World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2015: Melbourne’s Attica among top again

For the second consecutive year Melbourne’s Attica has been deemed the only Australian restaurant worthy of the annual list of the World’s 50 Best.

Attica, in Melbourne’s Balaclava, is run by expat Kiwi chef Ben Shewry. Source: Supplied

It has been ranked at 32 for the second consecutive year. It was also named Best Restaurant in Australasia. Sydney’s Sepia (84) was anointed The One to Watch for “fastest rising” restaurant from the second tier of 51-100. Not always a great sign, Sydney’s Marque also won this one year and is now not on the list at all.

The controversial list, sponsored by S. Pellegrino, is now in its 14th year and was announced this morning in London.

While Quay (58) and Sepia (84) both in Sydney, and Brae (87, Birregurra) were last week included in the second tier of the World’s Best (51-100), the small restaurant in Melbourne’s Balaclava, run by the expat Kiwi chef Ben Shewry, remains our one international contender.

For the second time, Spain’s El Celler de Can Roca, in Girona, Spain, has been declared the world’s best restaurant by a voting system comprised of almost 1000 jurors from 27 separate international zones.

El Celler was followed by Osteria Francensana (Modena), Noma (Copenhagen), Central (Lima) and 11 Madison Park (Manhattan).

“This success is also for our family, our wives and our kids and our team,” one of the three Roca brothers, Joan, told the audience.

The Novocastrian expat Brett Graham, chef of London’s The Ledbury, was the most prominent Aussie on the list at 20, a fall of 10 places. Between this list, and the still-important Michelin system, Graham is now quite possibly the most critically successful Australian chef ever.

Bangkok-based chef and Thai guru David Thompson, from Sydney, saw the restaurant he steers, Nahm, go from 12 in 2014 to 22 this year.

The only other Australian angle to this massive international foodie backslapping affair is the ranking of Singapore’s Waku Ghin at 70 (down from 50 last year). Waku Ghin is operated by Japanese Australian chef Tetsuya Wakuda.

The Fat Duck — temporarily relocated to Melbourne from its Bray (England) home during renovations — came in at 73, a numerically long fall from the heady days of 2010 when this same awards body deemed it the third best restaurant in the world.

Jurors for the World’s 50 Best vote for four restaurants in their own zone and three elsewhere; all must have been visited within the 18 months prior to voting. The wooing of jurors for their votes by tourism authorities and individual restaurants has become a lobbying exercise worthy of a House of Cards plot. The Tourism Australia Restaurant Australia campaign, specifically the Invite the World to Dinner promotion in November 2014, which saw a substantial number of jurors flown in to Australia to be fed and watered, undoubtedly played a huge part in the debut of Sepia and Brae to the second tier list this year.

While the list has garnered huge traction in the past 10 years, and in many ways become not only a valid benchmark but also a defining force for gastronomic direction among chefs and restaurateurs everywhere, many question the word “best” in its title.

The list invariably reflects novelty and chef charisma — pulling power for jurors — as much as it does quality. Ben Shewry’s extraordinary international profile among the progressive food scene has helped keep Attica a must-visit restaurant for the all-important influential jurors visiting Australia, a very necessary factor for any kind of ranking.

Source :  The Australian John Lethlean  June 2nd 2015