World's 50 Best Restaurants - And Why I don't Care

San Pellegrino's list of the 50 best restaurants in the world were just announced. And the winner is... who cares?

Okay, lists are fun, everyone likes them. And it's inherently cool to compare the best in the world at anything. With that being said, the 50 best restaurants in the world is a stupid list.



Most of these restaurants are physically located no where near 99% of the population. "Oh cool, the top restaurant is in Denmark... I live in San Francisco. Well maybe when I go on vacation... oh, it has a significant waiting list. Crap". That's the second problem. These restaurants are not accessible to 99% of the population. Not only could most people not afford these, but they have waiting lists a mile long. I was just up in Napa and got really excited because The French Laundry (ranked 32nd) is there. It has something like a 6 month waiting list. (I don't actually know, but it's long, I'm sure of it). If that's the case for a paltry 32nd best restaurant in the world, what are the chances of getting into a top 10 place?

On top of that, how are these restaurants rated? Who's making the calls? Restaurants sell food and food is incredibly opinionated. Could most people tell the difference between the food at the best restaurant and the 100th restaurant? I doubt it. And then there's the question of how do you compare any of these restaurants. I'm sure Danish food is different than Italian food, which is probably different than South African food.

I've tried to come up with something to compare the top 50 restaurant list to and I think I've got it. This list is like the best film category at the Oscars if there were 100 movies nominated... and each movie was only shown in one theater in the world... and you couldn't go see it for a year because of the waiting list.

So to complete my rant, this list is pretty much useless (except for the restaurants and people in a position to eat at these restaurants). I agree it's kind of fun to gawk at these lavish restaurants, but I'd rather know what restaurants/food are awesome near me and that I can actually go to.