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A new awards show for a "restaurant-hungry public increasingly obsessed with eating, drinking and travel," and the first ever restaurant awards to be televised, will take place in Paris on 18 February 2019.
The World Restaurant Awards, conceived by food writers Joe Warwick and Andrea Petrini, in partnership with producers IMG, will be judged by a 100- strong panel of the most influential voices in food today, including chefs such as Yannick Alléno, Elena Arzak, Alex Atala, Massimo Bottura, David Chang, Dominique Crenn, Hélène Darroze, Daniel Humm, René Redzepi, Ana Roš and Clare Smyth, and assorted renowned international food press.
The event will be televised in an attempt to create an Oscars-like buzz, says Petrini, with a star-studded guest list to attract global attention. “We’d like to make The World Restaurant Awards about the pleasure of eating, drinking, travelling and forward thinking,” he says. “Not the Nobel Prize for food but rather our take on the idea of an Oscars for the restaurant world, with all the sense of zeitgeist and glamour that implies.”
The judges met for the first time in Paris on 14 May for a collaborative workshop to help define the objectives of the awards. “The World Restaurant Awards will be conducted with complete integrity, total transparency and a real sense of inclusivity. We want to make everyone think about the full gamut of the world’s great restaurants – old and new, from luxury destinations to humble institutions – and what makes them so special,” says Warwick.
The panel made their first commitment to sustainability, by naming the Perennial Farming Initiative, which is “dedicated to combating climate change by mobilising support for regenerative agriculture in the food world,” as the official charity of The World Restaurant Awards.
The World Restaurant Awards: The Judging Categories
The World Restaurant Awards categories will include the following: Big Plates (serious) and Small Plates (tongue-in-cheek), Tweezer-free Kitchen and Instagram Account of the Year.
Updated 28.9.18
