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The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2013 Revealed on 29th April in London

(London – 25 April 2013) On Monday 29th April, London’s Guildhall will play host to the glitterati of the gastronomic world with a prestigious ceremony for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2013, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna.

The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2013The industry is holding its breath to see whether René Redzepi and his team from Noma in Denmark will retain the coveted top spot, for the fourth year in a row.

The Brits are on the edge of their seats to find out whether Heston Blumenthal’s award winning restaurants The Fat Duck and Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, as well as Brett Graham’s The Ledbury, will maintain their positions in the upper echelons of the list.

Europe, which always puts in a strong performance at the awards, already has plenty to celebrate after Nadia Santini, head chef at Dal Pescatore in Mantova, Italy, was named the Veuve Clicquot World’s Best Female Chef earlier this month and Alain Ducasse was announced as the recipient of The Lifetime Achievment Award, sponsored by Diners Club International®.

Asia waits in anticipation to see how Japanese restaurant Narisawa ranks after securing the top spot at the inaugural Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants awards in Singapore in February. China in particular is looking forward to finding out whether its 16 restaurants featured in Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2013 will appear in the global list.

The USA is eager to see whether Thomas Keller’s New York restaurant Per Se, rising star Eleven Madison Park and Grant Achatz’s Alinea will maintain their outstanding positions in the world’s top 10 this year.

Emerging foodie nations and regions within South America will also be looking to increase their standing on the list this year with strong contenders from Mexico, Peru and Brazil.

Guests on the night will be treated to a plethora of gastronomic treats for the taste buds including a unique Lavazza aperitivo created by Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana in Italy and Veuve Clicquot Grande Dame ice cream created by Pierre Geronomi from Corsica.

Gathering at the Guildhall on Monday will be the ‘A list’ of the restaurant world including legends such as Thomas Keller, Juan Mari Arzak and Heston Blumenthal. Flying in from the four corners of the earth to be there, the chefs will receive an unprecedented welcome courtesy of global concierge service LesConcierges.com, which is working with organiser Restaurant magazine to make this a true red-carpet event. This year is very special for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants in particular, as chefs from 49 of the 50 restaurants on the list will be attending the awards, which is a new record.

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants is organised by Restaurant magazine and presented in the company of the world’s most influential restaurateurs, finest chefs and international media.  Over two million people across 222 countries visited www.theworlds50best.com last year, demonstrating the true global appeal of the list to food-lovers everywhere.

The Awards
At the ceremony, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants are announced, culminating in the coveted award for the S.Pellegrino World’s Best Restaurant. Further award categories include the Veuve Clicquot World’s Best Female Chef, The Lifetime Achievement Award sponsored by Diners Club International®, and the Chefs’ Choice Award sponsored by Silestone.

In 2013, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants will recognise a new individual award category: The Sustainable Restaurant Award sponsored by Zacapa. The Sustainable Restaurant Award will be presented to the restaurant within the ranks of the 50 Best, which demonstrates the highest environmental and social responsibility rating as audited by The Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA).

How the list is compiled
The list is created from the votes of The Diners Club World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy, an influential group of over 900 international leaders in the restaurant industry. The Academy comprises 26 separate regions around the world, each of which has 36 members, including a chairperson, and each member can cast seven votes. Of those seven, at least three votes must recognise restaurants outside of their own region.

The panel in each region is made up of food critics, chefs, restaurateurs and highly regarded ‘gastronomes’. Members list their choices in order of preference, based on their best restaurant experiences of the previous 18 months. There is no pre-determined check-list of criteria.

Results
The results will be published online, www.theworlds50best.com, as soon as they have been announced to the assembled chefs and academy members at The World’s 50 Best Restaurants ceremony in London on 29th April.

The results will also feature in the May issue of Restaurant magazine and a standalone World’s 50 Best Restaurants Guide available from 1st May. Last year, the website received over 391,960 unique visits on the night of the ceremony, where an in-depth guide can be found on all the restaurants in the list, past and present.

For the third year running, the ceremony will be streamed live on www.finedininglovers.com, an international community for food enthusiasts.  More than 20,000 viewed the live streaming of the event in 2012.