Tag Archives: Ishay Govender-Ypma

Eat Out: who decided on inclusion in the 2015 Eat Out 500 Restaurant guide?

Burrata 'Pick me Up'  dessert Whale CottageLast year New Media Publishing changed its annual Eat Out magazine, having featured 1100 restaurants in earlier years.  Last year the Eat Out Top 500 restaurant guide was based on applications sent by restaurants themselves, and the top 500 selected by 50 food and restaurant writers and lovers.  This year the Eat Out 500 top restaurants could be nominated by anyone, mainly the public, and chosen and reviewed by a panel of 30, mainly food writers.

Earlier this week Eat Out announced the Top 20 Restaurant shortlist, which will guarantee those restaurants a space in the 2015 Eat Out Top 500 Restaurant Guide.

The selection and evaluation of the Eat Out Top 500 is sketchy: ‘...a list of candidates was selected (how, on which criteria?), rated (on which scale, on which criteria?), and reviewed by the panel‘ (the criteria for reviewing are mentioned as food – defined as menu composition, seasonality, and presentation – and ambiance, service, and wine/beverage selection).  Surely they mean that a particular member of the panel reviewed a particular restaurant?  The end result is described by Eat Out (twice in its media release) as a ‘power list of great restaurants‘! Someone alerted me to the hard sell to new restaurants by Eat Out to be listed on Continue reading →

Noma back as top World’s 50 Best Restaurants! The Test Kitchen Best in Africa and ranked 48th!

World's 50 Best Restaurants logoThe 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 Continue reading →

Chef Peter Tempelhoff Sweet Service and pro-Palling Twits Sour Service Awards!

The Sweet Service Award goes to Chef Peter Tempelhoff of The Greenhouse, for refusing to assist controversial 2012 Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant judge Bruce Palling with information about the ingredients of the dishes he ate at The Greenhouse FIVE months ago!  Having seen the trashing by Palling of his restaurant colleagues, he understandably refused to co-operate: Unfortunately, I am not comfortable with you blogging about your meal with us- which took place 6 months ago. (actually it was five, but why quibble over a month? –Palling commented).  I feel that if you were going to blog about the dinner you should have asked for the menu, or perhaps taken notes during it.  I just don’t think it will be an accurate account of your meal with us’. It was no surprise that Palling made a meal Continue reading →