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mandragoraWatching 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!
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!
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Date: 23 April 2005 10:02 (UTC)(And today I'm off to The Marriot in Cairo, where they're having a British Cuisine week in celebration of St George's Day. BACON BUTTIES*!!! Roast Beef & Yorkshires! Ploughman's Lunch! Hurrah!)
Ahem.
(*Bacon being a rarity on menus, here in predominantly Muslim Cairo.)
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Date: 23 April 2005 10:32 (UTC)Best food I had when I visited Egypt was the local cuisine, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I visted a couple of excellent restaurants in Cairo, the names of which completely escape me (and I've lent my Egypt guidebooks to a friend who is thinking about going). And when we were cruising along the Nile the chef was very good at producing Western style cuisine (the food was of a very high standard indeed) but his Egyptian cuisine was a revelation.
But no matter how much I travel, sometimes you just get a craving for the familiar on the food-front. When I lived in Gibraltar, much though I adore Mediterranean cuisine, I was glad that there's a large Safeway there, which imports all the British stuff on a daily basis and that meant I could enjoy both worlds. So I can well understand your glee. *g*