None of the “World’s Best Restaurants” Are in Brooklyn
Hey, Brooklyn food, you heard of it? A lot of people seem to think it’s good! Some even take it far too seriously. None of those people, however, seem to have had anything to do with the just-released 2013 “World’s 50 Best Restaurants” list, which, while the expanded 100-restaurant list includes 9 New York institutions — a totally impressive ratio! — includes exactly zero from Brooklyn.
What does this mean, exactly? Should you just spit out whatever Brooklyn-made slop you’ve rolling around in your mouth like so much cud, and relocate back to Manhattan, where the real food is? Can the Brooklyn food scene still lay claim to some “scrappy up-and-comer” status in spite of the insane amount of wealth and publicity piled onto it by the day?
Eh. It mostly just means that “the opinions and experiences of over 900 international restaurant industry experts,” as culled by Restaurant Magazine, are still surprisingly traditional — the wildest thing about their New York selections was the inclusion of both Momofuku Ko and Momofuku Ssäm bar — and that, most likely, unwillingness to travel was sort of a factor. A fact that may explain why, aside from Brooklyn’s snub, only three other restaurants in the entire U.S. were included on the list (other than Pocantino Hills, the upstate home of Blue Hill at Stone Barns). Mostly, it’s just Manhattan. Seems sort of absurd and myopic, sure, but doesn’t it also seem like as good an excuse as any to go comfort-eat all the (worthless) Brooklyn food you love and revel in your superiority over the makers of this list? Yes, it does. [photo]
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.
