25/04/2013 00:00
TW
0

by MONITOR
SPAIN has four restaurants in the first ten of the Michelin Guide's Top 100 in the world, announced yesterday. The United States and France have two each and Britain and Denmark one each. Britain's success, in second place, is the Fat Duck at Bray, Berkshire; this restaurant has been closed for some time after a food poisoning scare that eventually affected more than 500 people who had eaten there. It is now open again. The Michelin Guide people said that the judgement had been made before the food poisoning and they saw no reason to disqualify the Fat Duck for an incident whose cause is still not known.

Spain's gastronomic achievement is remarkable: El Bulli (1st) at Roses, Mugaritz (4th) at San Sebastian, El Celler de Can Roca (5th) at Girona and Arzak (8th) at San Sebastian are the restaurants concerned. Not everyone thinks that Michelin is still the top authority on restaurants but its reputation for consistency of judgement -- an important factor in international assessments - remains high. El Bulli is probably the easiest to get to from Majorca, being about two miles north of Barcelona on the Costa Brava. The most striking thing about the Top 100 list is the almost total wipe-out of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants; his Maze restaurant just scrapes in at 91st. Michelin's editor offered the thought that “Perhaps celebrity chefs with empires of restaurants are perhaps spreading themselves too thinly.” Could be.