The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2012: Who made the cut?

Tue, 05/01/2012 - 09:39 — Anonymous by Anthea GerrieCooking with obscure
Nordic ingredients paid off for chef Rene Redzepi, whose Noma was named
World's Best Restaurant for the third year in a row. Paris, New York and
Tokyo, eat your heart out -- the world's best restaurant is not on your
turf, but a dimly-lit warehouse in an obscure part of Copenhagen no one had
heard of eight years ago. That's when chef Rene Redzepi opened Noma with
somewhat strange ambitions -- to serve only food native to Scandinavia -- so
no olive oil or other fancy Mediterranean stuff.  He created dishes with
obscure items like milk skin, hay and pine needles, and against all the odds,
it worked. Noma this week made it a hat trick in the World's Best 50
Restaurants awards, taking the top award for the third year in a row. And
behind him come a whole raft of new young culinary hotshots known as the New
Nordics -- 10 percent of this year's Top 50 restaurants are in Scandinavia.
Spain has done even better, mind you, with 30 percent of the Top 10 -- yet
again -- in a row. Spanish restaurants remain at no. 2, 3 and 8, just like
last year. And this is without the help of superstar chef Ferran Adria,
first-ever winner of the awards, who broke records by holding the top spot
for four years in a row with elBulli before closing it in 2011.   All are
in the foodie north of the country, ditto another two which made the
list.read more