MACAO, March 27 — After four years at the top of the Asia's 50 Best Restaurants listing, chef Gaggan Anand, who will close his “superstar” restaurant in Bangkok in 2020, is handing over the reins to a confrere in Singapore. Contemporary French restaurant Odette, which already has two Michelin stars, is run by French chef Julien Royer.
Having been ranked 28th in The World's 50 Best Restaurants of 2018, the 36-year-old French chef Julien Royer has zoomed to the top of the podium of Asia's 50 Best Restaurants with the restaurant named after his grandmother.
Royer spent time working for Michel Bras in France and Antonin Bonnet in London, then set up his own restaurant at Singapore's National Gallery in November 2015. Less than a year after it opened, it was awarded two Michelin stars.
An ambassador of French cooking techniques, Royer sources products from across the world to create refined dishes which also pay homage to the flavors of the continent in which he lives.
The French have another representative on the list in the form of the Perpignan native Paul Pairet who moved up two places with his Shanghai-based multisensorial restaurant Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet, and is now in sixth position.
Having been ranked number one in this listing for four years, Gaggan Anand is now in second place, while the unclassifiable Zaiyu Hasegawa (and his Tokyo restaurant Den) came in third. Hasegawa, who has also won this year's Chef's Choice Award, is still the highest-ranking representative of Japanese cuisine in the list.
Japan is making its mark in the Asia's 50 Best ranking, which was announced in Macao, as it has a total of a dozen restaurants in the list. And the prize for Asia's Best Pastry Chef was finally awarded to a chef based in Tokyo — Fabrizio Fiorani who works for Il ristorante Lucas Fantin.
The full list of Asia's 50 Best Restaurants is available here. www.theworlds50best.com. — AFP-Relaxnews
