs not only to the restaurant’s founder and disruptor in chief, Andoni Luis Aduriz, but to the entire team at Mugaritz.

And that includes its sommeliers.

Mugaritz’s wine programme is singularly ambitious. The restaurant’s cellar holds around 1,600 wines and some 90 sakes.

Tasting menus, delivered over two-and-ahalf hours, will often involve 20 or more dishes, each one paired with a liquid counterpart from a choice of three flights.

With 35 diners in the dining room, that means as many as 800 glasses will see action during service. Sommeliers need to be nimble: supplies of top tier, vintage and short run wines are by their nature limited.

Wine pairings can, therefore, change from week to week, day to day, service to service.

Dishes, paradoxically, don’t always begin in the kitchen: they come into being in Mugaritz’s famed multidisciplinary research and development department, where sommeliers and chefs collaborate to rethink the possibilities of the menu.

For the restaurant’s 20th anniversary in 2018, under the umbrella theme of ‘creativity’, the restaurant pursued its obsession with what it dubs the “emotional harmonies” between food and wine. This goes beyond traditional pairings into a place where “solid and liquid are unified into a single element”. mugaritz.com

Godenya

Also On the Shortlist — Amass Copenhagen Cub London Dersou Paris Godenya Hong Kong — Longlist — Amass Copenhagen Camphors Cape Town Can Cisa Bar Brutal Barcelona Chez Nous Wine Bar Toronto Cub London Dersou Paris DIVERXO Madrid Elixir Warsaw Ernst Berlin Existing Conditions New York Geranium Copenhagen Godenya Hong Kong Humphrey Brussels L’Air du Temps Brussels La Casa Nostra Bangkok Les Aviés Avize Mingles Seoul Moor Hall Aughton Mugaritz San Sebastian Twin Garden Moscow

HOUSE SPECIAL RESTAURANTS DEFINED

BY ONE PARTICULAR DISH

NO RESERVATIONS REQUIRED FOR PLACES WHERE IT’S POSSIBLE TO TURN UP WITHOUT A BOOKING

WINNER — LIDO 84 (CACIO E PEPE ‘EN VESSIA’) LOMBARDY, ITALY

WINNER — MOCOTÓ SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL

If ever there was a case of not comparing apples with apples, it was the selection of a winner for the ‘House Special’ category.

Lido 84 is by far the most sophisticated and expensive restaurant on the shortlist and for that reason the inspectors were asked to focus completely on the dish in question and nothing but the dish.

And that’s what they did. So, much as the Obano’s Grilled Eel, Yak Lok’s Roast Goose, Gazela’s ‘Hot Dog’ (which is not really a hot dog) and Trishna’s Garlic Butter Crab all thrilled, it was the pasta that triumphed.

Forget about the stunning view of Lake Garda from Lido 84’s dining room and feast your eyes instead on chef Riccardo Camanini’s Cacio e Pepe ‘en Vessie’.

It appears tableside in a pig’s bladder, inflated like a football, which the waiter gives a little shake, like it’s a giant maraca that’s lost its handle, to mix the cheese, pepper and pasta.

Then comes the theatre, as the bladder is sliced, deflating like a punctured beach ball, splitting open to reveal its riches.

The rigatoni is cooked true al dente, with more than enough bite to please the most fastidious Italian connoisseur (and possibly too much for an absolute pasta beginner).

The flavour is something else.

Lido 84’s Cacio e Pepe ‘en Vessie’ is a dish truly worth writing home about, yours for €15 a head (minimum two people). Not bad for a ‘fancy’ restaurant. And then there’s that view of the lake! ristorantelido84.com

Also On the Shortlist — Gazela Porto (‘Hot Dog’) Obana Tokyo (Unajyu) Trishna Mumbai (Garlic Butter Crab) Yat Lok Hong Kong (Roast Goose) — Longlist — Anticuchos de la Tia Grimanesa Lima (Antichuchos de corazón) Bar Nestor San Sebastian (Tortilla) Barr Copenhagen (Schnitzel) Belle’s Hot Chicken Sydney (Hot Chicken) Bozar Brussels (Millefeuille) Butagumi Tokyo (Tonkatsu) Contramar Mexico City (Tuna Tostada) Elkano San Sebastian (Turbot) Fishman Lobster Clubhouse Toronto (Lobster Tower) Gazela Porto (‘Hot Dog’) Glover Court Suya Lagos (Suya) Hija de Sanchez Copenhagen (El Paul Taco) Lido 84 Lombardy (Cacio e Pepe ‘en Vessie’) Obana Tokyo (Unajyu) Pepe in Grani Caserta (Margherita Made Wrong) Pujol Mexico City (Mole Madre) Sungei Road Laksa Singapore (Laksa) Trishna Mumbai (Garlic Butter Crab) Yat Lok Hong Kong (Roast Goose) Zuni Cafe San Francisco (Roast Chicken)

It all began with caldo de mocotó, the traditional Brazilian calf’s foot soup, after which this wildly popular São Paulo restaurant was named. Such was the demand for Seu Zé Almeida’s mocotó back in the day – there would be queues out of the door for it – that his modest neighbourhood grocery store has grown to become one of the most cherished names in Brazilian gastronomy.

Still located on the same street in the working class neighbourhood of Vila Medeiros, Mocotó (est.1973) is now directed

by Almeida’s son, chef Rodrigo Oliveira.

For Oliveira, Mocotó tells the story of his family and of his land, of Seu Zé’s journey from the ‘sertão’ (back country) to an everexpanding city. “I believe that tradition and innovation are linked,” he says.

