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On the 25th February 2013 the team behind Restaurant Magazine and The World's 50 Best Restaurant Awards sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna will announce, for the first time ever, a new list compiled of the50 Best Restaurants in Asia, the first 50 best restaurant 2013 in Asia. A culinary spotlight that's sure to reveal some exciting and innovative dining experiences - it's Asia's time to shine.
The first award from the competition was given to The Best Female chef, the Thai born Duongporn ‘Bo’ Songvisava who runs the Bo.lan restaurant in Bangkok. Songvisava is a chef who has spent her entire career trying to better understand and present high quality authentic thai food to guests after studying at the Nahm restaurant in London.
No one knows exactly which restaurants will make the list for 2013 but speculation is rife. The French chef Paul Pairet has already won the first ever Lifetime Achievement award, chosen for his 'delivery of sophisticated, avant-garde cuisine'.
Pairet's Ultraviolet restaurant in Shanghai is a dining experience like no other. Guests are picked up in a mini-bus before being delivered to a secret location and a back door alleyway somewhere in the city, all before enjoying a truly unique 20-course tasting menu that includes foie gras cigarettes and cola rocks.
Chefs like Jiro Ono and his three Michelin starred sushi restaurant in a Tokyo subway station, people like Ignatius Chan who owns Iggy's restaurant in Singapore and chefs like Yoshihiro Narisawa who runs the Narisawa restaurant in Japan.
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There's also the huge number of Western chefs who have travelled to Asia as part of a culinary pilgrimage. Mauro Colagreco, Jason Atherton and Jean-Georges Vongerichten who all run restaurants in Shanghai. Just some of the people trying to please palettes that have quickly become some of the most discerning on the planet.
Asia already has The Miele Guide but this will be the first time anyone has tried to compile a list of the best 50 restaurants, 50 truly amazing dining experiences and 50 chefs who are trying to change the face of dining throughout Asia.
This part of the world has quickly become one of the rapid rising stars of the culinary elite. Tokyo in Japan now boasts an astonishing 331 Michelin stars, more than any other city in the world. Of the 10 cities with the most stars in the world, 10 of them belong to Asia.
During the recent Bocuse d'Or cooking competition Japan placed third, only the second time a none EU country has finished in the top three of what is a European dominated competition. In 2012 the legendary chef Ferran Adria predicted Asia would be the next culinary leader and all signs point to the fact his prediction was correct.
Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe in Japan, Hong Kong in China - all cities with astonishing amounts of Michelin stars but the culinary revolution chefs like Ferran Adria speak of has been taking place across Asia for a long time.
We've known for a while that Asia is the next big culinary heavyweight on the scene, it's been said for years, but it might just take the 50 best restaurant list like this to finally cement the predictions.
