Asia’s 50 Best Restaurant

FEB 25th saw the inaugural San Pellegrino Asia’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards. Forget abt the Oscars ..this was THE biggest award as far as we were concerned!

As a member of the Voting Academy of World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards, we were given the amazing opportunity to attend the glamorous event at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, attended by chefs, restauranteurs, industy professionals, media from all across Asia and some even from other parts of the world.

Amongst non-awardee chefs we spotted at ‘the red carpet’ were Enoko Axta of Azurmendi*** , who is opening something really exciting near Phuket and Yukimura***

Here’s the complete list:

S.Pelligrino Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants for 2013
1. Narisawa (Tokyo)
2. Nihonryori Ryugin (Tokyo)
3. Nahm (Bangkok)
4. Amber (Hong Kong)
5. Restaurant Andre (Singapore)
6. 8½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana (Hong Kong)
7. Mr & Mrs Bund (Shanghai)
8. Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet (Shanghai)
9. Iggy’s (Singapore)
10. Gaggan (Bangkok)
11. Waku Ghin (Singapore)
12. Caprice (Hong Kong)
13. Lung King Heen (Hong Kong)
14. Les Amis (Singapore)
15. Bo Innovation (Hong Kong)
16. Quintessence (Tokyo)
17. Dum Pukht (New Delhi)
18. The Chairman (Hong Kong)
19. Eat Me (Bangkok)2
20. Wasabi by Morimoto (Mumbai)
21. Hajime Restaurant (Osaka, Japan)
22. Jaan (Singapore)
23. L’atelier De Joel Robuchon (Hong Kong)
24. L’atelier De Joel Robuchon (Singapore)
25. Hubin Road (Hangzhou, China)
26. Bukhara (New Delhi)
27. Sushi Mizutani (Tokyo)
28. Indigo (Mumbai)
29. Sra Bua by Kiin Kiin (Bangkok)
30.Varq (New Delhi)
31. Aronia de Takazawa (Tokyo)
32. Shinji by Kanesaka (Singapore)
33. Kahala (Osaka, Japan)
34. Franck Bistro (Shanghai)
35. Osteria Mozza (Singapore)
36. Bo.Lan (Bangkok)
37, Robuchon au Dôme (Macau, China)
38. Nihonbashi (Colombo, Sri Lanka)3
39. Sushi Saito (Tokyo)
40. Fu1015 (Shanghai)
41. Indian Accent (New Delhi)
42. Ishikawa (Tokyo)
43.Gunther’s (Singapore)
44. Karavalli (Bangalore, India)
45. Jade on 36 (Shanghai)
46. Yardbird (Hong Kong)
47. Don’s (Hanoi, Vietnam)4
8. Fook Lam Moon (Hong Kong)
49. Imperial Treasure Super Peking Duck (Singapore)
50. Mozaic (Bali, Indonesia)

Photos to follow but here’s a quick 10 thoughts :

1) No list is perfect, exhaustive, or fair. But by and large, this debut ‘went according to script’ and , we say, acceptable to the majority. Definitely the ‘best’ list there is for Asian Restaurants at this moment.
2) Proud 5 restaurants from our native THAILAND made it to the list… 5 in 50… thats quite an achievement. Although, gotta admit Éat Me’ in Silom is by far the biggest shock of the night.
3) Doesn’t matter who, just glad Japanese restaurants dominated the list. It HAS TO! Takazawa, Ishikawa, Quintessence, Hajime , Kahala making the list , getting recognition, also a triumph in itself. Miles ahead of (most) restaurants elsewhere in Asia.
4) Glad to see so many sushi places made the top 50.. SUSHI, if u don’t already know, is a craft and a cuisine in its own right. No lesser than French , molecular or avant garde cuisine.
5) SHINJI higher than Mizutani, Saito? Shinji in Singapore made the list but the main Kanesaka in Tokyo didn’t ? Not Crazy if you understand how the voting works and the composition of voters, but really some things gotta change… it’s almost a joke!
6) No restaurants from Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Philipines. (In fact, excluding No.50 Mozaic in Bali, almost none from Indonesia too! ) Can’t be.
7) When it came down to final 2, hated it when Narisawa won Ryugin. Japanese cuisine triumphs French by Japanese everytime!
8) By no means racial profiling, but the Chinese restaurants making the list give it away the composition of çaucasians’ voting on the list… if there’s 1 type of cuisine this list can NOT be judged on, i’d say Chinese Food.
9) Great idea having Best Female Chef and Best Pastry Chef … but need more competition. No disrespect, but can’t think of other names than BO of Bo Lan and Janice Wong of 2AM. (Actually there are many, just need to ‘look deeper’ .. HINT : Japan!)
10) Heard America’s BEST 50 coming up next.. and whichever continent later on, hope it doesn’t take away from the MAIN EVENT in London… Sounds like the World Cup , the Euros, the Coppa Americas!