Visit Mocotó any day of the week, and you’ll see crowds of locals and tourists, labourers and celebrities packed round the linen-free tables, necking caipirinhas and chomping their way through Mocotó’s best-selling, secret recipe pork rinds (the restaurant sells as many as 2,700 orders a month). Weekends are the busiest times – the waiting time for a table can stretch to two or three hours then – when hungry diners pile in for specials of oxtail cooked in black beer with corn grits, roasted stuffed pork ribs with pineapple and manioc and (Sundays only) roasted lamb shoulder with corn couscous.

Waiter Josafá has been working the floor since 1980 and Seu Zé himself, now 80, still helps out. “The way we treat people, the way we welcome them at our restaurants is a really important part of the experience,” says Oliveira. “For me, hospitality as a general concept is the key.” mocoto.com.br

Kiln

Also On the Shortlist — Clamato Paris Deli fu cious Tokyo Kiln London Retrobottega Rome — Longlist — Aje Kiyacho Donguri Koyto Baest Copenhagen Black Axe Mangal London Bombay Canteen Mumbai Brown Sugar Kitchen San Francisco Burnt Ends Singapore Clamato Paris Deli fu cious Tokyo Double Dragon Paris Kiln London La Cova Fumada Barcelona Mocotó São Paulo Okra Hong Kong Parks BBQ Los Angeles Retrobottega Rome The Anchorage Greenville Wild Air New York Yakinku Yuji Tokyo

THE WORLD RESTAURANT AWARDS X RON ZACAPA

A RUM AGED ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Zacapa Master Blender of over 30 years, Lorena Vásquez

AGED TO PERFECTION IN THE HIGHLANDS OF QUETZALTENANGO, ZACAPA IS AN AWARD-WINNING AND EXQUISITE TASTING RUM BOASTING A RICH HERITAGE

exquisite liquid, but also through Lorena’s work to support local ‘petate’ weavers who hand-craft the intricate bands that adorn every bottle of Zacapa 23.

The ‘Sistema Solera’ is Zacapa’s chosen method of maturation, adapted from the traditional process of aging Spanish sherry, whereby a diverse range of rums in both character and age are carefully blended and matured in barrels that previously held American whiskeys, delicate sherries and Pedro Ximenez wines. At ‘The House Above the Clouds’ casks are changed every time a new mixture is realised, resulting in rums that boast extraordinary depths of flavour. For Zacapa, time matters more than anything. It is a focus throughout every stage of the distilling process, from blending spirits of different ages and personalities and storing the liquid in selected barrels during the maturing process, right up to taking the time to sip, savour and enjoy the liquid. Zacapa’s distinctive depth of flavour, rich aroma and versatility make it the perfect ingredient for cocktails.

Up in the grassy plains of the Guatemalan countryside, nestled between an array of spectacular mountaintops and active volcanoes, hides a dedicated operation committed to producing the world’s finest rum. This is ‘The House Above the Clouds’.

At 2,300 feet above sea level, the unique ecosystem of a temperate climate at high altitude, volcanic soils and highly skilled distillation techniques unite to produce Zacapa, the gold award-winning rum.

For over 30 years now Lorena Vásquez has been Zacapa’s Master Blender. One of a small number of female Master Blenders in the world, Lorena is a master of her craft and self-professed perfectionist. Passionate about Guatemalan traditions and the art of crafting premium rum, for Vásquez being a Master Blender is not just a profession but a way of life. The result of this passion can not only be experienced through the taste of this 20

Top: The highlands of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, home to Zacapa’s aging facility, ‘The House Above The Clouds’, 2,300 feet above sea level.

Above: ‘Sistema Solera’, Zacapa’s maturing process, whereby rums of varying ages are blended in barrels that previously held whiskey and sherries, to give Zacapa its extraordinary depth of flavour.

To experience this distinctive depth of flavour try Zacapa’s signature serve, the OldFashioned, regarded by bartenders as the most respectful way of honouring a good liquid. With its rich and warming notes, it’s the perfect cocktail to enjoy among friends before or after a meal. www.zacaparum.com

THE PERFECT SERVE: ZACAPA OLD-FASHIONED INGREDIENTS 50ml Ron Zacapa 1 x demerara sugar cube 3 x dot of chocolate bitters Garnish - Grapefruit twist 1 x large ice cube METHOD Place a sugar cube in a tumbler and add two dashes of chocolate bitters. Muddle it down with 25ml of Ron Zacapa 23 rum.

Add an ice cube and stir together until the ice has diluted and the sugar has dissolved.

Add another 25ml of Ron Zacapa 23 rum and stir together.

Fill the glass with ice and garnish with grapefruit peel.

OFF-MAP DESTINATION REMOTE RESTAURANTS WHERE THE JOURNEY TO GET THERE IS A STORY

ORIGINAL THINKING HIGHLIGHTING ENVELOPEPUSHING CREATIVITY AND ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

WINNER — WOLFGAT PATERNOSTER, SOUTH AFRICA

WINNER — LE CLARENCE PARIS, FRANCE

Although only a couple of hours drive north of Cape Town, on South Africa’s Western Cape, the sleepy fishing village of Paternoster, famous for its lobster, feels like another world. It’s home to Wolfgat, named after a famous cave of geographical and archaeological significance, that lies beneath the premises.

It’s a restaurant of idyllic rustic dreams, an intimate 20-seat dining room with an ocean view, housed in a converted 130-year-old whitewashed fisherman’s beach cottage, the likes of which are dotted along the western coast, brightly painted boats outside providing the occasional sunbleached splash of colour.

The South Atlantic doesn’t just provide a pretty view and the soothing soundtrack of surf crashing. Kobus van der Merwe, Wolfgat’s chef and driving force, builds much of his menu – an exercise in the hyperlocal, perfectly balanced between creativity and accessibility – around local fresh catch and dresses his dishes with wild herbs and seaweeds, which he forages from the dunes and rockpools along the shore.

