More than 800 chefs, restaurateurs, journalists and food experts voted Danish restaurant Noma as the world's best restaurant for the third year in a row, beating top eateries in Spain, Brazil, Italy, Britain, the United States and elsewhere.
According to a report of Reuters, the annual list of S. Pellegrino and Acqua Panna World's 50 Best Restaurants, produced by Britain's Restaurant Magazine, were unveiled in London.
Reuters said a panel rated chef Rene Redzepi's Noma as the "standard-bearer for the new Nordic movement.
The following restaurants made it to the top 10 of the world's 50 best restaurants:
1. Noma (Copenhagen)
DENMARK (home to 9,401 Filipinos)*
2. El Celler de Can Roca (Girona)
SPAIN (home to 52,611 Filipinos)*
3. Mugaritz (San Sebastian)
SPAIN
4. D.O.M. (Sao Paulo)
BRAZIL (home to 679 Filipinos)*
5. Osteria Francescana (Modena)
ITALY (home to 123,379 Filipinos)*
6. Per Se (New York)
UNITED STATES (home to 3,166,529)*
7. Alinea (Chicago)
UNITED STATES
8. Arzak (San Sebastian)
SPAIN
9. Dinner by Heston Blumenthal (London)
UNITED KINGDOM (home to 196,740 Filipinos)
10. Eleven Madison Park (New York)
UNITED STATES
* Based on the 2010 Stock Estimates of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas
According to the 50 Best Restaurants website, the list is "created from The World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy, an influential group of over 800 international leaders in the restaurant industry, each selected for their expert opinion of the international restaurant scene."
"The Academy comprises 27 separate regions around the world. Each region has its own panel of 31 members including a chairperson to head it up. The panel is made up of food critics, chefs, restaurateurs and highly regarded ‘gastronomes’ each of whom has seven votes," it said.
"Of the seven votes, at least three of which must be used to recognize restaurants outside of their region. At least 10 panelists from each region change each year," it added.
Nationally, Spain and the United States tied with three restaurants each in the top 10, though Spain's El Celler de Can Roca in Girona came second and Mugaritz in San Sebastian placed third. In all, the United States had eight eateries in the top 50 and Spainhad five.
The Chefs' Choice award, voted for by the World's 50 Best chefs, was presented to Andoni Luis Aduriz of Mugaritz, which was devastated by a fire two years ago. Spanish winners also included Arzak at no. 8, whose joint Head Chef Elena Arzak was awarded the Veuve Clicquot World's Best Female Chef award.
Eight US restaurants made the top 50 list this year, the highest of which was New Yorkbased Per Se, owned by chef Thomas Keller, who was rewarded the Best Restaurant in North America and the S.Pellegrino Lifetime Achievement accolade after spending each of the past 10 years of the awards on the list under one guise or another.
Noma makes systematic use of beers and ales, fruit juices and fruit-based vinegars for its sauces and soups rather than wine, and allows vegetables, herbs, spices and wild plants in season to play a prominent role in its cooking.
"We feel that the cooking at Noma is fairly ambitious but then again, Nordic cuisine must possess a certain purity," Noma says on its website.
Noma's chef Redzepi serves a new kind of Nordic cuisine such as musk ox and smoked marrow, sea urchin and dill or beef cheek and pear.
The 34-year-old chef is an ambassador for the New Nordic Food programme set up by theNordic Council of Ministers and has headed the restaurant since its 2003 opening.
The Noma approach to cooking is concentrated on obtaining the best raw materials from the Nordic region such as Icelandic skyr curd, halibut, Greenland musk ox and berries.
"Noma is not about olive oil, foie gras, sun-dried tomatoes and black olives. On the contrary, we've been busy exploring the Nordic regions discovering outstanding foods and bringing them back to Denmark," Noma said on its website.
"This goes for very costly ingredients but also for more disregarded, modest ingredients such as grains and pulses, which you'll taste here in new and unexpected contexts," it said.
- with a report from Reuters, VVP, GMA News
source: gmanetwork.com
