An array of the world’s greatest chefs, restaurateurs and food critics will descend upon the London Guildhall at 6pm tonight to find out what the prestigious restaurant awards have in store in what is their 10th year – and BigHospitality will be reporting live.
Updates will be posted on our Facebook and Twitter pages, including interviews with a number of key industry faces. The full list of winners will then be published on our homepage as soon as the results are announced.
Last week we revealed that American chef Thomas Keller, whose restaurant The French Laundry featured in last year’s list, will receive the S. Pellegrino Lifetime Achievement Award, voted for by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy.
Meanwhile, Elena Arzak - joint head chef of Arzak in Spain, will pick up the Veuve Clicquot World's Best Female Chef Award 2012. Elena’s father, Juan Mari, took home the Lifetime Achievement award last year.
Video
The 50 Best list is being kept under wraps, but earlier this month BigHospitality caught up with four chefs, who have all run or worked at restaurants that have featured on the list, to ask them what makes a restaurant world class. The video, which features Heston Blumenthal, Alain Roux, Ruth Rogers and Angela Hartnett, can be watched here.
Podcast
To celebrate 10 years of the awards, we also produced a special podcast, speaking to those both honoured by and involved in the awards to find out what impact, if any, winning a place on the list has on a restaurant. Listen to that here.
Live streaming
Tickets for tonight’s event were of course in extremely high demand, but that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on the proceedings. You will be able to watch the evening unfold live via The World’s 50 Best Restaurants website.
So… What do you think? Will Noma take top spot for the third year in a row? Who will scoop the Chefs’ Choice award, or the inaugural Highland Park Slow Food Restaurant of the Year award? And how will Brett Graham’s The Ledbury – the highest new entry last year – and other UK restaurants fare? Let us know your thoughts…