He describes his seasonal, seven-course tasting menus as ‘Strandveld food’, after the region, and makes a point of listing wild ingredients and those that grow wild in his garden under each dish description in italics. A plate of fat ‘Saldanha Bay mussels, Tjokka (Afrikaans for squid), cauliflower, wild garlic, masala and sambals’, for example, is supplemented by ‘Tulbaghia violacea’, a flowering plant also known as society garlic.

They also keep things local on the wine list, with a selection of Strandveld’s finest. wolfgat.co.za

Also On the Shortlist — Bootshaus Traunkirchen Mil Maras Riley’s Fish Shack Tynemouth Tokuyamazushi Shiga — Longlist — Bootshaus Traunkirchen Balikci Bodrum Bodrum Boca Valdivia Puerto Cayo Brae Birreburra Chez St Pierre Rimouski Cuz’s Uptown Barbecue Pounding Mill Faviken Järpen Franklin Hobart Iya Buea Buea Kadeau Bornholm Bornholm Koks Leynavatn L’Argine a Venco Udine La Madia Licata La Marine Noirmoutier-en-l’Île Loch Bay Isle of Skye Longjing Manor Longjing Mil Maras Panga Playa Venao Raymonds St John’s Reale Casadonna Castel di Sangro AQ Riley’s Fish Shack Tynemouth Samuay & Sons Udon Thani Slippurinn Vestmannaeyjabær Sportsman Whitstable The Crazy Pomegranate Tibaani Roots Lyttelton The Willows Inn Lummi Island Tokuyamazushi Shiga Wolfgat Paternoster

Behind the thick carpets and marbles of the most typically French of hotels lies the most contemporary lab one could dream of. Here there are no limits: Le Clarence is a UFO. You might expect extreme fanciness, the art of Belles Manières brought up to soften any possible edgy stuff, but on the contrary you get instead a cuisine burning like a candle at both ends, always with no safety net.

And that’s the way Christophe Pelé really is – a driving force behind the whole team, not just the chef in control. Beware! When he cooks, when he jerks into his fasttrack, high-speed slang, it’s a stream of consciousness redolent of James Joyce – but so French, so so Parisian, a misfit in his most beautiful lair just behind the ChampsElysées. Christophe Pelé is the real thing.

Look no further for the future of French cuisine. This is where accomplished perfectionism and rock’n’roll attitude merge. Fear no repetition, at Le Clarence improvisation is the breath of life. Triple wow! What a smack! Please don’t wake me up. But it’s for real and not just a dream: Le Clarence is here to stay. The only place where Fine Dining never forgets to be Fun Dining too. What a kick, indeed! le-clarence.paris

Le Clarence

Also On the Shortlist — Enigma Barcelona Ikoyi London Mugaritz San Sebastian Noma Copenhagen — Longlist — Amass Copenhagen Aponiente Cádiz Borago Santiago Den Tokyo Enigma Barcelona Ernst Berlin Gaggan Bangkok Ikoyi London In Situ San Francisco La Grenouillere La Madelaine-sousMontreuil Le Clarence Paris Mugaritz San Sebastian Noma Copenhagen Reale Casadonna Castel di Sangro AQ Saint Peter Sydney Vespertine Los Angeles

RESTAURANT F THE YEAR: WOLFGAT IF MOTHER NATURE ERECTED A SIGN SAYING ‘BUILD RESTAURANT HERE’, IT WOULD SURELY POINT TO WOLFGAT. CHOSEN FROM ALL THE INSPECTED BIG PLATES, OUR INAUGURAL RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR IS A SMALL, REMOTE HAVEN OF PURITY AND GOOD TASTE IN EVERY SENSE The unanimous choice of our inspection panel is a picturesque oceanside dining room on South Africa’s Western Cape.

With our inspectors spread across multiple time zones and continents, the intense discussions to decide the winner from all of the inspected ‘Big Plates’ took place over a long weekend in a very 2019 fashion: via a flurry of FaceTime calls and an impassioned WhatsApp group.

Even without looking at the pictures of Wolfgat – the whitewashed cottage, the golden sand – our inspectors’ report makes you want to book a flight to Cape Town and drive on up the coast to Paternoster in a hurry: “The place is super simple, rustic yet perfectly elegant. We sat by the fireplace. The restaurant is directly on the beach with an ocean view. We could watch the fishermen go out, come back and empty the catch from their brightly coloured boats. The village of Paternoster is stucco white, like somewhere in Greece, charming and not touristy. Essentially, it’s a dream of perfect balance, unspoilt charm and accessibility. You know that feeling you get when you feel that you are among the first people to discover a place?”

Wolfgat is very much driven by its chefowner and catering college dropout Kobus van der Merwe. “I didn’t complete my course [because I was] determined not to end up cooking in an industrial hotel kitchen,” he explains. “I dropped out and went travelling.” He eventually came home and ended up working as an online journalist for South African publication Eat Out, but in 2010 he left that job and Cape Town behind to run his parents’ country store in Paternoster.

He also helped out with their restaurant, Oep ve Koep, which at the time had a 22

short menu of mostly fish and chips.

Kobus gradually changed the menu and wrote on the blackboard outside: “Hyperlocal, considered, heritage, slow, seasonal Strandveld food served here.”

In early 2017 he stepped back from Oep ve Koep to open Wolfgat and pursue his vision. A collaboration with the botanist Rupert Koopman on the cookbook Strandveld Food helped increase his knowledge of the veld, its wild plants and the coastal bounty of seaweed, which today inform his style of cooking. That style is seasonal, inspired by the weather, with a naturalist approach and minimum intervention, so that the ingredients – especially the wild and the foraged – come into their own.

It feels like a restaurant that’s giving back to the community. All of its team are locals, many of them from fishing families, have never worked in a restaurant before and have trained on the job. Kobus is a believer in doing away with the traditional hierarchy of kitchen and front of house. The restaurant is very much a team effort and there is only one team.

