If you're a bit of a restaurant groupie, you've probably spent the last few weeks breathless with anticipation over the publication of The Good Food Guide's Top 10 Restaurants. These are credentials of the highest order, Michelin notwithstanding. The Good Food Guide is one of the most trusted restaurant review guides in the country; to be top of their list is a hard-won achievement, so let's take a moment to say well done to – in order -- L'Enclume in Cartmel, The Fat Duck at Bray, Restaurant Nathan Outlaw in Rock, Restaurant Sat Bains in Nottingham, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay (the old man's still got it) and the London contingent of Pollen Street Social, Hibiscus, The Square, The Ledbury and last but not least Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons.
At first glance the list seems reasonably disparate. After all, The Fat Duck's innovation will always put it top, but L'Enclume scored a perfect 10 as well with their excellent foraging ethos, Jason Atherton's informal Pollen Street Social puts the case forward for more casual dining, while old-timers such as The Square and Ramsay are still able - clearly - to show the youngsters how it's done. But look closer and isn't it a little, y'know, white? And male (pace the excellent Clare Smyth OBE, daughter of Gordon)? And British?
The last two years have been defined in the foodie world by the recent explosion of street food from more countries around the world than most of us could name. We're suddenly accessing flavours and ingredients with the same eye-popping speed and enthusiasm as 50 years ago when The Great Elizabeth David and her ilk liberated the olive oil from the corner chemist and practically flung it at our hobs screaming "CHUCK OUT THE LARD." More excitingly, young people have even more access to hot new cuisines, running as they do about town and they're wolfing it down - it's EXCITING.
Moreover the people cooking aren't great white chefs in hierarchical kitchens; they're young dudes, male and female, of every race, creed, orientation and multiply-pierced body part jazzing it up and letting it fly. They're cooking, they're loving it and it shows. It's drawing young people back into the frankly completely enthralling and wacky, confused and OTT world of food, from which they have been withdrawing for some years, let's face it. And it couldn't be further from the formal, unwelcoming (sometimes), rigidly-ruled (mostly) world of fine dining which could sometimes be said to be doing its level best to repel all customers entirely based on the efforts of the "welcome staff" alone.
The Good Food Guide is an august and trenchant observer of restaurant mores and times. It is a solid, reliable voice of reason when you're searching somewhere lovely for a snackerel. However, it's also in danger of ignoring - much like dear old Michelin - what's happening NOW, on our streets, moving almost too fast to see and that would be the taste of the future.
