New: Oscars for restaurants
‘Best of’ lists always do well. Especially in the restaurant world. There are already plenty of them. But there hadn’t been one with an Oscar-style television show. That’s why, early next year: The World Restaurant Awards, the Oscars for restaurants. Without The Usual Suspects, they promise.
It’s not as if there aren’t already lists and guides that name the Best Restaurants in the World every year. From Michelin to Gault Millau and ‘The San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best’, they all honor the ‘best’ restaurants of our time. Often with a strikingly similar preference for expensive high-end establishments with a media-friendly (male) chef. An extra plus: an off the grid location. In any case, totally inaccessible to the average diner.
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Oscar show
Still, there’s room for another list: The World Restaurant Awards, to be presented for the first time during an Oscar-style television show in Paris. The difference from the other annual lists: not only the unaffordable high-end establishments that appear on every list will be rewarded. At least, that’s what organizer Joe Warwick promises. Indeed, the same one from the San Pellegrino list and from the bestsellers Where Chefs Eat and Where To Eat Pizza.
‘No conventional choices on this list’
What’s the plan? Under the leadership of Cook it Raw organizer Andrea Petrini, a ‘guaranteed gender-neutral’ jury of one hundred will, for once, not make the conventional choices, Warwick promises. Inclusion (the new buzzword) instead of exclusion. Yet his jury list so far also consists mainly of the usual suspects: mostly male, white, Western/Westernized, and each other’s BFFs. From René Redzepi and David Chang, to Alex Atala, Elena Arzak, and Massimo Bottura. Supplemented by some of the most well-traveled culinary journalists in the world.
Red carpet
The various categories for the list are still being considered, specifically to guarantee that inclusivity: old and new, luxury and simplicity. It is already known, however, that on February 18, 2019, the television lights will shine for the first time on the red carpet of the grand annual show to be organized in Paris. The goal: to celebrate the pleasure of eating, drinking, traveling, and progressiveness. All covered in a glammy sauce and served on a bed of sustainability. The latter takes the form of an adopted charitable cause supporting regenerative agriculture: The Perennial Farming Initiative. Whether, as at the Oscars, a comedian will provide cringe-inducing commentary remains unknown.
It would have been refreshing if the jury had also included (non-male) chefs from simple but amazing spots, old-fashioned classics, and restaurants in African and other culinary underrepresented regions. But who knows, that may still happen. For now, let’s give the list the benefit of the doubt.
