As happened for the Wine Guide, Espresso restaurant guide presented at the Leopolda in Florence this year is totally renewed. It is a real revolution: rankings and votes have been abolished, there are only evaluations that take into account various aspects of Italian catering as a whole.
And if last year the Guide awarded for the first time in its history sensationally 20/20, or perfection, to the great Massimo Bottura of the Osteria Francescana in Modena, by now the winner of all imaginable prizes in Italy and abroad (so much so that our Premier called him, after playing with Hollande, also to sweeten the palate (and character) of German Chancellor Merkel on the occasion of the summit Italian-German at the Ferrari headquarters in Maranello), this year the Guide points out instead the 5 best restaurants in bulk where to go without fail for a dream lunch or dinner, awarding them five hats, that is the new maximum recognition conceived more democratically.
Obviously, Bottura is a must, but they are there together with the great chef from Modena The Calandre of Rubano by Massimiliano Alajmo, Michelin multi-starred; Piazza Duomo in Alba by Enrico Ceretto, Reale di Castel di Sangro by Niko Romito, and Uliassi of Senigallia. Even this choice presents some surprises.
Starting with an absence: that of Heinz Beck, the Italian-German chef of La Pergola del Cavalieri Hilton, accustomed for years to the top of the gastronomic classifications who is placed in the group of the four hats, i.e. on the second podium together with Casa Perbellini in Verona, il Cambio in Turin, the Duomo in Ragusa, La Madia from Licata, La Peca from Lonigo, the Mandarin Oriental Seta from Milan, the Taverna Estia from Brusciano, Villa Crespi from Orta San Giulio, Vissani from Baschi.
Why the choice of democratic hats that cancel distances instead of the rigorous scores of the past? The historic director of the Guides, Enzo Vizzari explains it: “The hats – he says – indicate quality ranges within which there can be restaurants and cuisines that are distant from each other but united by judgment on the level of the cuisine practised. We didn't limit ourselves to converting the scores from "twentieth" to "hats" but we rethought the score of each place in itself in relation to others with a similar score".
In short, it is a fact that Italian restaurants have never eaten as well as today, the quality of high-end places in terms of food, but also the environment, service and cellar, has grown and continues to grow both among already established restaurants and among those and are numerous recently opened. And the Guide, by escaping the numbers game, seems to want to show consumers a new way of approaching good Italian cuisine not relying only on scores but evaluating with their own palate.
Because as Vizzari rightly points out, “edition after edition we have become aware of the growing difficulty, if not the arbitrariness of judgments expressed in fractions of a point for establishments that are profoundly different from each other and distant in terms of history, culture, size, cooking style… Difficulty all the more growing the more the average level of Italian restaurant cuisine has risen and rises”.
It is worth making a note of the restaurants that have gained successive positions, i.e. the 36 that have been awarded the three hats, the 89 that have deserved 2 hats and those that have earned 1 hat which are 363.
By evaluating them mathematically overall in relation to their regional location, we can get an idea of where you generally eat better or where the level of quality catering remains high. Well, from this point of view the Lombardia outperforms all with 90 restaurants, followed by Campania with 53 reports. The Piemonte however, whose gastronomic traditions of excellence are indubitable in history, fails to pass the mark of 48 reports.
Following are the Veneto la Toscana with 47, the Lazio with 42, theEmilia Romagna with 35, the Trentino Alto Adige with 28, the Sicilia with 25, the Liguria with 18, theAbruzzo with 17, the Puglia with 14. They are below the threshold of 10 reports il Friuli Venezia Giulia,Umbria and Marche with 9 restaurants, the Calabria with 7 a Valle d'Aosta with 4. The list ends with three regions which frankly could offer something more in relation to their history and their traditions, namely the Sardinia with only three reports, the Molise , Basilicata with a single notification.
Still in this regard, it is interesting to note that from the photograph that the Guide traces of Italian quality restaurants, 2.700 selected establishments, 2000 reviewed with a card, there are 370 entered for the first time. A sign that the direction taken by our food and wine thanks above all to the new recruits is the right one.
For the record, the 600-page guide is also available in digital version in the app for iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
