De Librije out of the World’s 50 Best
Next week, the San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2018 will be announced. This week, numbers 51–100 were released as an amuse-bouche. And what do we see, to our horror? De Librije is no longer in the top 50.
The ‘World’s 50 best restaurants’ list is published annually by the British magazine Restaurant and is based on a poll among international chefs, restaurateurs, gourmands and restaurant critics. Precisely for that reason, it is often given more importance in the industry than all the guides compiled with the help of inspectors. In both cases, these are usually high-end establishments with a corresponding price tag and elaborate plating.
De Librije at 51
When we look at the list of runners-up, this year has seen a slaughter, particularly among Northern European restaurants. Our own De Librije in Zwolle, for example, had until now been the only Dutch establishment on the 50 Best list, with a respectable 34th place in 2017. But for 2018, Jonnie and Thérèse Boer’s restaurant has dropped to 51. This means that there are now no Dutch restaurants among the 50 best. Amber at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong, where Dutch chef Richard Ekkebus is at the helm, has fallen from number 24 in 2017 to number 56.
How high will the reopened Noma enter the top 50?
And that’s not all. The Belgians are slipping too. The Jane in Antwerp, owned by Dutchman Sergio Herman, has fallen from number 74 to 89, while Hof van Cleve in Kruishoutem dropped from 50 to 63. And because Gert de Mangeleer has announced that he will close his restaurant Hertog Jan in Bruges in December 2018, the establishment has already been removed from the list altogether, after holding position 61 last year. Even the Copenhageners, who could do no wrong for years, are taking hits: Relae has, for example, fallen from 39 to 71. We are curious to see how the recently reopened Noma will fare. Will that restaurant by René Redzepi immediately storm into the highest ranks?
Peru and Thailand
All these shifts also mean that we will encounter quite a few new names among the 50 best. It is highly unlikely that the recently awarded a third Michelin star, Inter Scaldes by Jannis and Claudia Brevet, will be among them. Last year, this restaurant did not even make the runners-up list. Experts whisper that there will be especially many restaurants from Peru and Thailand in the upper echelons, due to the growing flow of tourists to those two destinations.
Will the top 3 once again consist of Eleven Madison Park in New York (1), Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy (2), and El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain (3)? We will know next week.
View the full list from 100 to 51 here.