He also comes across as someone who understands the importance of work-life balance and says of Wolfgat, “By keeping it small, we keep it sustainable.”

Don’t expect the 20 or so diners they take each sitting to increase any time soon.

BY KEEPING IT SMALL, WE KEEP IT SUSTAINABLE

wolfgat.co.za

KOBUS VAN DER MERWE, CHEF-OWNER, WOLFGAT

ON THE MENU — SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD, LOCAL LAMB AND VENISON, SEASONAL ‘VELDKOS’, ENHANCED BY WILD HERBS, SEAWEEDS FROM THE LOCAL ROCK POOLS AND PICKINGS FROM THE GARDEN

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07/02/2019 15:17

SMALL PLATES

OUR ‘SMALL PLATES’ ARE ABOUT RECOGNISING CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL NUANCES WHILE (WITH TONGUE FIRMLY IN CHEEK) ATTEMPTING TO SUBVERT CURRENT GASTRONOMIC FASHION AND ALSO MAKE A POINT OF CHAMPIONING TRADITION, BOTH CULINARY AND LITERARY

INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT OF THE YEAR PICKED FROM THE RESTAURANT WORLD’S SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM OF CHOICE

LONG-FORM JOURNALISM BECAUSE THE WORLD STILL NEEDS IN-DEPTH RESTAURANT WRITING

WINNER — ALAIN PASSARD PARIS, FRANCE

WINNER — LISA ABEND, FOOL MAGAZINE ‘THE FOOD CIRCUS’

The old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words rings true when you consider how much more positive a social media space Instagram is compared with Twitter and Facebook.

The impact of Instagram on the restaurant industry cannot be overstated. Not only does it provide a powerful marketing tool, it connects the restaurant world together in a way that didn’t seem possible a mere handful of years ago.

When it comes to using Instagram to raise your restaurant profile, it’s not only the young guns that have excelled. Alain Passard, the driving force of Arpège in Paris, has brought his talents to a whole new audience via this social medium and gained quite a following since picking up his smartphone for the first time in March 2015.

Shots of produce, lots of fruit and veg naturally, and some stunning plating are regularly interspersed with the occasional portrait of himself successfully playing the chef as gracefully ageing rock star. That’s not to mention his obsession with roast chicken: from shots of the bubbling chicken skin, to the comedy of his vertical chicken and the hilarious hybrid that is his Chickenlobster. Or is it a lobster chicken? @Alain_passard

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Also On the Shortlist — Margaret Lam Matty Matheson — Longlist — Alain Passard Bo Bech David Chang Dominique Crenn Jordi Roca Margaret Lam Matty Matheson Mugaritz Yotam Ottolenghi René Redzepi Sean Brock Perm Paitayawat

British director and video maker Julian Temple shot in 1980 The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, swan song on film of the last days of the Sex Pistols breaking up. It took American born Madrid veteran and now Copenhagen-based journalist and food writer Lisa Abend 10 years of mingling undercover and setting up close encounters from behind the lines to document and perfect the storytelling of The Food Circus.

All the little arrangements, the niceties, the conflicts of interest, the PR havoc, the decline of desk journalists and the boom of the influencers, plus the inevitable compromises and unremitting bribes that feed today’s restaurant business – it’s The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle of gastronomy as we know it.

It’s all here: the pandemonium of the fine dining divas, the mercato of celebrities, the agitation of food congresses, the starlet chefs, jet-lagged and zombied by six months of promotional tours in a row, far from their restaurants and families, to grant media attention and climb the ladders of all possible lists.

You might stumble on such a daring, funny, rampaging and groundbreaking long read like this only once in a lifetime. Lisa has written the first chapter of The Black Book of gastronomy. Make your reader tremble!

She stabs – like Ronan Farrow did with the Hollywood moguls and #metoo – where it hurts. And it’s utterly joyful. @LisaAbend

Also On the Shortlist — Helen Rosner New Yorker ‘What Jonathan Gold meant for food writing’ Jonathan Gold LA Times ‘Anthony Bourdain Opened the Working Class Kitchen to the World’ — Longlist — Amanda Cohen Esquire ‘Now You Finally Care About Female Chefs’ Bee Wilson The Guardian ‘Why We Fell for Clean Eating’ Elizabeth Dunn The New Yorker ‘How Delivery Apps May Put Your Favorite Restaurant Out of Business’ Helen Rosner New Yorker ‘What Jonathan Gold meant for food writing’ Jonathan Gold LA Times ‘Anthony Bourdain Opened the Working Class Kitchen to the World’ Lisa Abend Fool Magazine ‘The Food Circus’

RED-WINE SERVING RESTAURANT FOR THOSE WHO SHUN CURRENT FASHION BY STILL CHAMPIONING THE RED GRAPE

TATTOO-FREE CHEF FOR TOQUE STARS WHOSE BODIES AREN’T CANVASES

WINNER — NOBLE ROT LONDON, UK

WINNER — ALAIN DUCASSE PARIS, FRANCE

Roscioli

Once upon a time, during the hard times of the Second World War, a tattoo was a symbol of belonging to a tribe that swam against the tide. Today, being ‘ink free’ means just being yourself, pure and simple, focusing on what’s next, without chasing after mass-marketed allegiances.

‘Sex & Drugs & Pinot Noir’ is the strapline of the magazine that became the restaurant, and that is now available printed on rather stylish tote bags. It’s hard not to fall in love with Noble Rot, the restaurant and bar opened on the former site of Vats, a wine bar of the old school, with crap cooking and a clientele of ruddy faced men in chalk stripe suits, on London’s Lambs Conduit Street.

