The honorable mentions for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list is out — aka, numbers 51 to 100 — and fancy Soho French spot Le Coucou just made it on for the first time.
Stephen Starr and chef Daniel Rose’s ode to French fine dining, opened in 2016, is one of two new U.S. restaurants to be added to the back 50 part of the controversial but popular international restaurant guide. It landed at number 85.
Elsewhere in NYC news for the list, Cesar Ramirez’s esteemed French-Japanese tasting counter Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare made the biggest jump in rankings. It went up 13 spots and is now number 69; last year it was 82.
David Chang’s East Village tasting menu restaurant Ko went down to 62, a drop from last year’s spot at 58. Houston Street small plates phenom Estela also dipped on the list. The Thomas Carter and chef Ignacio Mattos restaurant is now ranked at number 83, down from last year’s place at 66.
And Thomas Keller’s Columbus Circle tasting menu French restaurant Per Se — now helmed by new chef Corey Chow following some bad reviews in the last few years — has gone up to number 81 on the list. It’s a slow climb back up the ranking. Back in 2013, it ranked in the top ten, but by last year, it’d gone down to number 87.
This is a small taste of might what happen next week, when the more highly-watched top 50 ranking is released. Only those restaurants get more of a write-up and tend to get more of the business and acclaim boost. Last year, Eleven Madison Park landed as number one for the first time — booking up tables for two for a month despite a $642 non-refundable deposit requirement.
Despite the international popularity of the guide, it’s gotten a lot of flack lately: It primarily promotes super-expensive tasting menu restaurants, with a focus on European food and on restaurants run by men. Instead of including more women in the list, the guide has a separate “World’s Best Female Chef” award.