A comment on The Best 50 Restaurants in the World by Restaurant Magazine

I read the list of the world’s best fifty restaurants with great interest.

Of course by definition the list will be an aggregation of opinions.
Nevertheless it is hard to believe that based on any reasonable criteria Britain has achieved the highest number of entries in the top fifty (14) followed by the U.S.A. (10).
Britain is therefore better than France, Italy, Spain and Belgium!
Certainly the quality of food in Britain at all levels has improved over the last eight to ten years.

Most gastronomes would include the likes of The Fat Duck, El Bulli, Pierre Gagnaire, Restaurant Alain Ducasse,
Troisgros, L’Auberge de L’ill, French Laundry, Charlie Trotter and maybe Gordon Ramsey in their top 20.

The inclusion of The Ivy and The Wolseley in a top fifty is totally ludicrous as are The Waterside Inn, and Le Gavroche. Are the latter pair better in any respect than say L’Ambroiserie or Grand Vefour in Paris?

Is St John, tenth best restaurant in the world? 40 places higher than say La Tupina in Bordeaux?

London’s Nobu together with Hakassan are in the top 50, neo Japanese and Chinese respectively. Surely Tokyo, Hong Kong,Shanghai and Singapore have the odd hostelry deserving inclusion.

One can only conclude that the Restaurant Public Relations companies have been working overtime and the composition of the esteemed panel for Restaurant Magazine was made up of people who reside in the UK or the U.S.A.