Noble Rot has retained some of that louche charm but its clientele – ‘Rotters’ – lack the red corduroys and matching complexion, although thankfully they do not lack for red wine. Because although Noble Rot has been a driving force in making wine bars cool again, it does not fall into the trap – as so many fashionable new wave restaurants and wine bars do – of championing white wine over red. Which is worth raising a glass of claret to. noblerot.co.uk

And the winner is... the chef who truly goes his own way – who makes trends and doesn’t just follow ready-made ones.

‘Old School’ you might call him – wrongly.

Because you don’t need to go down the ‘body art’ route, to cover yourself from nose to nail in otherworldly hieroglyphs, to exude that quality so important in a cutting-edge chef: individuality.

Also On the Shortlist — Le Baratin Paris Roscioli Rome — Longlist — Atrio Cáceres Attica Melbourne Bern’s Steakhouse Florida El Celler De Can Roca Girona Hide London Le Baratin Paris Lost in a Forest Uraidla Mosaic Pretoria Noble Rot London Petrus Hong Kong Piazza Duomo Alba Roscioli Rome The Grill New York The Yeatman Porto

The proud winner of this award is a man who is always ahead of his time, always hungry for knowledge and with an insatiable appetite for new challenges.

Sure, he is no hipster; he sports no beard nor trendy clothes; he likes his jackets tailored to fit. But the man is very chic. He even called his Tokyo restaurant Beige in homage to Coco Chanel.

Alain Ducasse is a true individual. So why the hell would we expect him to waste time and money (there is never enough of either for him) on a daft tattoo, like almost every other fashionable chef in the world? ducasse-paris.com

Also On the Shortlist — Clare Smyth David Thompson — Longlist — Alain Ducasse Albert Adria Antonia Klugmann Bo Songvisava Clare Smyth David Thompson Fergus Henderson Isaac McHale Joshua Skenes Magnus Nilsson Mauro Colagreco Niklas Ekstedt Paul Cunningham René Redzepi Richard Corrigan Rodolfo Guzmán Thomas Frebel Victor Arguinzoniz

TROLLEY OF THE YEAR FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE TABLESIDE SERVICE SHOULD ALWAYS BE IN FASHION

TWEEZER-FREE KITCHEN SEARCHING FOR A MORE HANDS-ON STYLE OF PLATING

WINNER — BALLYMALOE HOUSE CORK, IRELAND

WINNER — BO.LAN BANGKOK, THAILAND

The sight of a trolley trundling majestically towards your table is one of the joys of old-fashioned restaurant service. This style of serving customers nearly died out when chefs started plating food in the kitchen; only the cheese chariot surviving largely unscathed. But thankfully the theatre of tableside service is back in fashion.

Otto’s

Tweezers are about as sexy as metal pants.

They take away all the fun of cooking.

When was the last time you saw chefs really braving the fire, doing everything with their hands? Search for the new résistants, but beware: you might have to fly to Bangkok to find them.

At Ballymaloe House in Cork, the sweet trolley never really went out of fashion. The original wooden cart was made in the early 1960s by carpenter Danny Power to Myrtle Allen’s specifications: a top shelf with ledge and another underneath for plates and serving utensils.

For the last decade the trolley’s contents have been overseen by head pastry chef JR Ryall. Expect homemade ice creams and granitas, always a tart of some kind, whatever stone fruit is in season, poached and swimming in a sweet syrup, a panna cotta, a crème brûlée and maybe a fruit fool served with his trademark heartshaped shortbread biscuits.

At Ballymaloe House, “Would you like to see the sweet trolley?” is a rhetorical question. Of course you would. ballymaloe.ie

Tweezers get us mad. Mums use them to stick up our noses, wives to pull out grey hairs from our ears. Ouch! But worst of all are chefs flouncing around with a pair of tweezers hung in the pocket of their whites, like a Mont Blanc pen.

Also on the Shortlist — Otto’s London The Grill New York — Longlist — Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée Paris Ballymaloe House Cork Diana Bologna El Cellar De Can Roc Girona Eleven Madison Park New York Feitoria Lisbon Hertog Jan Brugges Inn at Little Washington Washington Koi Palace San Francisco Kong Hans Copenhagen Mirazur Nice Otto’s London State Bird Provisions San Francisco Steirereck Vienna The Grill New York

Visit Bo and Dylan, a Thai/Yankee couple at their Bo.lan restaurant, to really check out the difference when food is one hundred per cent hand made. It might lack the scientific, cold-tweezered precision of some schools of culinary thought, but you get instead all the warmness of life, the always different, imperfect, heartfelt beauty of every single dish.

Ask Bo and Dylan; they will tell you that a restaurant should not be a surgery, and definitely not a factory production line.

Working with your hands, making your place a tweezer-free zone, is reacting against conformity to boost the human contact, to celebrate the diversity of gestures and to banish for good what cult philosopher Herbert Marcuse once called “One-Dimensional Man”.

Get rid of your tweezers! Who really needs ‘one-dimensional cuisine’? bolan.co.th

Also On the Shortlist — Black Axe Mangal London Racines Paris — Longlist — Au Pied de Cochon Montreal Black Axe Mangal London Bo.Lan Bangkok Boon Cafe Sydney Burnt Ends Singapore Depot Eatery Auckland Dirt Candy New York Firedoor Sydney Il Portico Appiano Gentile L’Endroit Dakar Le Baratin Paris Lido 84 Lombardy Mocotó São Paulo Prado Lisbon Racines Paris Rochelle Canteen London Black Axe Mangal

THE WORLD RESTAURANT AWARDS X THE PERENNIAL FARMING INITIATIVE

WHAT RESTAURANTS CAN DO ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE MOST OF A RESTAURANT’S GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS COME FROM THE PRODUCTION OF ITS INGREDIENTS BUT THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT CLIMATEFRIENDLY FARMING CAN ACTUALLY PULL C02 FROM THE AIR AND TURN IT BACK INTO HEALTHY SOIL

Composting.

