Whose list is the real deal? Gourmets go to war in battle over world’s best restaurants
French-based La Liste launches with a promise of ‘fair and transparent methodology’ that it claims will set it apart from the influential but widely criticised 50 Best Restaurants.
It has been dismissed by its many critics as “silly” nonsensical “schmozzle” that promotes chemistry-set cooking. But love it or hate it there is no getting away from the list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
Until now that is. Exasperated by the growing power of the British-based classification which has long been accused of sticking the knife into French cuisine, Paris has decided to strike back with a list of its own.
La Liste claims to be the first authoritative ranking of the world’s 1,000 most “exceptional restaurants”, compiled from a rigorous mathematical analysis of hundreds of guide books and online reviews.
Its organisers could not resist a swipe at their rivals much-criticised “opacity” as they trumpeted their own “fair and transparent methodology” when their revealed their top 10 restaurants on Saturday, five days ahead of publishing their full list.
It is such a brilliantly simple idea to put together review data from all over the world – we had to do it before someone else did
“La Liste is designed to be an aggregator, a ‘best of the best’, modelled on the world tennis rankings, the Shanghai Ranking for universities and Rotten Tomatoes film reviews website,” they declared in a statement.