Friday, August 17, 2012

(The World) You Must Be Forking Kidding Me, Newsweek's Top 100 Restaurants 2012 List

I am crazy about restaurants.  I spend much of my surplus income on fine dining. Over the years I've had the good luck to have been able to try some of the world's finer establishments such as Daniel and The French Laundry and LÁtelier de Joel Robuchon and Masa's and Michael Mina, among others.  I have collected books and signatures from Thomas Keller, Jose Garces, and Marcus Samuelsson, and Anthony Bourdain among others.  I have read biographical accounts in books and magazines about what it was like to open Per Se, or cook with Julia Child, or lose your ability to taste while running Alinea, or the trials of attending Cordon Bleu in Paris.  Needless to say, it's passion and I don't intend on slowing down any time soon.

So, when a paper copy of Newsweek's Top 101 Restaurants landed in my mailbox a few weeks before my planned trip to Italy, I was delighted.  (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/08/05/101-best-places-to-eat.html)

I flipped through the pages of the magazine before bed that night, and began to suspect something was off.  As I perused the restaurants that were being recommended by some of the world's top chefs, I was quite honestly surprised by the list, specifically, at the restaurants which were selected, some of the chef's that were selected, and their quotes. 

Highly suspect, I began to consider that not many of these restaurants, nor the chefs recommending them, overlapped with other top lists that had come out in recent months (such as Frommers, Gayot, and James Beard 2012 top lists, to name a few).  As for the chef's quotes, they sounded hollow and uninspiring.

How could something like this happen?  My guess is that one of two things occured.  Either there was too tight of deadline to instigate any real attempt at vetting these submissions, or the chefs were trying to be diplomatic for fear of offending any of their colleaugues, and steered away from their local scene and instead promoted small, family-owned restaurants that were far, far away from their circle of friends.

As for Italy, I was able to try two of the six.  This is because apparently no one remembered any restaurants in Rome or Naples remarkable enough to mention, an oversight I plan to remedy with More Than a Mouthful.  The Newsweek spots were a mixed bag:  Trattoria Sostanza was incredible, and Caffe Duomo was riduculous.  (I will write about both of these separately, stay tuned!)

On the whole, Newsweek got it really wrong, and I'm not the only one who feels this way.  (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-weston/are-you-kidding-newsweek_b_1758124.html)

You are welcome to judge for yourself.  As for me, I'm sending letters off to the editor and a few chefs to express my dismay. 

On the bright side, I am firm believer that there are "tons of dish oversea."