A surprising top 50, but look who’s counting

So, what country do you think has the best restaurants in the world?

That question is not quite as easy to answer as it was when I first began to travel and eat seriously more than 30 years ago. But for all the great meals I’ve had since then in more than a dozen countries, including the United States, I’d still have to say that, for me, any list of the 10 or 20 or 50 best restaurants in the world would have to include more in France than anywhere else.

That’s not how the biweekly trade magazine Restaurant sees it. The magazine says it polled 300 chefs, restaurant critics and other experts “worldwide,� and while the winner (the French Laundry) comes from the U.S., and the No. 2 restaurant (El Bulli) is in Spain, the country with the most entries on the list is ... England.

England? England?

But people have been making fun of English food at least since the 18th century, when Voltaire noted: “In England, there are 60 different religions but only one sauce.� (More recently, and closer to home, John Kenneth Galbraith observed: “It takes some skill to spoil a breakfast; even the English can’t do it.�)

OK, “English cuisine� is no longer an oxymoron. The country now has some excellent restaurants. On my most recent trips there, I had memorable dinners at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons in the British countryside (No. 29 on the Restaurant magazine list) and at Gordon Ramsay (No. 5) and the Square (No. 43), both in London, as well as at several other restaurants not on the magazine list.

But I also had a thoroughly mediocre meal at the Ivy (No. 31), and friends who’ve eaten at several other British restaurants on the list find their presence there laughable.

In all, 10 restaurants in England (and one in Scotland) made the list. That’s more than France or the United States (which have seven each), more than Italy (which has four) and more than Germany, Switzerland, China, Japan, Singapore, Belgium, Spain and all the Scandinavian, African and Latin American countries combined.

How can that be?

Let me give you a clue: Restaurant magazine is published in London. A second clue: Chris Maillard, the editor of the magazine, says 30% to 40% of the “panel of experts worldwide,� actually live in Britain; Thom Hetherington, the magazine’s marketing director, puts the number at 40% to 50%.

Maillard says he invited 500 people to serve on the panel and asked each to name the five best restaurants in the world. “We got a better response from the U.K. people we asked,� he says.

Maillard acknowledges that the “50 best� list assembled from all those “five best� lists is “a little skewed� and reflects “a tinge of bias toward� the United Kingdom. That, he says, is “inevitable because we’re a U.K.-based magazine.�

But saying this list is just “a little skewed� is like saying England is “a little rainy.� Of course, I’m a Francophile. Maybe I’m overreacting. So I checked with a friend at the New York Times who’s a longtime Anglophile, Johnny Apple, former London bureau chief of the newspaper. Johnny is a globe-trotting gastronome who’s eaten in 40 of the 50 restaurants on the Restaurant magazine list -- I’ve only eaten in 28 -- and he lives part of the year in the Cotswolds, which is where I reached him.

The list, he said, was “absurdly overloaded� with restaurants in the United Kingdom -- several of which he identified by name as being “just not in this league.... Food is good here now but not THAT good.�

But for all his expertise and Anglophilia, Johnny is an American. So I called a British friend, Richard Binns, who lives in the English countryside and who, for the last 23 years, has been writing guidebooks and newspaper and magazine articles on restaurants in Britain and France.

“Eleven out of 50 is parochial nonsense,� Richard said. “I’d say three, at most, deserve it, and frankly, I’m not sure I’d put any restaurant in Britain on a list of the top 50 in the world.�

OK. So much for Britain. How about the rest of the list?

Well, I certainly don’t want to be guilty of the same sort of parochialism as the magazine and start stumping for Los Angeles restaurants -- none of which made the list (although L’Orangerie and Spago Beverly Hills were both listed among those “just edged out in the final cut�).

How about the other U.S. choices, apart from the top-ranked French Laundry? They included Jean Georges (No. 4) and Gramercy Tavern (No. 10), both in New York; Chez Panisse, Berkeley (No. 12); Vincent’s on Camelback, Phoenix (No. 24); Daniel, N.Y. (No. 34); and Charlie Trotter’s, Chicago (No. 39).

One can always quibble with any list like this since, ultimately, it’s all a matter of personal taste. I, for example, have never had a great meal at Jean Georges, would rank Daniel at least 25 places higher and think that anyone who would rate Vincent’s ahead of Daniel or Charlie Trotter’s clearly needs a palate transplant. I also think it’s an outrage that Le Bernardin in New York, the best seafood restaurant I’ve ever been to, didn’t make the list.

But such disagreements are part of the fun and, I’d bet, the purpose of publishing such a list; the magazine wants to trigger discussion and get attention.

Besides, the editors say their rankings are not based exclusively on where diners had “the thickest linen napkins or the richest sauce� but on where “people enjoyed themselves the most.... It’s about the whole experience, not just gourmet point-scoring.�

Fair enough. But for me, the quality of the food is the primary criterion by which to judge a great restaurant. However misguided I find some of the magazine’s choices, I think most of their judges used the same criterion.

After all, the restaurants in France that made the list are difficult even for me to object to. I would certainly include on my top 50 list (though not necessarily in the same order) most of the Restaurant magazine choices--L’Arpege (No. 6), L’Ambroisie (9), Pierre Gagnaire (13) and Guy Savoy (30), all in Paris; Michel Bras in Laguiole (11) and L’Auberge de l’Ill, in Illhaeusern (18). But I think Restaurant Bocuse in Collonges de Mont d’Or (21) is at least a decade past its peak, and I would have included Marc Meneau’s L’Esperance in Burgundy; L’Aubergade in Puymirol, in southwestern France; Jardin des Sens in Montpelier; and Taillevent and Lucas Carton, both in Paris, among others.

The editors insist that whatever the shortcomings of their top 50, “it’s a very good list.� Next year, they say, they hope to “do even better� by expanding their voting panel to include more non-Brits.

A jolly good idea.

David Shaw can be reached at [email protected].