Awards 2021

Atadika grew up in the United States and was a U.N. employee before becoming a chef. "Every culture has great food, just because you don't know the flavor profiles doesn't mean they're not delicious,” she says. Her dishes are an invitation to travel to Ghana, rooted in Ghanaian tradition, and put sorghum, baobab, plantain, goat meat, lemongrass, coriander and chillies front and center. Atadika has become a true voice for culinary Africa and also opened the Midunu Institute, a non-profit organization that educates consumers about African products.

He organizes local produce markets at cost price, bakes his own bread, and (sometimes) cooks over an open fire. Florent Ladeyn has created the ideal inn in the north of France, a place which honors local products and serves eclectic dishes – modern, rugged, unusual. It’s a place where prices remain modest, and the atmosphere friendly. Without question it’s Florent Ladeyn, the man who’s put French Flanders back on the gourmet destination map!

France has never seen a “Drive-In” as celebratory and as gluttonous as Kaysersberg at the Hotel Le Chambard. There’s vitello tonnato with pike, Riesling sauce and wild rice, walnut tart and whipped cream, pâté en croûte, pickled ceps, crayfish quenelles, fish stew and lemon meringue pie…Olivier Nasti is standing up to the pandemic with a huge number of innovations: a drive-through, a food truck, deliveries, menus prepared by several well-known chefs, and a gourmet market in front of his hotel-restaurant.

We knew Muñoz, his creativity and his perfectionism from his restaurant DiverXo in Madrid. The pandemic has allowed his new GoXo delivery concept to take off. His “Mumbai lasagne”, home delivered or served from a food truck parked in front of Madrid’s El Corte Inglès, caused a frenzy, as did his “Hong Kong-Madriz” chicken dumplings, black garlic aïoli, crispy chickpeas and violet potatoes. It’s great-tasting affordable fusion, perfectly thought out and executed to eat at home...and now also in Barcelona!

Born in the Bronx and raised in Queens, Bailey learned to cook with her family, at the Château du Feÿ in Burgundy, France, then at The Oak Room at the Plaza in New York before becoming sous chef to Gabrielle Hamilton at Prune. Her dishes, inspired by America’s southern states and the African diaspora, include Chicken Country Captain, a traditional stewed chicken, and cabbage smoked on pecan wood. The restaurant is an art deco Greyhound bus terminal from 1938. With a James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Southeast and an episode of "Chef's Table", Bailey can now count herself one of the great chefs of the United States. She is vice chair of the board of directors of the Edna Lewis Foundation, whose mission is to preserve and celebrate the legacy of the chef known for "Southern food", the cuisine of the southern United States.

Black Sheep is a group of Hong Kong restaurants employing 1000 people, with French, Italian, Thai and Indian restaurants among the 26 locations. The two founders Syed Asim Hussain and Christopher Mark, reacted quickly to the pandemic by adapting their safety guidelines and hygiene protocols. Early 2020 they published the results of their work online. Since then, the Covid Playbook has been translated into four languages and adopted in 30 countries. It is regularly updated, and could have been a publishing phenomenon, but the choice was made to maintain it as a service available to restaurateurs around the world: the Covid Playbook and all its translations - including French - remain free.

This initiative from Guillaume Gomez, head chef at the Elysée Palace, journalist Stéphane Méjanes, and the Paris Hospitals trust is one of the finest examples of community spirit and solidarity. Its purpose? To serve a decent hot meal to hospital staff. 776 chefs have cooked for 146 public hospitals and 119 private hospitals, serving 104,767 meals. The produce is supplied by wholesalers from the Rungis International Market and the TipToque website handles logistics.

Matt Orlando, an American based in Denmark, works towards sustainability 24/7. Between 90% and 100% of his produce comes from organic, local and ethical producers and farmers. His dishes include a candied pumpkin emulsion with crab, salted pumpkin seeds, spicy pork fat and fennel seeds, or a grilled duck with quince, marinated wild rose and walnut milk. Every single part of every ingredients is used. Anything that can’t be cooked is composted. And anything that can’t be composted is turned into biodiesel or biogas. Recycling, saving water, and reducing its carbon footprint are all part of the restaurant's daily routine.

