We love lists. Let’s face the fact. They’re such a neat, seemingly precise way of compiling and categorising information. Admittedly, they are also very subjective. But then, when you’re flipping though an e-mail forward listing the ‘10 hottest celebrities with stubble’ on a slow weekday, you don’t worry about whether Brad Pitt should have been placed higher than Johnny Depp. I’m being facetious, but out of curiosity I did do a quick Google search for ‘10 hottest…’ and it threw up some peculiar results: The ‘10 hottest cartoon characters’ for instance (Ariel, Betty Boop and Wonder Woman make the list if you must know).
But let’s not get sidetracked. A list has been made. It’s in the form of the just-released book: ‘1001 restaurants you must experience before you die.’ And Chennai’s got a mention; two in fact. Dakshin at Park Sheraton and Murugan idli shop. A strange combination? Well, that’s the beauty of lists. The concept is so fluid they can be designed in any way. In this case, the book attempts to “compare and contrast the evolution of gastronomy across the globe.” In simpler language, the team has chosen to list icons: restaurants that matter, and restaurants with chefs that have shaped the way people in a particular city eat.
It’s an interesting idea — because it enables the team to include everything from an anonymous, but popular, dim sum joint in Hong Kong to illustrious, routinely celebrated restaurants such as Rene Redzipi’s Noma in Copenhagen. It’s also an ambitious project: the book is divided geographically into five sections – The Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania. Instead of listing an author, it has a coyly titled ‘general editor’ Jenny Linford on the cover, suggesting this is a compilation. Which is, of course, the obvious way to execute a project like this: recruit food writers from all over the world. The catch is that it means you have one person deciding what’s relevant for an entire country.
While food guides like the influential French Michelin rely on a team of trusted, and famously anonymous ‘inspectors,’ and are hence taken seriously by both customers and chefs, a project like this aims more at capturing the pulse of a city’s dining instead of an exact rating. The India list is intriguing: it includes stalwarts like Bukhara, Dum Pukht and Dakshin, as well as mass favourites like Paragon in Calicut, Swati Snacks in Mumbai and Karim’s. There are also some thoughtful additions, like The Bangala in Karaikudi.
The mission statement, according to a prologue, says they aim to cover everything from ‘Venerable Japanese restaurants that can trace their history back centuries’ to Turkish kebab from 19th century restaurants. As always, it’s skewed towards the better explored countries and cuisines, which is a pity. While there are plenty of restaurants listed from England, Australia and France (I count three dozen in France alone), interesting new tourist hot spots like Czech, Monaco and Chile (to name a few) just list one restaurant each. Inexplicably, Malaysia, a popular Asian dining destination, lists just three restaurants.
Is it “the great and good of the restaurant world” as the book claims? Well, not exactly. But they do deserve a pat on the back for earnestness. Dakshin and Murugan idli shop might not exactly be ‘insider gems’ (if anything, Murugan idli shop seems more popular with visitors from Delhi and Mumbai than locals these days), but they’re a realistic representation of the city’s idli-dosai-filter coffee culture for the culinary globetrotter who’s in the city for just a day or so. Clichéd? Sure. But then when you have 1001 dishes to get through, you have no choice but to eat, tick and run.
