"It didn't matter that no judge had been to all the restaurants on the shortlist, or that two of the judges happened to be Jeremy Clarkson and Roger Moore what the editors of Restaurant understood is that people love a list, and if you order a group of restaurants from 50-1 and throw a party, people might take it seriously."
"Within two decades, The World's 50 Best Restaurants had gone from what critic Jay Rayner described as a terribly successful marketing exercise to an insurgent alternative to the ossified Michelin Guide, solidifying the reputations of El Bulli, the Fat Duck and then Noma as the world's best restaurant. Since then, we by which I mean food writers, journalists and general punters have become obsessed with restaurant lists."
"During the 2010s, the list overtook the review as the main form of restaurant writing, taking advantage of internet search-engine optimisation, publications' smaller budgets, and the alliance of journalism with PR, which allowed writers to list restaurants they hadn't paid for, or necessarily been to. The success of the list, and the decline in criticality, has precipitated restaurant writing's downfall."
Nearly 24 years ago a British food magazine assembled a celebrity panel to rank the world's best restaurants, demonstrating popular appetite for ordered lists. The World's 50 Best Restaurants grew into a powerful alternative to Michelin, elevating El Bulli, the Fat Duck and Noma. List culture proliferated into countless regional and themed rankings, enabled by search-engine optimisation, smaller editorial budgets and closer ties between journalism and PR. Lists allowed rankings without full firsthand verification. The rise of listicles over careful reviews has eroded critical standards and precipitated a decline in rigorous restaurant criticism.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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