IN A topsy-turvy list loaded with upsets, Gaggan Anand's
eponymous restaurant in Bangkok has tumbled from the 10th to the 23rd place
among the World's 50 Best Restaurants, which were announced amid much fanfare
and global media attention for the first time in New York on Monday night
(local time) / Tuesday morning (IST).

And there's more bad news for Modern / Progressive Indian
Cuisine. Indian Accent, India's No. 1, has slipped ten rungs from No. 77 to the
No. 87 spot, making me wonder whether the global jury guiding the awards is
losing interest in an emerging cooking tradition that has been getting
international media exposure riding on the reputations of these two acclaimed
restaurants.

In another portentous signal, although Gaggan was voted
Asia's Best Restaurant for the second consecutive occasion in a separate round
of awards earlier this year, the establishment that followed it at No. 2,
Tokyo's Narisawa, got the Asia's Best stamp from the World's 50 Best jury.
Narisawa, which has earned its formidable reputation by promoting the cuisine
of the lesser-known Satoyama region, held on to its eighth position in the 2016
list.

Ironically, a few days back, in an interview with CNN's Talk
Asia programme, Gaggan struck a philosophical note on awards and rankings,
declaring: "With my rankings, awards and the fame ... I could raise the
prices to double and still I would be sold out every night with the same food.
Exactly the same food," he said. "But we won't do that because we
want everyone to come here -- not just a certain class," he added. (Read
the news report based on the interview at:http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/05/asia/gaggan-anand-talk-asia/)

Gaggan opened his second Bangkok restaurant, Meatlicious,
late last year, moving away from molecular gastronomy to a comfort food menu
featuring burgers, ceviche, quinoa salads and his favourite pasta dish.

From its precarious perch at No. 87, Indian Accent can take
heart from the presence of well-regarded (and more established) restaurants
such as Per Se, Daniel, The French Laundry, Zuma, Le Petite Maison and Momofuku
Ko are also in the 51-100 line-up. And all of us who would love to see it rise
to the ranks of the World's 50 Best can only keep our fingers crossed and pray
that it doesn't make an exit like Bukhara (which opened its account in 2003 in
the Top 50 and continued on the list for several years thereafter) and Indigo
(which made it to the 51-100 list in 2007 and was never seen on it again).

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The 2016 list is topped by Osteria Francescana,
the restaurant where Massimo Bottura reinvented Italian
cuisine, at Modena in the gastronomically rich Emilia Romagna region. It has
edged out Spain's El Celler de Can Roca, although the chef and
co-owner, Joan Roca, of the restaurant based out of the
working-class suburb of Taiala to the north-east of Barcelona, bagged the
Chef's Choice Award 2016, based on voting by his peers from around the world.

El Celler de Can Roca finds itself at No. 2 (the position
held by Osteria Francescana last year) and the restaurant, Copenhagen's Noma,
it had edged out to become No. 1 for the first time in 2013, has dropped to No.
5, right after Eleven Madison Park, New York (No. 3) and Central,
Lima (No. 4). The worst slide, though, has been that of Heston
Blumenthal's London restaurant, Dinner, which slipped, as if on
a banana peel, from No. 7 to No. 45.

Is the 2016 list, which keep experiencing a periodic itch
(that too at intervals of less than seven years!), a signal of the new pecking
order in global cuisine? Its critics insist that the Restaurant magazine,
which manages the list with a global jury of more than 900 individuals, needs
to keep causing upsets in the rankings to keep up the level of the worldwide
excitement it is able to generate year after year. It is this excitement, after
all, that keeps its sponsors happy.

Photo: Gaggan Anand at last year's BW Hotelier F&B Conclave in New Delhi.