.. the new "localization".

As maybe you all know, yesterday night in London we had the pleasure to host the ceremony of the 50 best restaurant worldwide and there was lots of excitement around for this event.

Created by William Drew, editor of Restaurant Magazine and sponsored by S.Pellegrino, this award has been celebrated since 2002. Every year El Bulli, the famous Spanish restaurant of the chef Ferran Adrià, have been in the top 3 positions, but last night the event was made even more interesting by the absence of this restaurant, soon close to become a culinary foundation.

Of course there was not doubt about  the number one, the restaurant Noma in Copenhagen, with the chef Renè Redzepi  that became number one last year for the first time.  Other two Spanish restaurants have yesterday conquered the second and third position  leaving to Heston Blumenthal a low fifth place (he was third the past year). What about the fourth position then? Massimo Bottura won it! Probably the most famous chef in Italy for his studies about the tradition and the evolution of the food and with his amazing Osteria Francescana.

Then other 5 italian restaurants were elected between the fifty best and these are Combal.Zero in Rivoli (TO) with the chef Davide Scabin, Alajmo with Le Calandre di Rubano (PD), Carlo Cracco with the Restaurant Cracco in Milano that entered directly at the 33 position, Dal Pescatore, Canneto sull’Oglio (MN) manged by the Santini’s family and finally Il Canto in Siena with the chef Paolo Lopriore. Congratulation to all of them who make italian proud of their cuisine and gastronomic art.

But today my attention was particularly catch by the various interviews to Mr. Redzepi  and especially by an element that is coming up often lately, speaking about the best restaurants and chefs in the word and especially about him and his cuisine: “LOCALIZION”. Basically seem to be the trend of the moment!

Noma infact makes of the localization or localism his strong point: the chef uses with love and creativity the products of his land, but it's not the only one in the list. This is a tendency we saw in fact even here in London where lots of enterpreneurs are creating in the city (or just really near) their private production of the most peculiar things from quails to pigs, from wine to beer. I was just reading about this the past weekend . So maybe in the future we will get use to have just locally sourced food? That could be great...but what about the pasta? I think I will still take that from Gragnano.

In the meantime let's just start to plan our dinners out, following this long list and lets enjoy these great chefs.