Spreading the message that food can be a solution.

~ STE WA OD FO

Conserving energy and reducing consumption and waste.

REDIENTS ~ 64% G N I

Going carbon-neutral with zero ‘foodprint’.

4%

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RTATION ~2% VT NSPO TRA

Sourcing from climate-friendly farms and ranches.

EN ER G YE TC

~

29 %

CHEFS CAN HELP BY...

BUILD HEALTHY SOIL COMPOST Putting nutrients back into the soil creates better food and fights climate change.

SOURCE FROM FARMS WITH A HIGH PERCENTAGE OF ‘SOIL ORGANIC MATTER’ Ask your farmer or rancher for the SOM%. This number means more than a certification.

SOURCE CARBON RANCHED OR 100% PASTURED MEAT New data from carbon ranching programmes shows that a hectare of healthy pasture can draw down the same volume of greenhouse gases every year as is created by burning 6,000 litres of petrol.

Animals – and cows in particular – are crucial to restoring rangeland ecosystems. The benefits of soil restoration radically outweigh cow burps and farts.

Grazing animals can be climate beneficial, but currently we mismanage 99% of beef production.

GO CARBON NEUTRAL Compost application, cover cropping, no-till farming and crop rotation are as impactful as putting up solar panels and planting trees. Good farms draw down greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and improve flavour, nutrient density and water conservation.

Think of the way that renewable energy sources improve the grid – chefs can create a renewable food system. perennialfarming.org

THE WORLD RESTAURANT AWARDS OFFICIAL SUPPLIERS

WINE BIRD IN HAND

COFFEE CARON LE CAFÉ

Bird in Hand creates cool-climate wines with a global reach, each one its own special tribute to pleasure. Their philosophy is to give the world a taste of the good life.

Bird in Hand celebrates place and passion not only through expert vinification but through art, food, design, philanthropy and community. At the heart of all their farming is sustainability. To improve the land, soil and environment is the founding principle on which all else is built. birdinhand.com.au

Established at the gates of Paris, the Caron coffee house roasts the best arabica grands crus to produce speciality coffees every day. Gustatory signature of the House, the Caron Le Café is a blend of four arabicas sourced from Brazil, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Ethiopia, which develop a remarkable aromatic bouquet and slight sour hints, revealing some brioche and toffee flavours. cafecaron.com

CHOCOLATE CEMOI Heir to a tradition and know-how of more than 200 years, Cémoi uses its expertise to supply chocolate professionals throughout the world. From bean to finished product, Cémoi masters every stage of the production process. With its 15 production sites, Cémoi is the leading chocolate maker in France and a master in the art of transforming cocoa into chocolate. Tradition and trust are its keywords. Cémoi is a quality brand, recognised by chefs, artisans and numerous Meilleurs Ouvriers de France. group.cemoi.com

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SOFT DRINKS ALAIN MILLIAT Since 1997, Alain Milliat has been creating exquisite juices and nectars. He professes a disruptive approach: instead of regarding juices as a way to consume fruits, he sees them as a completely separate experience of pleasure and offers aficionados a tasting full of emotions. He imagines exquisite juices with sublime colour, texture and aromatic profile and that faithfully engineer every single characteristic of the fruit. Alain selects varieties that are inaccessible to industrial producers and transforms them at optimum ripeness. The 37 flavours grace the best tables in France and abroad. alain-milliat.com

Q&A KARSTEN OTTENBERG

Karsten Ottenberg, Gaggenau Partner Advisor and CEO of the brand’s mother company BSH Hausgeräte, is a man who, not surprisingly, appreciates both artistry and innovation in the kitchen. On an icy cold January morning at the Gaggenau showroom in Munich, just a few hours before addressing an audience of 2,500 delegates from the company, he took some time out to share his culinary preferences with Andrea Petrini, Chair of The World Restaurant Awards Judging Panel.

“When I’m at home, I really enjoy cooking and I also love to travel and try different dining experiences around the world. For example, not long ago my wife wanted to celebrate my birthday and she gave me the choice: either we organise a big party and invite all our friends, or we seize the opportunity and treat ourselves to a journey to another part of the world. We decided on the latter and travelled together, just the two of us, on a romantic escape to South Africa.

“I really recommend it. We had an incredible time in a charming, classy hotel, far away from the frantic rhythm of our daily life. South Africa has a wonderful array of cuisines that really need to be explored before it inevitably becomes the official ‘next food destination’.

“Nearer to home, there are many excellent restaurants where I like to dine out with my wife and family. We are spoilt for choice. I’m also fortunate that my work for Gaggenau takes me to different parts of the world, which allows me a further opportunity to visit fantastic restaurants and meet incredible chefs.

“If I had to pick one particular style of cuisine, I would probably say that the one that really fills my heart, the one I am most comfortable with is what I would call the ‘French-Bavarian’. But I am by no means exclusive. I truly appreciate different styles.

But I also admit to having a particular keenness for Italian food and wines.

“I would not call myself an adventurous diner – like everyone else, I have my favourites and I particularly appreciate classic fine dining – but I am receptive to more progressive creations. For example, one of my most memorable meals was at Gaggan in Bangkok.

“I can also remember every one of the many fantastic meals that I’ve enjoyed at L’Arpège in Paris. What a marvellous chef Alain Passard is. He even managed to astonish my 20-year-old son when he presented us with his beetroot tartare: so flavourful, so intense, it almost tasted like meat!”

So if you had been a member of The World Restaurant Awards Judging Panel, which restaurants would you have voted for?

