Everyone Congratulate the World’s 50 Best for Including Six Women on Its New, Longer Long List

Today the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list announced the people who were recognized by judges as good, but not good enough to make it to the problematic, titular top 50. Whereas in past years, the list has released what’s become known as the “back 50,” with restaurants ranking 51 to 100, this year the list-makers extended to 120, ostensibly to celebrate the 120th anniversary of the list’s sponsor, San Pellegrino. So, um, welcome, the back 70.

Some perennial top 50 favorites have fallen off this year: Alex Atala’s D.O.M. in Sao Paulo has fallen from 30 to 54; the Ledbury in London has fallen from 42 to 64; Nihonryori RyuGin in Tokyo from 41 to 62.

Meanwhile, last year’s Best Female Chef winner Clare Smyth made it onto the long list this year, with her London restaurant Core by Clare Smyth debuting at 66. 2016 Best Female Chef winner Dominique Crenn is once again conspicuously missing from the long list; despite last year’s expectations of her San Francisco tasting-menu Atelier Crenn making the list following its third Michelin star, she was shut out. The same thing may well happen again this year, even as the list-makers claim they want to rectify the lists’s long-standing skew towards male chefs.

Ultimately, the extra-long long list does not tell us much about what to expect from the top 50. This year, past winners of the No. 1 slot are off the list completely; that means no Eleven Madison Park, no Osteria Francescana, no Cellar de Can Roca. It’s hard to imagine what the top 10 might look like without those perennial places (the Fat Duck and the French Laundry are also off the list, but neither of those restaurants has been in the top 10 in ages). Using last year’s rankings as a predictor, Mauro Colagreco’s Mirazur in Menton, France; Gaggan Anand’s Gaggan in Bangkok; or Virgilio Martinez and Pia Leon’s Central in Lima are the most likely to take the top spot. Of course, per 50 Best regulations that allow Noma 2.0 on the list (it has a “new concept, location and structure” okay!!!!), there’s a good chance René Redzepi’s restaurant will once again take the top honors after having won four times before ...and then never be on the list again for real this time.

[UPDATE June 19th: The above paragraph has been updated to reflect that Noma is not disqualified from the list despite having been a number one restaurant.]

The longer, 120-spot list does allow the organization to fete some legacy industry players despite the fact that their restaurants have mostly fallen out of favor. Among the big-name restaurants to fall past the 100 mark are Thomas Keller’s Per Se in New York City (Keller would be off the list entirely otherwise thanks to the new rules around number one restaurants), Fergus Henderson’s St. John in London, and Pascal Barbot’s L’Astrance in Paris.

The organization’s press release around the long list emphasized diversity. Among the insights offered by the release under the sub-heading “The 51 - 120 list in numbers: developing diversity”: “51-120 boasts 21 new entries from 15 countries, marking a near 30% increase in new territories this year.” Twenty-five countries are represented in six continents (only Antartica is missing), and four new countries are now on the list. Given how much the list has struggled to break free of its Euro-centric biases, increased regional diversity is good. But the U.S.A. has the most entries on the back 70 with seven restaurants, five of which are in New York and the other two in northern California. And among the “new regions” added are the Marche region and the Dolomites in Italy, Ghent in Belgium, and southern Spain’s Aponiente. Diversifying regions within Europe doesn’t really make the list any less Eurocentric.

Another part of the release subtitled “Female Forward” notes that “there is a strong female presence” on the long list this year. To be clear there are six restaurants on this list with women at the helm in the kitchen. Six out of 70. If that’s worth calling out as “female forward,” it seems likely that the organization has failed in meaningfully diversifying its long list. But we’ll find out for sure when the top 50 is revealed in Singapore next week.

51. Reale, Castel del Sangro, Italy

52. Mikla, Istanbul

53. Arzak, San Sebastian, Spain

54. D.O.M., Sao Paolo

55. Maeemo, Oslo

56. Relae, Copenhagen

57. Nobelhart and Schmutzig, Berlin

58. Sud 777, Mexico City

59. Burnt Ends, Singapore

60. Indian Accent, New Delhi

61. Uliassi, Senigallia, Italy

62. Nihonryori RyuGin, Tokyo

63. Florilege, Tokyo

64. The Ledbury, London

65. Selfie, Moscow

66. Core by Clare Smyth, London

67. Astrid y Gaston, Lima

68. Faviken, Jarpen, Sweden

69. Nahm, Bangkok

70. Saison, San Francisco

71. SingleThread, Healdsburg, USA

72. Aqua, Wolsfburg, Germany

73. Mani, Sao Paolo

74. Lasai, Rio de Janiero

75. DiverXo, Madrid

76. Momofuku Ko, New York

77. Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare, New York

78. Lido 84, Gardone, Riviera, Italy

79. Mingles, Seoul

80. Estela, New York

81. Quique Dacosta, Denia, Spain

82. Engima, Barcelona

83. Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, London

84. Attica, Melbourne

85. Amass, Copenhagen

86. Tegui, Buenos Aires, Argentina

87. Martin Berasategui, Lasate-Oria, Spain

88. Lun King Heen, Hong Kong

89. 108, Copenhagen

90. Alo, Toronto

91. Sushi Saito, Tokyo

92. Harvest, St. Petersburg

93. La Cime, Osaka, Japan

94. Aponiente, El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain

95. Gaa, Bankok

96. Belon, Hong Kong

97. Vendome, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany

98. Anne-Sophie Pic, Valence, France

99. The Jane, Antwerp, Belgium

100. Oteque, Rio de Janeiro

101. Brae, Birregurra, Australia

102. Amber, Hong Kong

103. Jade Dragon, Macao

104. Cococo, St. Petersburg

105. Kadeau, Copenhagen

106. Restaurant David Toutain, Paris

107. Il Ristorante Luca Fantin, Tokyo

108. L’Astrance, Paris

109. Alcalde, Guadalajara, Mexico

110. Neolokal, Istanbul

111. Chambre Separee, Ghent, Belgium

112. St. John, London

113. Vea, Hong Kong

114. La Colombe, Cape Town

115. Per Se, New York

116. St. Hubertus, San Cassiano, Italy

117. Epicure, Paris

118. Ernst, Berlin

119. Atomix, New York

120. Sugalabo, Tokyo

Additional reporting by Ryan Sutton.