I see via a couple of sources that the "world's best restaurants" list released for this year. It's sort of an inane list, of course, because the idea of saying that El Bulli is better than The Fat Duck is sort of a meaningless construct. Everything on the list is very good. There are other very good restaurants. Enough said.
What interests me about this is the extent to which food today really is a transnational enteprise, though. Gordon Ramsay is as famous here as he is in Europe. Everyone knows about El Bulli, etc, etc. We are apparently at a point in the development of a world economy (and, really, a world elite, given what these places charge) that it is entirely plausible for someone to casually note that they prefer Troisgros to Le Bernardin, but Mugartiz is better than both. My actual sense is that this convergence has helped the United States very much, and has hurt France, both in reputation and quality (as French chefs feel compelled to ape America).
4/22/2008
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I'm impressed that restaurants from two countries that usually would get categorized as "developing" (Brazil and South Africa) made the list.
I haven't seen the list yet but my mom told me about it this morning. A lot of basque restaurants on there... Arzak, Berasategui, Mugaritz... I'm very excited about that!
I just read the list and I cannot really comment on it since i have only eaten at a couple of the restaurants on that list, all of them in the basque Country. It just seems so subjective though. I don't really like these lists.
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