 |
| Asia's 50 Best Cocktails. Clockwise: Chuckling with 2013 Number 1 Chef Narisawa. With Singapore's A-List ladies Lynn Yeow De-Vito and Su-Lyn Tan. Vietnam-based Bobby Chinn strikes a pose with Tetsuya Wakuda et al after dancing his way to them. With Miele Guide Chef of Chefs Umberto Bombana from 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana. With Waku Ghin's Tetsuya Wakuda. |
There was a time when cooking was not a career. It was a vocation. The chef worked behind the scenes. The star of the night was the guest of honor.
But sometime in the past couple of decades, the concept of the celebrity chef was born. And chefs have been hailed as guests of honor in their own right.
In 2002, Restaurant Magazine started compiling its own list of "best" restaurants around the world by means of a vote from a prestigious panel of chefs, restaurateurs and food writers in 2002. It was this list that sealed the legendary El Bulli restaurant of Ferran Adria as THE number 1 restaurant in the world, having won not only in 2002 but also from 2006 to 2009, when it was replaced by Denmark's Noma (and Adria closed his restaurant/workshop).
The awards night is a big thing because - aside from the announcement which you can get from the wires - it is that one night when these top chefs from around the world get together in London. I mean, how else do you meet all these chefs in one fell swoop? Attending in 2012, it felt like a Madame Tussauds museum of celebrity chefs except they were all alive and kicking. Adria, Redzepi, Bottura, Keller, Bouloud - all there!
 |
| THROWBACK. 2012 World's Best Restaurant Awards in London. How do you beat this guest list?! This was also the night when they announced they would be launching Asia's Best Restaurant Awards. Clockwise: Italy's Massimo Bottura, Alvin Leung of Hong Kong's Bo Innovation, selfie! at London's Guildhall, lifetime achievement awardee Thomas Keller, Singapore's Ignatius Chan of Iggy's, Noma's Rene Redzepi, Tetsuya, Daniel Bouloud, Tokyo's (and Asia's Best Restaurants 2013 Number 1 Narisawa. Center: El Bulli's Ferran Adria and Isabel Perez Barcelo. |
In 2012, at the tenth anniversary of Worlds Best, they announced that they were launching Asia's 50 Best Restaurant Awards. And the first Asia's Best was held in Marina Bay Sands last year (2013), with Chef Yoshihiro Narisawa's Tokyo restaurant hailed as Number 1 in Asia.
The 2013 awards night was pretty much just an announcement evening. But come 2014, we were pleasantly surprised - it was a blast! I guess with Hong Kong-based Catch On PR taking over (founder is Filipina Cathy Chon), and with Ate Media (founded by the team behind the Miele Guide, Aun Koh and Su-Lyn Tan) in charge in Singapore, the red carpet was rolled out with extra pizazz this year!
 |
| Ate's PR guru Lynn Yeow De-Vito and Ate founder Su-Lyn Tan |
It was an evening of good vibes, thanks in large part to the free flowing Veuve Clicquot!
There seemed to have been a slight upset among the Narisawa fans when the Number 1 restaurant this year was announced: Nahm in Bangkok. You know, votes are highly influenced by the sentiment of the times as well as by trends. I guess after Heston Blumenthal made waves with Dinner at the Mandarin in London, with his historical menu and the focus on going back to our food roots and heritage cooking, that David Thompson is the new darling is understandable. And the fact that Bangkok is number one (though Thompson is Australian) is historical. (Congratulations, Mr. David Thompson and Bangkok!)
Anyway, Narisawa seemed to be in great spirits at an after party at Izy, a new concept (like a Generation Y worldly izakaya) that Aun Koh helped Narisawa develop in Singapore's Chinatown. Narisawa had brought his team from Tokyo and they made the most fantastic hors d'oeuvres. These were melt in your mouth ...
... but it was this "cocktail" that blew me away. This is sea urchin and tamago. Believe it! Only Narisawa.
Check out the hip if you are in Singapore. It's near the Maxwell Hawker (so you can go get drunkaroo here then have a 3 am congee at Maxwell haha!). Make sure to ask for the craft beers (craft beer lover Cyrene, whom I dragged with me that night after checking out 28 Hong Kong, could not get over these craft beers!). We met the lovely supplier named Joan who showed us stock of such craft beers as a 2012 Ninetailed Fox - note (if I wasn't too woozy yet that night and I heard right) there are only something like 150 bottles in the world.
 |
| World's Number 1. Chef Joan Roca of El Celler de can Roca pre-Awards (left) and 2 am at the Izy after party (right). "After seeing how beautiful Filipinas are maybe I will open a restaurant in the Philippines," he joked (via translator). |
Izy.
27 Club Street, Singapore.
