The world’s top 50 best restaurants, the world’s 100 best chefs – the Michelin guide is no longer the most authoritative, more and more lists gather the most important experts in world gastronomy. The Best Chef Awards have been around since 2017, so far Hungarian chefs have only been nominated, Ákos Sárközi and Ádám Mészáros were nominated in 2020, and Szilárd Tóth last year, but a Hungarian chef was only nominated this year.
The Best Chef voting has two stages. For the first time, 100 new chefs are nominated for the list each year by gastronomic experts, critics, and photographers. Then, in addition to the new candidates, voters can cast their votes for those on the top 100 list from the previous year: the experts of The Best Chef, the best chefs of the previous year and the new candidates (of course, they cannot vote for themselves). Thus, the annual top 100 list is finally composed of a total of 200 candidates. The profession looks at the creativity of the chef and the work of the team working with him at the same time.
The purpose of the Best Chef Awards is to create a connection between the best chefs worldwide, and the award ceremony is usually held during professional programs lasting several days.
The best chef in the world this year is Dabiz Muñoz, the chef of the DiverXO restaurant in Madrid. Chef René Redzepi of Noma, which has long held the title of the best restaurant in the world, came fourth, and Ana Roš, the chef of Slovenia’s Hiša Franko, came third on the list. Heston Blumenthal is ranked number 49 on the list. Otherwise, the lineup includes plenty of Spanish and French and Scandinavian chefs, but very few Americans and Asians.
We conducted an interview with Szilárd Tóth and Máté Boldizsár two years ago, in which they summarized the essence of their work as follows:
“We wanted to create a type of homely fine dining in which the guest feels good, not only eats well, but can surrender to the moment. And if we also have a good time, a healthy symbiosis can develop between us.”
“In addition to innovation, our roots, on which we build, are very important to us. We don’t rethink, we build. We have to integrate the existing food into our ready approach and present it with appropriate knowledge. We don’t have to invent goulash soup, it’s already there. There is much greater potential in regional gastronomy, it is more diverse and diverse, and we Hungarians don’t even know about many things. Foreigners should not be shown the chicken paprikash, as they know that, but other elements of Hungarian cuisine.”
