Almost inevitable cliché, I read that the award that elects the best restaurants in the world (or in Latin America, in the most recent ceremony) is the “Oscar” of gastronomy.
Correct, like almost every cliché: just like the Oscar for cinema, the ranking of restaurants has zero objectivity, reflecting the impressions of a handful of judges. It is the seal of people with expertise (and their particular biases) for great cuisine, it is not science.
It is, above all, a party. A celebration for the winners. Ranking should not be taken too seriously.
Do not misunderstand me. Like almost everyone else, I’m addicted to lists too. The human brain does not accept the chaos of nature, it seeks to catalog and rank absolutely everything. Guides and rankings are very useful for exploring things without getting carried away by total randomness.
But they are far from being an absolute truth carved in stone.
At this year’s Best 50 Awards, a twist to the rules made things pretty weird.
While the global ranking follows the normal course of listing those elected from the last 12 months, the Latin American branch decided to award the awards based on average grades since 2013, when the region gained its own list.
Thus, the best restaurant in Brazil is both A Casa do Porco (world ranking) and DOM (regional). Not to mention the fact that the honor was given to two Brazilian establishments that were closed in 2021, Tuju and Corrutela.
As if it were another universe, but no. It’s the same award, sliced into regional cuts. The change in criteria was a 100% editorial decision, to shuffle the winners and not make the list repetitive, boring and predictable over the years. Nothing to do with the quality of the food in the cataloged restaurants.
Something different, but with the same purpose, happened in the global version of the award: the winners of the 1st position became hors-concours, excluded from the following competitions. Thus, there is a different champion each year (and a minimum of emotion as well).
For these and others, do not take any list for granted. Not Robert Parker’s or Jancis Robinson’s favorite 50 restaurants or wines, let alone the 101 dishes you need to eat before you die.
There’s no such thing as the best in the world in anything. This notion brings insecurity because it returns us to darkness, but it also brings some encouragement. After all, very few among the few are chosen the best of the good – and we are almost never chosen.
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