Nadia Sammut, a coeliac cook who is unable to eat many foods, talks about her Lourmarin auberge as a place where "life tastes better". The chef and entrepreneur is overflowing with ideas for her restaurant, the village, and the whole region in terms of building a sustainable ecosystem. Her healthy, gluten- and lactose-free cooking is available in the high-end restaurant and also in the bistro, grocery store and through her Kom & Sal food brand, which she created during the first lockdown. La Fenière is more than a restaurant, it’s a social and community space which embodies free-from cooking.

With both the George V hotel and Simone Zanoni’s "George" restaurant closed, the chef is keeping busy with his grocery store and his Facebook and Instagram accounts under the “Casa Zanoni” brand. From his home kitchen, the chef concocts simple recipes such as scallop fricassée, chicken with red cabbage and pizza, with his great charm and Italian accent. He has now launched Casa Zanoni groceries and merchandise online. A true family adventure that has become a digital success.

There are so many changes to the Cococo group in St Petersburg, where Matilda Shnurova has split her old restaurant in two: the high-end CoCoCouture, and the more casual CoCoCo Bistro. The old space becomes Bio My Bio, a restaurant free from sugar, gluten or lactose, a complete novelty in the Russian market. CoCoCouture showcases Russian products such as lake fish with gooseberry and mackerel, young sturgeon, and duck with pickled pineapple.

The former Corner House chef Jason Tan has chosen to focus on plants: vegetables, tubers, herbs, spices and fruits are the bases for his new spin on sauces. One example is Jamboree onion with lightly marinated pearl onions, yellow onion purée and vegetable broth flavored with grilled onion and kombu essences, accompanied by Oscietra caviar. His interiors are contemporary and decked out in greenery.

Santiago Lastra masters Mexican inspiration and British ingredients. After holding events in 27 countries, Lastra moved to London to offer new wave Mexican cuisine with dishes such as langoustine and sea buckthorn tacos, lamb leg tostada cured in gooseberries with walnut oil and fermented chillis, and grilled octopus in lamb fat.

In “normal” times, Curtis Duffy and Michael Muser's restaurant could have been the opening of 2020 in the US. The duo used to work at Grace in Chicago, a great restaurant which closed in 2017. With Ever and its futuristic interior, they’re hoping to surpass themselves again. On the menu for $285: Maine scallops and mango from Florida with melted lardo and hoja santa leaves; wagyu beef surrounded by blood orange, roast Jerusalem artichoke mash, and marinated romanesco.

Basque-born Najat Kaanache’s winning formula is a combination of Mexican techniques and Moroccan ingredients and inspiration. Expect pigeon in a North African mole or beef in harissa. A free interpretation of Moroccan cuisine, served by a student of Thomas Keller and Redzepi at Noma. Kaanache is also the presenter of AMC Networks’ culinary series "Moroccan Cooking" on Spain’s Canal Cocina and the El Gourmet channel in 20 Latin American countries.

Laëtitia Visse is known for having recently broken the omerta on harassment in the kitchen. But first and foremost she’s a chef who serves beautiful French bistro cuisine from what used to be a butcher's shop. Meat reigns supreme here with dishes such as pâté with shrimps and wild arugula, saddle of lamb stuffed with andouillette and confit beef with red wine, braised cabbage, and mashed potato. A stunning selection of local produce and a library of terrines, all excellent value for money in the heart of Marseille.

Creativity can emerge from constraint, and this restaurant on the Faroe Islands might be symbolic of the self-imposed and virtuous constraints of times to come. Chef Poul Andrias Ziska elevates local produce such as rhubarb, turnips, cabbage, potatoes, garlic, lettuce, carrots, dried fish, and fermented lamb, magnifying this limited repertoire into a culinary identity for the Faroe Islands. There has been a farm in this spot since 1740, an idyllic place where green roofs covered with grass blend into the landscape. Unmissable.

Langouste has long been the meeting point for all Belgrade: a beautiful view of the Danube, tables draped in white, a cocktail bar on the terrace and cooking which had always focused on fish and seafood now elevated in precision and finesse thanks to Guillaume Iskandar, former chef of Garance in Paris, as well as Passard, Passedat and Banzo.

The art of simplicity in Galicia. Self-taught chef Marisol Dominguez chooses the best fish and seafood and prepares them as naturally as possible. Raw, boiled, fried or grilled. There’s a whole world within this perfect cooking and superlative produce, and it’s all so good. There are langoustines as long as a forearm and sea bream with peas and shallots. The taste of the sea, served with rare perfection.

