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I HAVE a love/hate relationship with all of the ‘annual best restaurant lists’. (Actually, let me be real, it's with all award lists.) I hate going through any of them. We all know the trick with the restaurant lists: one usually looks at the top three, the bottom five and moves on. I’d admit, that I live for all the gossip surrounding these lists. I love hearing the myriad conspiracy theories behind the inclusion and exclusion of a restaurant, the slipping placements of a chef or a restaurant, the ones that should never have made it in at all. One has got to sift through the words of the sycophants, the butt-hurt and the tell-it-like-it-is characters to arrive somewhere at the real truth: it actually doesn’t matter in its present form. Or more truthfully, all of us really want it to matter if it just did its job; properly.
The glitz and glamour of giving awards – we must know deep down, inside of our bones – distract from something else, something more significant. Let’s take the example of The Academy Awards, or the Oscars, started in 1927 “to award artistic and technical merit” by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). AMPAS was established by Louis B Mayer of Mayer Pictures Corporation, later Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, to ‘unite’ the five branches of the film industry: actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers. But it wasn’t altruism or the fostering of a collaborative spirit that motivated the starting of these awards, rather, he wanted to distract them from forming unions. He didn’t want these unions demanding fair and rewarding work conditions for its members, his workers.
Now, I don’t think these ‘annual best restaurant lists’ have that level of dark intention. No one is as sinister as Mr Mayer, let’s hope. But it never hurts to look before we leap to any kind of conclusion.
But reading through the comments on the social media posts of these many lists and sitting in on the gossip, I find myself morphing between wanting to add my pitchfork to the mob, pitch my voice in harmony with the chorus, and sit some of them down over a hot cup of tea and tell them, ‘okay angry person, this is what you really want to say’ and rewrite it for them. Perhaps, this opinion piece, is an attempt at reframing all of these crude, kneejerk comments into useful feedback.
I find myself like the marauding horde distrusting the exercise of list-making lately. I mean, we all know the way to being recognised by an authority figure. One sucks up. I mean, it doesn’t have to be simply by flattering those in authority, it’s also by being undeniably good at the thing one does. It’s a spectrum but we also know which approach gets rewarded the fastest. One of the best ways of avoiding this charge is transparency but that’s never enough, it's a hard demand to satisfy. An easier solution might be getting rid of the rating system altogether. We have to expunge ourselves of this who-came-first-in-class syndrome. (Always makes me wonder who was eleven, thirty-one and fifty-one.) Maybe if these lists didn’t have a hierarchy, it would open up fresh ways of writing them.
Some of the things that might emerge from sidestepping the annoying ranking system: these lists can look outside of the metros to name and describe local gems; restaurants that might not be fine dining but the food hits the spot, consistently. It might be able to acknowledge the contributions of legendary restaurants across the country to the F&B industry. With social media, access has shifted. Luxury isn’t simply money any more, it’s all about having the time and patience to fulfil an experience. These are the weapons needed to track down good food. Not having looming numbers will allow these arbiters to showcase people and places rather than pitting them against each other.
While, all year round, these awarding platforms ‘celebrate’ indigenous, hyper-local ingredients, this isn’t reflected in these lists. Let’s take the North-East, everyone’s glorifying North-Eastern ingredients. Lately, it seems like bhut jolokia goes in everything from chicken wings to craft cocktails in a metro city. But because these ‘restaurant lists’ have bound themselves to highlight haute cuisine and fine dining, they can’t seem to find room for these more regional experiences.
These lists have the power to bring attention to important trends and traditions; helping them become mainstays. Now, they’ve actually got to press refresh and give us a list that tries to matter to its context. These lists can actually make taste. Such a missed opportunity.
