Agility and resilience: Latin American haute cuisine menu to survive

Although the pandemic extinguished for months or permanently the stoves of the most luxurious restaurants in Latin America, the high gastronomy from the region has proven to have the recipe to overcome a crisis that has led many chefs to “reinvent themselves for a new era”, explain the organizers of “50 Best Restaurants”.

This was stated in an interview with Efe by the content director of “50 Best”, William Drew, at the gates of an unprecedented gala that will reveal the famous list of the best Latin American restaurants of the last decade.

Undoubtedly, haute cuisine in Latin America “has suffered a lot during the pandemic and continues to suffer”, but that situation also brought forth “positive aspects” in the sector, such as the design of new strategies to bring “gourmet” restaurants closer together. to the locals, in the absence of their favorite diners: tourists.

“Several of the best restaurants previously depended a lot on travelers, but the way they have adapted successfully and how they have been very agile when it comes to serving locals or making ‘delivery’ (addresses) was positive,” he said. Drew, who highlighted “solidarity” as another key ingredient in the marriage of Latin American restoration in times of health emergency.

“When the pandemic was at its worst, many of the restaurants prepared meals for the hungry or for hospitality workers who were out of work,” he said before mentioning the award given to Brazilians Rodrigo Oliveira and Adriana Salay, who turned the emblematic Mocotó restaurant in Sao Paulo into a food distribution center for the most vulnerable population.

That is, Drew continued, “an incredible example of the sense of community” that pervaded the industry and led many chefs to “set a pattern for the future and create something good out of what has been a very challenging period.”

Past and future

Highlighting the “agility” and “resilience” of these luxury restaurants is precisely the desire of “Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants 2021”, which this Monday, November 22, will unveil in a series of live events held in seven key cities of the region the ranking of the 100 great culinary successes of recent years.

As a result of the pandemic, the organizers did not see it feasible to guarantee “a fair classification” this year, so they decided to look back and give the gala a twist to highlight the trajectory of the best gastronomic venues based on the votes accumulated in the eight previous editions, which started in 2013.

The list of winners will include only those places that are in operation or that plan to reopen shortly, although “those that have been part of the great restaurants, but have closed, will also be recognized,” said Drew.

And since the event does not only want to fix its gaze on the past, it will also reward the chefs and restaurants that most “reinvented themselves”, charting “new paths” for a better future for haute cuisine in the region.

“We are trying to balance the past and the future in this edition in recognition of the challenging moment that the restaurant sector has lived, but also to promote it in the future,” said the spokesperson, who regretted the limited government support that this event has received. industry in Latin America.

An “incredible decade”

Among the haute cuisine restaurants most awarded in previous galas are the Peruvian Central and Maidó, by chefs Virgilio Martínez and Mitsuharu Tsumara, respectively.

Although he did not want to advance an aperitif of the winners, Drew underlined the “young but vivid” culinary culture of Peru and affirmed that this is a country that has known how to use, with “great success”, its food and its chefs “as ambassadors” for make yourself known to the world.

He added that many other countries in the region “are doing amazing things” and, in particular, he mentioned “smaller countries”, such as Ecuador and Bolivia, which “traditionally have not been at the forefront of international recognition”, but are simmering. making a place among the greats.

For Drew, the haute cuisine of Latin America, which is already being “recognized around the world”, has experienced an “incredible decade, but it still has a lot of room to continue developing”.