Russia Makes It to the Top 50 in Restaurants

Gastronom's Andrey Zakharin

For the first time ever, a Russian restaurant has made it into S. Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants list. Moscow's Varvary restaurant, with chef Anatolyi Komm, moved up to No. 48 from its previous position of No. 66. "Sure, he's only at No. 48 so far and it's a far from the top, but it's a huge step for the Russian restaurant business," says Andrey Zakharin, editor-in-chief of Gastronom and chairman for the Russia & Central Asia region of the World's 50 Best Restaurants list.

The list, which is organized and compiled by Restaurant Magazine, was announced on April 19 in London. Selected by the World's 50 Best Restaurants Academy, a group that includes over 800 international leaders from within the restaurant industry, the restaurants are chosen using a complex process involving panels from both within and outside the restaurant's geographic region. The members of the academy are chosen for their expertise and knowledge of the international restaurant scene and include chefs, restaurateurs and highly regarded gastronomes. The academy has 27 separate regions, each with a panel of 31 members who get seven votes each, three of which must go to restaurants outside their own region - and they have to have eaten in the restaurant within the last 18 months.

"These criteria are designed to allow our panelists to vote far and wide," says Zakharin. "They could vote for a small, unknown restaurant in a secluded region, or select the best-known restaurants in the world - it is their opinion and the experiences they have had that matters. There are no criteria that a restaurant has to meet. They certainly do not have to sell a certain product. They do not need to have been open a certain number of years and they do not need to have won any other culinary accolades."