Perhaps the truest embodiment of a destination restaurant, The Willows Inn ensures every guest feels as rooted in its blustery Pacific Northwest location as the 100-year-old inn itself. After time at Noma, chef Blaine Wetzel took on the Lummi Island property a decade ago, at 25, and serves up to 20 courses of foraged or home-grown produce and seafood, from beet and rhubarb nigiri to smoked mussels and ling cod ceviche.

A small restaurant in Guangdong province where Xu Jingye serves Cantonese cuisine in its purest form. On the menu you’ll find well-known classics, such as sweet and sour pork, alongside unusual dishes like the soup of twice-boiled frogs with lychee and lily, or sunflower chicken, for which prep starts with the farmer and a diet of sunflower seeds. Cantonese ingredients are given a new dimension on this culinary journey.

With its twisting staircase, balcony, and high ceilings, this café is one of those places everyone wants in their neighbourhood. Marie Robert, 31, has had a stellar career since her apprenticeship at Beau-Rivage Palace thanks to her cheerful and playful cuisine. Her menus focus on creation, novelty and sometimes trickery, even in substantial dishes such as the filet mignon of veal stuffed with white truffles, and there’s a good selection of Swiss wines.

It’s more than 70 years since the Yamada family opened Yanagiya in the town of Mizunami in the mountains of Gifu. Masashi Yamada and his brother, the third generation of chefs, still use the irori, a small square pit for grilling skewers. When in season, the Yamadas serve game from the mountains. First, in November, there’s duck, then wild boar in December. Spring is the season for freshwater trout. A little paradise on earth and a journey back in time.

Fred Ménager likes to do things differently. This student of Alain Chapel runs a self-sufficient organic farm by day, transforming himself into a chef at mealtimes. You won’t find anything fresher, more local or more organic. Those in the know visit the farm to taste his “vol au vent in nine services” with chicken, crayfish, truffles and dumplings…This is one of the great dishes of 18th century bourgeois cuisine and served only once a month.

Corn, beans, peppers, mezcal and grasshoppers - chapulines - are part of Oaxacan gastronomy in the same way as tamales and seven varieties of mole sauce. Celia Flori and Fidel Méndez’s restaurant turns all these emblems of the region into showstoppers: grilled cheese with lettuce, cactus, onion, roasted tomatoes and grasshoppers; grilled marinated pork served with fried beans and grilled onions; prawns in a corn and coconut crust; or even plates of mole with rice.

Before opening his own restaurant, Buono, 33, who has worked with David Kinch and Santi Santamaria, was Mauro Colagreco’s number two at Mirazur. Today, he’s working in a small restaurant with the help of his fiancée and a partner, where you can eat for around 40 euros a head. The food is Italian, though sometimes more broadly Mediterranean, and always packed with flavor, as a tribute to his late Catalan master Santamaria. This is one to visit as soon as it reopens.

After an apprenticeship with Hans Zahner at the Royal Monceau and four years as sous chef for Thierry Marx, Mory Sacko, 28, signed up for Top Chef, became a household name and opened his first restaurant. African and Japanese inspirations produce dishes such as sole in banana leaf, turbot and plantain in Shito sauce, Yassa chicken, paradise pepper, creamed rice and yuzu followed by a warm chocolate ganache with smoked salt, or wasabi ice cream. Some dishes come with their own glass of saké.

29-year-old Daniel Smith opened his fine dining pub in England’s smallest town, Fordwich, Kent in 2017. A graduate of London’s Clove Club, he brought his own brand of elegant cuisine with an edge to this tiny outpost near Canterbury and draws on the area’s outstanding produce - Kent is known as the garden of England - to deliver a seasonal menu with finesse but no pretence.

34-year-old Josh Boutwood juggles constant innovation at The Test Kitchen with his other concepts Savage and Helm, and his job as executive chef at The Bistro Group managing 130 restaurants across the Philippines. In late 2019 he re-opened The Test Kitchen with a new address and formula, switching from tasting menu to à la carte but maintaining the same level of artistry.

Peruvian Francesca Ferreyros, 31, is an innovator within the fusion field and one of the most important voices in Peruvian cuisine. After time in Ivan Kisic’s kitchen in Lima she trained in Europe at El Celler de Can Roca and with Gaggan Anand in Bangkok. She has investigated the traditional foods and techniques of Peru’s indigenous peoples for upcoming opening UNE (delayed by covid) which will present South-East Asian and Amazon fusion. Meanwhile she is running her “covid baby” Baan, a relaxed concept in Lima serving Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese and Indonesian flavors.