No place in top 50 for SA restaurants

12 April 2017 - 14:14 By The Daily Telegraph
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Heston Blumenthal accepts his lifetime achievment award during the World's 50 Best Restaurants Award Ceremony on April 5, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia.
Heston Blumenthal accepts his lifetime achievment award during the World's 50 Best Restaurants Award Ceremony on April 5, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia.
Image: Sam Tabone/WireImage/Getty Images

Not one restaurant from South Africa made it onto the 50 Best Restaurants in the World list, announced last week in Melbourne, Australia.

It's the 15th year The World's 50 Best Restaurants list has been published. It started as an article in Restaurant Magazine in 2002.

Daniel Humm and Will Guidara accepted the top restaurant award for Eleven Madison Park in New York - the restaurant they own jointly, Humm as chef and Guidara as manager.

An impressive tally of 47 of the 50 restaurants on the list sent representatives across the world to attend the awards at Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building. Heston Blumethal was there to pick up his lifetime achievement award, in ebullient form, nerd glasses askew.

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When asked what they loved about being on the list, few chefs said the effect on the bottom line. Most were more thrilled to belong to an exclusive club.

But for some restaurants it makes all the difference.

Mitsuharu Tsumura, the baby-faced chef of Lima's Maido restaurant - up to No8 this year from last year's No13 - was adamant that the effect on the morale of the country was significant. Peru has two restaurants in the top 10 and three in the top 50.

Does it make a difference to the bookings?

"Yes," he beamed, "Tomorrow we will be crazy."

The top 5 on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list:

• Eleven Madison Park, New York;

• Osteria Francescana, Modena, Italy;

• El Celler de Can Roca, Girona, Spain;

• Mirazur, Menton, France; and

• Central Restaurante, Lima.

 

This article was originally published in The Times.

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