The eagerly awaited 12th The World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards was held last night at The Guildhall in London, and the Top 50 Restaurants were announced. Restaurants ranked 51st – 100th were listed on the Awards website, which crashed just after the Awards ceremony!

The initiative of Restaurant magazine in the UK, and using 900 judges from around the world, a total of 6552 votes were cast to vote for the world’s best restaurants.  The world was divided into 26 regions, chaired by an expert for that region.  Tamsin Snyman heads the Africa panel of 36 members, who had to eat at 4 local as well as at 3 international restaurants to cast their vote.  No score is required – the vote is purely for the best restaurants they ate at, and must be presented in ranked order.  Every year 10 panelists step down per region, to be replaced by new ones.   For the first time in seven years Snyman did not attend, for family reasons.

The biggest surprise was that Noma in Copenhagen went back to its number one position, having lost out to El Celler de Can Roca in Girona as the number one restaurant in the world last year. The Roca brothers’ El Celler de Can Roca dropped to second place, while Chef Massimo Bottura’s Osteria Francescana in Modena remained in third place.  Noma Chef René Redzepi expressed his surprise in winning again, the fourth time in top position since 2010. He thanked his ‘dream team‘ of chefs, for their patience and dedication, saying that he is not always easy to work with.  A video interview with Chef René was shown at the start of the ceremony, and he said that ‘vegetables will become the lead guitarist’ in the future.  Despite moving his restaurant to Japan for a few months in 2015, he made it clear that he has ‘no appetite to expand’ to add more restaurants.  Chefs Chris Erasmus from Pierneef à La Motte, Shaun Schoeman from Fyndraai at Solms-Delta, and Eric Bulpitt of The Restaurant at Newton Johnson have done stages at Noma.

Chef Luke Dale-Roberts’ The Test Kitchen was named the ‘One to Watch’ in 2013, and it was predicted that it would make the Top 50 Restaurant list this year on the basis of that accolade. It made 48th place, and was named Africa’s Best Restaurant. Chef Luke and former South African Chef Philip Howard of The Square restaurant in London hosted a joint dinner on Sunday evening at Chef Philip’s restaurant, and one of Chef Luke’s dishes was a ‘Pig head Smiley‘! Le Quartier Français’ The Tasting Room in Franschhoek only made 72nd place, its worst performance ever, having been ranked at 53rd position in 2013.  Chef David Higgs’ five hundred was missed on the top 100 list, given his 2014 Eat Out Best Chef Award.

At a Terroir lunch held earlier in the day, some of the top chefs were interviewed. Chef Massimo Bottura spoke about the importance of the event being about ‘universal sharing’ with other chefs, and a thanks to their staff.

Chef Fergus Henderson was honoured with the Diners Club Lifetime Achievement Award 2014, credited for the focus on nose-to-tail cuisine twenty years ago when he opened St John restaurant, pioneering British cuisine.  Chef Helena Rizzo from Mani in São Paulo received the Veuve Clicquot World’s Best Female Chef 2014.  The One to Watch was named as Saison in San Francisco.  The Chefs’ Choice Award, as voted for by the top chefs, was Alex Atala of D.O.M in São Paulo. Central Restaurante from Lima was named the Highest Climber, improving by 35 places on the Top 50 ranking. The Highest placed New Entry was Gaggan in Bangkok. The World’s Best Pastry Chef was named as Jordi Roca of El Celler de Can Roca.  Azurmendi in Bilbao is the Best Sustainable Restaurant.

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2014 are the following:

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com   Twitter: @WhaleCottage

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