London and New York have topped the global rankings for the quality of the wine lists in their restaurants; according to an authoritative survey by Spear’s sister title The World of Fine Wine.
New York was ranked first, with 42 restaurants in the city claiming the maximum three-star awards. London came second with 29 restaurants receiving the top honours. Melbourne was third with 17 restaurants claiming three stars, while San Francisco tied at fourth place with Sydney, both with 15 restaurants. The top ten was concluded with Chicago with 12, Copenhagen with eight three-star restaurants, Hong Kong with six and Perth tied at number ten with Tokyo, Berlin and Wellington – all with five restaurants.
The findings show London and New York are head and shoulders above the any rival cities. Paris with just three restaurants top rated came in 17th position. The top restaurants for wine in London included Dinner by Heston, Texture Restaurant and Les 110 de Taillevent. Click here to see full list.
The best two restaurants in the world for wine were Palais Coburg in Austria and New York’s Rouge Tomate Chelsea. Palais Coburg took the crown as ‘Champions’ League Best Overall Wine List’ – a new initiative for 2017 designed to honour the ‘best of the best’. New York’s Rouge Tomate Chelsea claimed ‘Wine List of the Year’, and the ‘Best Long Wine List in the World’ in its debut appearance in the awards.
The awards, by The World of Fine Wine, in association with Octavian Wine Vaults, are chaired by Neil Beckett, editor of the magazine. The wine lists were judged by a panel containing some of the world’s leading wine experts including Alder Yarrow, Elin McCoy, Anne Kriebiehl MW, Ch’ng Poh Tiong, Andrew Jefford, Andreas Larsson, Francis Percival and Luciana Girotto. The judges assessed more than 4,500 wine lists from restaurants around the world before choosing the final 997 one, two and three-star restaurants. The criteria included breadth of the wines on a given wine list, how interesting the judges considered the wine list to be, quality of wine, value, and accuracy of the list itself.
New three-star entries included Arlberg 1800 Resort in St Christoph, Austria; Hawksworth Restaurant in Vancouver; Rouge Tomate Chelsea in New York; 67 Pall Mall, London; RPM Italian, Washington DC; Meat Fish Wine in Auckland, NZ; and Tipo 00 in Melbourne, Australia.
Beckett says, ‘This year we saw the strongest level of entries yet, in terms of both quality and quantity, and the introduction of the Champions’. Cheers.