Italian chef Massimo Bottura's
Osteria Francescana in the northern city of Modena has risen to
the ranking of world's top restaurant, the World's 50 Best
Restaurant Awards List released on Monday night showed.
The Modena eatery knocked El Celler de Can Roca in Girona
off the Number 1 spot and scooped first prize in the list, drawn
up by the British magazine "Restaurant" and based on the votes
of hundreds of chefs, critics and food lovers.
"Succeeding these days means using the ingredient of
culture because culture is knowledge and knowledge leads to
awareness and creates responsibility," Bottura said as he
accepted his prize at the ceremony in New York's Cipriani Wall
Street.
Bottura opened L'Osteria Francescana in Via Stella in
Modena 21 years ago. He is the soul and mastermind of the
eatery, which focuses on dishes from the Emilia Romagna region,
served traditionally but also with an innovative and
contemporary twist.
Organisers put his win down to "his unmistakably Italian
style. In a country in which food culture is deeply
conservative, Bottura has launched an audacious and at times
controversial path, gathering consensus in all the world and
even winning over Italian critics".
Since Tuesday morning the restaurant has been bombarded
with calls and emails, Bottura's assistant Enrico Vignoli said.
"They are calling above all from abroad to make
reservations, and in Italy journalists and normal people are
calling to congratulate us," he said.
The international experts also praised Bottura's "Food for
Soul" charity, a project to fight hunger and food waste.
"The most important thing for a restaurant is to have a
soul. And Osteria Francescana has got it," said Juan Roca, one
of the owners of the El Cellar de Can Roca restaurant in Girona
which Bottura knocked into second place.
New York restaurant Eleven Madison Park scooped the third
prize, Central in Lima, Peru, came in fourth, and Copenhagen's
Noma took fifth place.
Other Italians recognised by the prize, included Le
Calandre, run by the Alajmo brothers in the Veneto region, (39th
place) and Davide Scabin's Combal Zero in Piedmont (46th place).
Italian Minister of Agricultural Policies Maurizio Martina
praised Bottura for his know-how and visionary qualities, and
said he hoped "this is a case that many people want to imitate,
to emanate all the power that the food and farming sector and
Italian gastronomy has".
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