Best Chef Awards 2021

“This year we are extremely happy to be able to meet in person again and the main goal for us is to send a positive and hopeful message to the industry by doing so”, says co-founder Cristian Gadau on the return of The Best Chef Awards to a physical format.

Under the slogan “Back to ‘Live’. Back to Reality,” The Best Chef initiative descended upon Amsterdam for a three day gastronomic fest that included inspiring  Area Talks, a Food Meets Science conference on the future of gastronomy. And, of course, the Best Chef Awards Gala. The highlight of the evening which saw Dabiz Muñoz from DiverXo in Spain take first place on the Best Chef Top100 ahead of Björn Frantzén from Sweden, and third place runner-up Andoni Luis Aduriz from Spain, while hometown hero Joris Bijdendijk from Amsterdam’s own Restaurant RIJKS grabbed the Best Chef Gourmet Award for their local efforts.

See full list of winners here: Link: https://thebestchefawards.com/amsterdam2021

“Getting the number one in the Best Chef Awards is the biggest joy,” explains Dabiz Muñoz. “An incredible pride and responsibility.  The fucking greatest!!! For me, The Best Chef Award is one of the most prestigious publications in the world today, and an award like this is a dream come true, which recognizes many years of creativity, dedication, passion and hard work.”

“But really? Why is this special? Is this not just another culinary award,” critical voices might argue, but indeed there is reason for Dabiz to be proud, and there are ways in which The Best Chef award is like none other. It is a unique recognition of Dabiz Muñoz and his fellow inductees, not only by industry professionals, but by his peers.

An award like no other - What makes The Best Chef Awards special?

The Best Chef, on the surface, may look like any other culinary award. It is, after all, essentially, a Top 100 list of the world’s best chefs curated by 100 anonymous professionals who regularly scour the globe and discover new talents. In the case of The Best Chef, however, these professionals come not from a certain media, profession or background. Neither are they paid for their efforts. They are dedicated volunteers that come from all walks of life and include journalists, critics, bloggers, photographers, and other persons with a broad knowledge of fine dining and they pick candidates with their heart.

The complicated process of picking a winner begins with a shortlist of 200 talents, the creators of the award, Polish neuroscientist Joanna Slusarcyk and Italian gastronomist Cristian Gadau, explain. A hundred of these are made up by the list from the year before, while the other hundred are new talent nominated throughout the course of the year. From here on, a weighted voting process starts in which not only the 100 anonymous professionals are given a vote, but the chefs themselves are encouraged to vote and pick, from their midst, who they consider the Best Chef of the year.

The goal of this tremendous exercise is to not only pick the best of the best, but, in Slusarcyk’s words, to create “a vibrant, world community of passionate food lovers. A community dedicated to celebrating the talented chefs that create the best food experiences around the world.”  They view themselves, she explains, as a global family of like-minded individuals that share culinary adventures. A common space where the old guard shares the core of the craft with the next generation, who in return inspires new ways of thinking.

Chefs celebrating chefs - Putting the person first

What truly puts them apart from other curated lists, the creators argue, is that they put people first. In this case, the chefs. And for this very reason, the chef votes are given more weight than those of the culinary professionals. Slusarcyk and Gadau want their list to be about chefs celebrating chefs for everything that they are.

The gastronomic world, they say, often focuses largely on a specific restaurant or a specific location. Michelin stars are awarded to restaurants, not chefs. Culinary guides are often centered around cities and locations. With The Best Chef Awards, Slusarcyk and Gadau aim to shift that focus by putting the chef center stage, highlighting his or her individual approach to cooking and, much more importantly, celebrating the core values that make them stand out from the crowd.

As such, what makes a Best Chef winner is not culinary talent alone. The ability to create amazing tastes and dishes is pivotal to a Best Chef Awards winner, the creators argue, but there is much more to winning the title than just that. The winner, they state in their manifesto, should be “a modern chef, a leader, one that elevates food with new ways of though, technology or science and one that makes a positive social impact. A role model that can serve as a guide to new generations of curious talents.”

Read also: Fatmata Binta - The whole world could learn a lot from my African tribe

For this very reason, the list features not only chef superstars like Rene Redzepi. Alain Passard, Heston Blumenthal and Gaggan Anand, but also relatively unknown revolutionaries like modern African nomad chef Fatmata Binta from Fulani Kitchen in Ghana.

Well-deserved winner of the 2021 Rising Star Award, her views on sustainability, honest food and food waste based on her roots in an African nomadic tribe wowed the crowd at the Food Meets Science talk. And her action showed that in a modern culinary world, a strong African woman who prides herself on making beautiful meals of ancient grains, plants and offal can stand shoulder to shoulder with molecular fine dining kings and proponents of caviar and truffle. And receive the same level of recognition. 

And this, truly, is the power of The Best Chef Awards.