Lists

Chefs Get Aprons in a Bunch Over Canuck-Free Top 100 List

A while back, we noted that New York chefs didn’t get all that much play in Phaidon’s forthcoming book, Coco: 10 World Leading Masters Choose 100 Contemporary Chefs, wherein, as the new subtitle states, the publishing house asked chefs like Ferran Adrià, Mario Batali, Alain Ducasse, Fergus Henderson, Alice Waters, and others to name their favorite emerging toques. We let it go because, hey, New York chefs get more than enough recognition already, but the Canadians are pissed (or rather, super ticked off) that not a single Canuck was honored.

Upon hearing that only 99 out of the 100 chefs had been named, Shaun Smith, a chef turned food writer, recently penned a letter to Phaidon, signed by Susur Lee and a couple dozen other chefs and cookbook authors, asking them to “look Northward to Canada to fill that last spot.” The letter is posted on Smith’s website, and can also be found in an article he his colleague Karon Liu just wrote for Toronto Life’s website (Canadian chefs tell her that unlike us fame-grubbing New Yorkers, they’re just too modest for accolades).

Anyway, we’ve just discovered Smith’s letter was all for naught: Shannon Bennett, the owner of Australia’s Vue de Monde (who picked no fewer than four fellow Aussies to be on the list) has chosen London chef Anthony Demetre to close out the list. Phaidon has sent us a statement that probably won’t soften the blow.

Phaidon Press is very excited about the forthcoming release of Coco: 100 Emerging Culinary Stars Chosen by 10 of the World’s Greatest Chefs, a book that features culinary talent from around the world selected by 10 acclaimed chefs. We hope this will be the first in a series of food-themed editions in Phaidon’s celebrated 10x10 series which features books on architecture, photography, and now the culinary arts.

We understand the disappointment of not being included. However, the decision of who is chosen in the book is not Phaidon’s, rather the 10 noted chefs who curated the emerging talents in the book. That’s what makes this book so special, that they are chefs chosen by their peers, without editorial interference.

Best,
YC Media, on behalf of Phaidon Press

To Shaun Smith, we say crack a Moosehead and chillax. This is hardly the last word on the world’s great chefs — as we’ve already pointed out and anyone should realize, there’s a great deal of nepotism involved in these lists. Take a look at the below — it’s the first time the breakdown of who chose whom has been published. You think Mario Batali was being completely objective when he tapped his current and former chefs Tommy Habetz, Mario Carbone, Cruz Goler, and April Bloomfield? But we sense this isn’t really about Coco — maybe this is Canadian chefs telling all future listmakers and award-givers that they aren’t going to take all this Changbanging anymore (and yes, it’s only getting worse). To which we can only say: fair enough.

Ferran Adrià
Albert Raurich
Dani Garcìa
Paolo Lopriore
José Avillez
Alvin Leung
Anatoly Komm
Pascal Devalkeneer
Victor Arguinzoniz
Alberto Herráiz
Marcos Morán

Alain Ducasse
Tom Kitchin
Cédric Bechade
Didier Elena
Lionel Levy
Jean-François Piège
Sylvestre Wahid
David Rathgeber
Armand Arnal
Christophe Martin
Davide Oldani

Gordon Ramsay
Tristan Welch
Robert Marchetti
Glynn Purnell
Martin Wishart
Jason Atherton
John Fraser
Eric Ziebold
Lyndy Redding
Theo Randall
Clare Smyth

Alice Waters
David Chang
Skye Gyngell
Donald Link
Scott Peacock
Amaryll Schwertner
Michael Tusk
Russell Moore
Andrew Feinberg
Mona Talbott
Charlie Hallowell

Mario Batali
Kelly Liken
Hugh Acheson
Cruz Goler
Akhtar Nawab
April Bloomfield
Mario Carbone
Kevin Davis
Tommy Habetz
Alison Vines-Rushing
Jody Williams

Shannon Bennett
Alex Atala
Ryan Clift
Chris Salans
Marcus Eaves
Mark Best
Ben Shewry
Josh Lewis
Andrew McConnell
Anthony Demetre
Martin Benn

René Redzepi
Enrico Crippa
Thorsten Schmidt
Inaki Aizpitarte
Gustav Otterberg
Kobe Desramaults
Mauro Colagreco
Wassim Hallal
Mads Refslund
Filip Langhoff
Jakob Mielcke Hansen

Fergus Henderson
Anna Hansen
Benjamin Hirst
Chris Cosentino
Ed Lewis
Jacob Kenedy
Jonathan Jones
Tom Pemberton
Kitty Travers
Mathias Dahlgren
Robert Owen Brown

Jacky Yu
Ka Lun Lau
Jereme Leung
Margaret Xu
Ricky Cheung
JinR Zhang
Yue-jiau Zhuang
Wai Man Chan
Jing-long Huang
Willin Low
Tung-Yuan Lin

Yoshihiro Murata
Koji Saito
Hisato Nakahigashi
Naoya Ueno
Takuji Takahashi
Eneko Atxa
Yosuke Suga
Hideki Shimoguchi
Ricardo Perez
Motokazu Nakamura
Pascal Barbot

Earlier: Local Talent Gets Love From Bourdain, But Not From World’s Great Chefs

Chefs Get Aprons in a Bunch Over Canuck-Free Top 100 List