“Let’s start with the Arrival of the Year, for which I would propose not one but two local places I have enjoyed over the last two years. The first one is Egerner Höfe Gourmetrestaurant Dichterstub’n on Lake Tegernsee, just around the corner, more or less, from where I live. It offers honest, genuine and very satisfying alpine cuisine.

“The other is Senns in Salzburg, which has a rather creative attitude to food. In fact, for its industrial design and originality, I would also nominate this restaurant, for the Atmosphere award, along with, of course, Daniel Humm’s Eleven Madison Park in New York.”

LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, I HAVE MY FAVOURITES AND I PARTICULARLY APPRECIATE CLASSIC FINE DINING, BUT I AM RECEPTIVE TO MORE PROGRESSIVE CREATIONS

Forward Drinking: “For this one my vote undoubtedly goes to Billy Wagner’s Nobelhart & Schmutzig in Berlin. This is an interesting, locally sourced restaurant where Wagner pursues a really thoughtprovoking attitude to wine pairings, picking up interesting, well chosen bottles mostly from Germany, Austria, France and Italy, but also from around the world.”

House Special: “I must say I was really impressed years ago by one of André Chiang’s most famous signature dishes, his foie gras mousse with black truffles and fresh chives. Incredibly tasty.”

No Reservations Required: “I would say...

Les Amis in Singapore, definitively a classic French fine dining restaurant where, of course, it’s wiser to book in advance but also relatively easy to pop by and walk in.”

Off-Map Destination: “I would drive for hours and cross half of England at least once a year to go back to one of my favourite places, Gidleigh Park. A charming manoir with a classy, French inclined restaurant, situated close to the Dartmoor

National Park, it’s a real gem hidden away in the Devon countryside.”

Original Thinking: “Let’s face it, who else than Massimo Bottura and his amazing Osteria Francescana for this award?”

Last but not least, what would be your first choice, your personal favourite for the title of Restaurant of the Year?

“After much consideration, I would nominate Simon Taxacher’s restaurant at the Rosengarten hotel in the Tirol mountains.

Simon excels at being imaginative while still remaining classically rooted. It’s a perfect fine dining experience that I truly recommend, especially in summer time when his artistic use of seasonal vegetables and herbs is breathtaking.”

Gaggenau is a proud partner of The World Restaurant Awards. Discover more about Gaggenau, including its new culinary initiative ‘Respected by Gaggenau’: gaggenau.com/respected

THE WORLD RESTAURANT AWARDS X COLLÈGE CULINAIRE

COLLÈGE CULINAIRE FOUNDED BY 15 INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNISED FRENCH CHEFS, THE COLLÈGE CULINAIRE DE FRANCE IS A NETWORK OF RESTAURATEURS AND PRODUCERS THAT PROMOTES FRENCH ARTISANAL GASTRONOMIC HERITAGE The Collège is currently comprised of more than 1,700 restaurants and over 700 producers and winemakers. To ensure the continuous improvement of French culinary heritage, this community of individuals collectively provide regular opportunities for proactive conversations between producers and restaurateurs. college-culinaire-de-france.fr

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THE WORLD RESTAURANT AWARDS X SINGAPORE TOURISM BOARD

THE CULINARY RICHES OF SINGAPORE WE ARE PROUD TO BE WORKING WITH TALENTED CHEFS AND MIXOLOGISTS FROM SINGAPORE VIA OUR COLLABORATION WITH THE SINGAPORE TOURISM BOARD HERE ARE THE DISHES AND COCKTAILS THAT THEY HAVE CREATED ESPECIALLY FOR THE INAUGURAL EDITION OF THE WORLD RESTAURANT AWARDS visitsingapore.com

Alexander Pang New Ubin Seafood

Hokkien Mee As the name suggests, this dish is one of the culinary specialties of the Hokkien immigrants (a Chinese dialect group) who came from south-eastern China to Malaysia and Singapore in the 1800s. The general ingredients of Hokkien Mee are deceptively simple: yellow and white noodles, prawns and pork stock and beaten egg but the execution of this dish is an art. Properly prepared, the yellow and white noodles are double-fried - once on their own to singe the edge and again when braised with the tangy prawn and sweet pork stock. The addition of baby squid, calamari, clams, belly pork and pork lard adds additional layers to both the texture and taste of a Singapore household favourite.

Justin Quek JustIN Flavours of Asia

Singapore Chilli Crab Beignet In Singapore-meets-Paris fashion, Chef Justin combines Singapore’s quintessential chilli crab dish with French-style beignets to create a true fusion dish that melds flavours and cultures from both cities together.

This dish is reflective of Justin’s decadelong relationship with France. He embarked on his culinary training in France at a young age and then returned to Singapore to create his signature brand of Franco-Asian cuisine. This dish is a perfect embodiment of Justin’s Asian heritage, his extensive experience in Europe and his training in French cuisine.

Black Pepper Soft Shell Crab Without a doubt, the two most popular styles of cooking crabs in Singapore are either with chilli or black pepper sauce.

Whilst chilli crab is generally a gravy-rich dish containing egg white, tomato ketchup and ground chilli, black pepper crab is distinguished by the sticky, peppery sauce that clings to the crab shell and meat.

Cheryl Koh Tarte by Cheryl Koh

Jaden Ong Nutmeg & Clove

Coconut Madeleine with Fresh Pandan Kaya Curd Coconut madeleines served with a dip of luscious Pandan Kaya curd.

Slinging Lion A spirit-forward take on the iconic Singapore Sling, aged for two weeks in a charred oak barrel, where fruity, floral and tea flavours are married into one cocktail.

Chef Cheryl Koh draws her inspiration for this dessert from Pandan Kaya, a popular spread in Singapore made with coconut milk, eggs and infused with Pandan, a fragrant tropical plant known for its unique and sweet aroma.

Cemoi Chocolate Tart with a Singapore Twist A dark chocolate tart dusted with a generous serving of chocolate malt powder.

