Best restaurant in the world
You may still be saving up for dinner at Osteria Francescana, which was named the best restaurant in the world last spring. Keep saving for a second dinner for a little while longer. Restaurant Wolfgat in South Africa was named number one during the World Restaurant Awards.
Things sometimes move so quickly in the restaurant world that it can be difficult to keep up. Every year, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants reveals its list of the best restaurants, with Osteria Francescana coming out on top last June. The list is sponsored by San Pellegrino, and although it generates the most buzz, it also receives a lot of criticism. The same usual suspects are always on the list, for example. More than half are European, there are almost exclusively men on it, and every restaurant has an expensive tasting menu. At Wolfgat, you can already have a menu for €55. Now those are better prices, right?
More diverse
The World Restaurant Awards are judged by a panel consisting of roughly equal numbers of men and women, representing 37 different nationalities. They therefore say they are considerably more diverse themselves. This year, the award for restaurant of the year, as well as the award for ‘off-map destination’, goes to South Africa’s Wolfgat. The restaurant is located in Paternoster, a small fishing village on the coast of South Africa.
Indigenous ingredients
Chef Kobus van der Merwe gathers indigenous ingredients from the surrounding area himself and incorporates them into his menu. That does remind me a little of World’s 50 Best favourite René Redzepi of Noma. One major difference? At René’s, you pay €335 for a menu: about six times as much as the €55 you pay at Kobus’s. Although you’ll quickly make up that difference with the journey there.
Image: still from video
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