So much negativity in a year where people are desperate for positive news!
I think Lisa's & Lars's piece makes a wrong assumption about people wanting a reset. I actually think people don't want a reset. I think the people pushing for a reset are mainly journalists and other activists who would like to see better representation of women and minorities on these lists. Well I would like to see that as well. But I am not willing to sacrifice the impact of merit to make it happen. If there is a way I can help these categories of chefs to reach their full human potential as craftsmen, I would be happy to go out of my way to do it. But I am not alone in not being able to figure out a way.
The odd part about the perspective Lisa & Lars's piece puts forth is they seem to think that diners eat out for altruistic reasons, and that they eat out to advance social causes rather than looking for the best meal. Well to be honest with you, I have never met a single diner in my life who eats out for any other reason than selfish ones. This is not to accuse them of being selfish, but eating out for any other reason than deliciousness or intellectual curiosity about culinary technique is in conflict with the hobby they are passionate about. Hierarchies are in conflict with the concept of social justice, which is as much a zero sum game as ranking systems are.
So given the above, the best path forward is to maintain the historical system and nudge it in places in order to make it as diverse as possible. For example, there was a time when there were less than 6 women chefs on the OAD list. One of the reasons the number keeps increasing is I make it my personal business to visit the restaurant of any female chef who has a chance of making the list . And since my vote has a lot of weight, it helps them earn a place. I would do the same for a chef of color if there was one who could qualify. I wish I knew other ways to help but as I said, no one seems to know any. But people certainly know how to complain about it. ;-).
Also OAD topper for their Europe Cheap Eats list "Møller Kaffe & Køkken" (literally two blocks from my home 13 years) has been closed for 9 months. The new shop Mad&Kaffe Nørrebro is ok but nowhere near... like do they check anything?
If you check Yelp, they still list it as open. I have now removed it. Unfortunately, we are a very small staff and we do our best to keep our information up to date. But it is close to impossible to get everything right, especially for Cheap Eats restaurants which we pay less attention to than the top places. So what happens is the corrections are crowd sourced by the readers after the lists are published. But if you would like to volunteer your time to fact check the lists before I publish them, no one would stop ypu.
Strangely, there is no specific timeframe within which OAD reviewers need to have visited the restaurant they are voting on. When we asked Steve Plotnicki about this, he said that a reviewer's "complete dining history" is taken into consideration, though if they revisit a place, only their latest review counts. So although OAD is an annual list, reviewers can vote on restaurants they visited years ago--which may explain the Møller inclusion!
Strange because to me there's a disconnect between issuing a list annually, and not requiring the reviewers who determine that list to base their votes on visits that correspond roughly to the same time period. I suspect many readers would expect that visits were made in the year or or two prior to voting.
The lists would lose consistency if it was done that way and they would become much less useful for readers. How about the following example that will be close to your heart. One year Ferran decides to go off of the deep end and makes a really crazy menu that 25% of diners hate. Should his ranking drop significantly because of it or should it just be part of the mix? If his ranking dropped precipitously, you would be giving readers the wrong advice based on their need because El Bulli would still be the most important restaurant in the world even with the bad reviews. So it comes down to what you want the lists to express. How a restaurant did this year or where it sits in the spectrum of the fine dining world in a more holistic way. Readers will find the latter far more useful than the former. Hope this makes sense.
And just to be clear Mad&Kaffe food is decent, but nowhere near the originality and quality of Møller the first years.... friendlier service since Mad&kaffe took over definitely.
Yes that makes sense. Some confusion also may be due to the Mad&Kaffe Group buying Møller back in 2019 but only renaming "Møller Mad&kaffe" it 9 months ago and now only calling it "Mad & Kaffe Nørrebro" since the last opening after lock-down
So much negativity in a year where people are desperate for positive news!
I think Lisa's & Lars's piece makes a wrong assumption about people wanting a reset. I actually think people don't want a reset. I think the people pushing for a reset are mainly journalists and other activists who would like to see better representation of women and minorities on these lists. Well I would like to see that as well. But I am not willing to sacrifice the impact of merit to make it happen. If there is a way I can help these categories of chefs to reach their full human potential as craftsmen, I would be happy to go out of my way to do it. But I am not alone in not being able to figure out a way.
The odd part about the perspective Lisa & Lars's piece puts forth is they seem to think that diners eat out for altruistic reasons, and that they eat out to advance social causes rather than looking for the best meal. Well to be honest with you, I have never met a single diner in my life who eats out for any other reason than selfish ones. This is not to accuse them of being selfish, but eating out for any other reason than deliciousness or intellectual curiosity about culinary technique is in conflict with the hobby they are passionate about. Hierarchies are in conflict with the concept of social justice, which is as much a zero sum game as ranking systems are.
So given the above, the best path forward is to maintain the historical system and nudge it in places in order to make it as diverse as possible. For example, there was a time when there were less than 6 women chefs on the OAD list. One of the reasons the number keeps increasing is I make it my personal business to visit the restaurant of any female chef who has a chance of making the list . And since my vote has a lot of weight, it helps them earn a place. I would do the same for a chef of color if there was one who could qualify. I wish I knew other ways to help but as I said, no one seems to know any. But people certainly know how to complain about it. ;-).
Great piece. Thanks :-)
Thank you for reading!
Also OAD topper for their Europe Cheap Eats list "Møller Kaffe & Køkken" (literally two blocks from my home 13 years) has been closed for 9 months. The new shop Mad&Kaffe Nørrebro is ok but nowhere near... like do they check anything?
If you check Yelp, they still list it as open. I have now removed it. Unfortunately, we are a very small staff and we do our best to keep our information up to date. But it is close to impossible to get everything right, especially for Cheap Eats restaurants which we pay less attention to than the top places. So what happens is the corrections are crowd sourced by the readers after the lists are published. But if you would like to volunteer your time to fact check the lists before I publish them, no one would stop ypu.
In Copenhagen sure.
Strangely, there is no specific timeframe within which OAD reviewers need to have visited the restaurant they are voting on. When we asked Steve Plotnicki about this, he said that a reviewer's "complete dining history" is taken into consideration, though if they revisit a place, only their latest review counts. So although OAD is an annual list, reviewers can vote on restaurants they visited years ago--which may explain the Møller inclusion!
Lisa - What is the logic between thinking this is strange?
Strange because to me there's a disconnect between issuing a list annually, and not requiring the reviewers who determine that list to base their votes on visits that correspond roughly to the same time period. I suspect many readers would expect that visits were made in the year or or two prior to voting.
The lists would lose consistency if it was done that way and they would become much less useful for readers. How about the following example that will be close to your heart. One year Ferran decides to go off of the deep end and makes a really crazy menu that 25% of diners hate. Should his ranking drop significantly because of it or should it just be part of the mix? If his ranking dropped precipitously, you would be giving readers the wrong advice based on their need because El Bulli would still be the most important restaurant in the world even with the bad reviews. So it comes down to what you want the lists to express. How a restaurant did this year or where it sits in the spectrum of the fine dining world in a more holistic way. Readers will find the latter far more useful than the former. Hope this makes sense.
And just to be clear Mad&Kaffe food is decent, but nowhere near the originality and quality of Møller the first years.... friendlier service since Mad&kaffe took over definitely.
Yes that makes sense. Some confusion also may be due to the Mad&Kaffe Group buying Møller back in 2019 but only renaming "Møller Mad&kaffe" it 9 months ago and now only calling it "Mad & Kaffe Nørrebro" since the last opening after lock-down