Take a look at the photos from our Where Chefs Eat launch!
The great and good of the food world joined us to celebrate the new edition of our global restaurant guide last night
Big names and rising stars from the restaurant world joined us to feast on Truffled Baron Bigod, fig & walnut toast, rooftop honey and Brown butter & blood orange ice cream sandwiches last night. Another quiet night in at Phaidon Towers? No, not really. Instead we were at Robin Gill's award-winning restaurant, The Dairy in Clapham, London to celebrate the publication of the third edition of Where Chefs Eat.
The book’s author Joe Warwick was on fine form (as usual) all night, greeting the likes of Andrea Petrini, Claude Bosi, Fergus Henderson and Rusell Norman like old friends - which, of course, they are. Joe also revealed in his speech just how the idea for the book came about - via a chance meeting in Lapland, of all places, with Phaidon’s queen of the cookery books, Emilia Terragni.
"This happened because I ended up in Lapland thanks to Andrea Petrini. It was a Cook It Raw thing and John Lanchester (also present at the launch) was there too. We ended up staying in a lodge with this lady here, (Emilia) and she said we want to do a restaurant guide. I said I don’t want it to be anything like the 50 Best (Warwick launched the 50 Best Awards when he was editor of Restaurant magazine) and it's not!
"Phaidon make beautiful books and it’s a beautiful book but it’s also a useful book – for me as well." Joe added that he wouldn’t have been able to do it without the chefs, of course, and thanked them all.
Other guests from the food world included blogger Clerkenwell Boy, food and drink design gurus Bompas & Parr, Jon Rotheram from The Marksman, Rohit Ghai from Jamavar, Christine Hayes, editor of BBC Good Food, novelist John Lanchester, Richard Vine from Bloomberg and Richard Granleese from The Guardian.
Everyone got a great book to go home with and possibly a late start this morning courtesy of the delicious martinis by Hepple gin and the Hackney-brewed craft beer by 40FT.
The final word went to our very own Emilia Terragni, the publisher who came up with the Where Chefs Eat concept. Emilia told everyone how the book just keeps getting bigger and bigger – this new edition features 570 destinations. 70 countries across six continents.
"The book is growing and it’s becoming more and more popular. I really want to thank all the chefs in this book because without them there would not be any book. It's a book made in the industry, by the industry but for a large, large public. So let's celebrate what we are doing and thank you to everyone who participated with their recommendations.”
Hear hear! So whether you desire a late-night snack from a burger van, a 400-year-old clam in an art-filled restaurant or a fabulously fashionable start to the day, you’ll find it in Where Chefs Eat. 570 destinations. 70 countries. Across six continents. It really is no boast to say that this edition has the most wide-ranging and eclectic set of listings we’ve ever published. Check out the book here and all of our Where Chefs Eat in series of stories here.
