British restaurant named best in world non-shock

[mandragora]

Watching HIGNFY tonight I saw that The Fat Duck at Bray has been named the world's best restaurant for 2005.

Not exactly a surprise. Nor was it a surprise that Britain had 13 restaurants in the top 50 compared to France's 8 and the US's 6.

Arguments aside whether the 50 named restaurants are *really* the best in the world (doubtful, I mean, how would you know? Has any of the judges visited *every* possible contender - I think not), it is a sure sign of what is well known in Britain. Which is that the (well-deserved) past reputation of Britain as a culinary desert is just that. Past. Nowadays British cuisine is actually really rather good. Which is why Britain has more restaurants than any other country in a list of what are undoubtedly 50 very good restaurants (even if they're arguably not the 50 'best').

So, to anyone thinking of travelling to Britain and some local trots out the usual "Oh but the food is just *terrible*" rubbish, tell them just that - they're talking rubbish. (Mandragora thinking with irritation of the New York investment banker she met on a bus in Barcelona who *insisted* that British cusine is crap, even though he'd never actually been to Britain and even after Mandragora informed him that Britain has more Michelin starred restaurants than the US does.)

ETA: Actually, it wasn't 13 of the top 50 restaurants were British but 14. I had missed out the winner!

Comments

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

At one point the Roux brothers owned a restaurant on Cheapside in the City and one of my flatmates was a chef there. I always asked the waiter to let her (she was one of the rare female chefs the Roux's employed in those days) know when I was there and she always sent me a free pudding from the kitchen.

Ah, happy memories.

So, don't give up hope at getting a free course or two at the Fat Duck. And I agree, the good restaurants are worth every penny. Gordon Ramsey is still may favourite chef (for his food, not his personality). He used to make the Best Pudding Ever (it was a banana and chocolate confection) and I went into mourning when he took it off the menu. Sigh.

[kay-taylor.livejournal.com]

Alas, my college friends are mounting an expedition to Ramsay's next week, but I am in a rent/food sort of situation, so it will not be happening. I shall have to content myself with getting that DVD in the Times tomorrow and making cheap knock-off versions of his famous dishes.

By the by, er, I realise I've had your Angel DVDs longer than is strictly polite or conscionable. I have to sneak to Oxford to watch them, as the DVD player is decidedly unswitchable. But I will give them back ANY time you want: I'm in town most days if you want to yell for an urgent Charisma Carpenter fix.

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

Ouch, I'm sure it hurts on the Ramsay front, but Your Time Will Come and when you're a QC (even specialising in criminal law and therefore being paid at LSC rates) you'll be able to go to Ramsay or the equivalent every night, although I'm not certain you'd want to try coping with haute cuisine *all* the time.

No rush at all on the Angel front. I've just received Buffy Seasons 1 to 4, so have loads of DVDs to watch if I want to watch the wonder that is Charisma. Besides I'm deep in the throes of fannish love for Stargate Atlantis atm, so when I watch anything tend to watch episodes of that. It's research, don't you know. *g*

[kay-taylor.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm feeling a little pessimistic about the future at the moment (eating Asda Value soup every night while reading about proposed decreases to the graduated fees scale), but you're right - I will be a QC one day and therefore rich as Midas. Or something.

Ah, the cheap Buffy. That news caused me deep personal conflict, but I've realised the only Buffy I can really justify saving up for is Season Seven, which I haven't seen yet. Plus, my friend bought me Season Two on VHS for a bargain price, and it's so funny to watch - they were so young! and had such horrible outfits!

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

Now don't get too carried away - the list of top-earning criminal silks for 2002/3 has just been published. Top earner was on £800,000 and number 10 on the list earned £500,000. By contrast the top-earners at the commercial bar earn about £4 million. And the tax silks earn considerably more than that (even if they're shy about advertising it). OTOH, £500,000 to £800,000 pa is enough to purchase an awful lot of dinners at Gordon Ramsay's...

On the cheap-Buffy front, I suspect that the cheap sets will come round again. I know a bit about the way the video/DVD industry works having been involved in the administration of the largest video-distributor in Britain back in the 1990s. After the initial 'we can make you pay high prices because they've just been released' point the marketability declines quite dramatically and there comes a point when they need to sell them for whatever they can get because of the terms of the distribution agreements etc. The only trouble is when they go 'out of print' so to speak.

I know what you mean about the outfits.

[kay-taylor.livejournal.com]

I shall take heart. I'm at the stage where anything higher than the £10k entry level looks pretty damn good. And £500,000 would buy an awful lot of DVD box sets...

I just watched an episode in which Buffy wore blue denim dungarees. I feel violated.