In the creation of this dessert, Cheryl was largely inspired by an iconic Singapore beverage, which is made by adding a generous amount of undissolved chocolate malt powder to a glass of iced chocolate malt drink.

Nutmeg & Clove X Three Sheets London Collaboration Drink Nicknamed the Singapore Old-Fashioned, this tipple is a beautiful marriage of the sweet, complex notes of Zacapa rum with the sea-smoky notes of Talisker whisky and the fragrance of coconut pandan, finished with the tannins of the tea bitters.

This inventive drink is also a spin on the well-known Singapore Nasi Lemak dish, which is a fragrant rice dish cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaf, served with other condiments.

Coincidentally, the secret to making a great black pepper crab sauce is similar to what makes French fare so delicious: butter, butter, butter. And only the best French butter will do. Coarsely crushed black pepper corns are fried in butter with dark soy and oyster sauce, until the sauce caramelises and thickens. It is then fried with crab. Although mud crabs are generally used, Alexander has today added a slight twist by lacing deep-fried, crisp soft-shell crabs with his black pepper sauce instead.

We believe this approach is more likely to keep hands clean and shirts white.

Soya Marinated Foie Gras and Pork Belly Bun, English Mustard Similarly representing Justin’s Franco-Asian cuisine and culinary philosophy is this dish – his take on the ubiquitous Singaporean pork belly bun, where the meat has been braised in an aromatic mixture of soya sauce, cinnamon, star anise, Sichuan pepper and more. Justin adds a French twist to this by introducing the foie gras cooked in a Chinese herbal soy sauce mix no less, resulting in a dish that is representative of both cities.

© Xavier Lahache

Q&A ANTOINE DE CAUNES

What better choice than Antoine de Caunes, French entertainment legend, to host The World Restaurant Awards?

The man has style, humour and taste in abundance. Here, in conversation with Joe Warwick, he shares his thoughts on his favourite Japanese restaurants in Paris, eating crickets, the world’s best wine shop, going off-map in Normandy and cassoulet deliveries.

“What do you want to talk about?”

Are you interviewing me?

“No, that’s your job…”

Shall we talk about restaurants and food?

“That would make sense.”

Ok… what’s your Arrival of the Year?

“It didn’t open in the last year but I love Tenzo by Hissa. It’s a fantastic kaiseki place on the Rue Saint Honoré in Paris.

The chef is a real master; he had a sushi place before. He’s now doing what he calls ‘new Japanese cuisine’, which is a mix of traditional recipes and his own inspiration with some strange spices and fruits. It’s fantastic.”

What would be your pick for Atmosphere of the Year?

“I love J Sheekey in London. I usually go there late after a day of shooting when it’s very quiet. It’s very comfy and oldfashioned. It’s timeless. You get this sense that you could be in any time, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 100 years ago…”

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Speaking of which, what would be your Enduring Classic?

“Does it have to be a good restaurant?”

It’s got to be good enough that you still like eating there.

“I love a very old-fashioned place in Paris called Les Gourmet des Ternes. It’s an old bistro, it really looks like somewhere from the 1940s, nothing has changed. It’s a meat place. It’s very plain and simple, just good food. A normal place.”

What was the last great food or restaurant event that you went to?

“A few years ago I went to a very strange banquet for explorers from all over the world. It was a huge party in New York.

The idea was to try strange food from all over the world, the sort of things that these explorers came across and ate when they were exploring. Snake, jellyfish, insects... some of it was tasty, delightful and surprising. I liked the roasted crickets. It was protein, it had the same texture and taste as shrimps.”

What’s your pick for Forward Drinking?

“There are plenty of exceptional wine lists in Paris. I only drink natural, organic wines now as that really makes a difference. There’s a place on Rue de La Banque that sells wine and spirits and has one of the best lists in the world, called Les Caves Legrands. They have everything and they offer very good advice. It’s a lovely area to visit too, with the Passage Vivienne and Place des Victoire nearby. When you go in there and start looking around, you don’t want to leave.”

What would be your House Special?

“There is a place in Castelnaudary called Hôtel de France and they used to do the best cassoulet in the world. You could order

I LOVE A VERY OLD FASHIONED PLACE IN PARIS CALLED LES GOURMET DES TERNES. IT’S AN OLD BISTRO, IT REALLY LOOKS LIKE SOMEWHERE FROM THE 1940S, NOTHING HAS CHANGED. IT’S A MEAT PLACE. IT’S VERY PLAIN AND SIMPLE, JUST GOOD FOOD. A NORMAL PLACE

it and they’d send it by train and you’d get it the next day. All you’d have to do was warm it up.”

How about No Reservations Required?

“I’m so very fond of Japanese food. There’s a sushi place that I think is the best in Paris, where I just go and sit at the counter, called Yamamoto and it’s on Rue Chabanais.”

Off-Map Destination?

“Trouville-sur-Mer in Normandy. There’s this little place called Tivoli. It’s owned by a couple – he cooks and she looks after the room. It’s mostly fish and the menu never changes. Nobody knows about it apart from the locals. The setting is not fantastic, it’s a plain looking place, but the food is great.”

I’m fascinated to hear your choice for Original Thinking?

“I haven’t been to Enigma yet but I visited Albert Adria’s Tickets in Barcelona a while back and I loved it.”

Highlights programme with Antoine de Caunes shown at The World Restaurant Awards provided with the kind permission of CANAL+. canalplus.fr Antoine was dressed for the awards ceremony by Paul Smith. paulsmith.com

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Beyond rare vintages

Recreating the perfect year

18/20

18.5*/20

93/100

Aug. 2017

Sept. 2017

Nov. 2017

*

“20th edition of Grand Siècle in Magnum (vintages 1999-1997-1996)”

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20/12/2018 12:26