Just a year ago, we brought you the announcement of a new project, the 50 NEXT, which we thought was fantastic. Why? As we explained:
“We’ve brought you many articles on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, which brings us that list every year, and where we can find Basque cuisine has a notable place of honor among the world’s best chefs and their restaurants.
We’ve also spoken about the Basque Culinary World Prize, a Basque project organized by the Basque Government and managed by the Basque Culinary Center, which is becoming the “Nobel Prize of Gastronomy” and is allowing our cuisine to have an even greater reach, even to climb a few rungs on the global cuisine ladder.
As a fusion between the two concepts, looking ahead at the future of cuisine in its broadest sense, we’ve just been presented with the 50 Next, a project to list the people who are coming up and shaping the future of gastronomy. Their goal is to present a diverse, global selection of the brilliant young minds who are working to bring their ideas to life.
This list is by no means a ranking; rather, it seeks to inspire, empower, and connect those young people who are going beyond their limits at all levels of the food chain. This is because they wish to recognize those young people who work at all levels and in all areas of cuisine, or in areas that are directly related to cuisine, including but not limited to: activists, bartenders, chefs, consumers, craft beer and liquor makers, designers, distributors, educators, businesspeople, farmers, fishers, food and drink writers, NGO workers, researchers, restaurateurs, scientists, sommeliers, technology creators, wine specialists, and more.”
So yes, we thought it was a brilliant idea, and now that we’ve seen who the Next 50 are, it seems even more so.
You don’t have to read the profiles of each of them to understand that they haven’t been chosen only on “culinary” criteria. There is, in most of their projects, a deep sense of social and environmental responsibility that revives our faith that today’s youth are looking at the world, its problems, and its opportunities, with a fresh perspective.
There’s fifty of them, more women than men, grouped into seven different areas and, as we said, reading their profiles is like a breath of fresh air, of hope. They come from every corner of the planet, and a great many of them have project that have a distinctly social character to them.
Of the fifty, there are two Basques, who are also quite unique.
- The first (two) are in the “Gamechanging Producers” category: Mikel and Ion Zapiain, from Astigarraga. With a family tradition of cider making that goes back to 1595, these two brothers are bringing their sacred profession into the 21st century. We love to read how they recall the importance of cider in the great adventures of the Basques all over the North Atlantic whale hunting.
- The second, in the “Science Innovators” category, is Maitane Alonso Monasterio, from Sodupe. She is the youngest award winner, aged only twenty, and she has created a food preservation process that has attracted the attention of NASA.
So we just need to congratulate the members of this collaborative network that has allowed this to become a reality. This project is the result of a lot of people working hard together, as an organization that has been able to create an award as prestigious as The World’s 50 Best Restaurants: the people at the Basque Culinary Center, which alongside the Basque Government has started up the Basque Culinary World Prize; and the people at the Government of Biscay who are providing the energy to give Basque cuisine a global reach, a key factor in the image of our nation.
This is an example of the private-public partnership and “vision of a country” that will allow for the awards ceremony to be held in our country, just as the The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2018 event was held in Bilbao.
We’ll leave you with the website with the list of winners, and the info on the two Basque winners, as well as some of the media outlets were the list of those chosen has appeared.
And we’re anxious: the awards ceremony, to be held in Bilbao, is going to be a global event, both because of who the winners are, as well as because of the fact that they’re from all over the world. This is but another step in showing the world that we Basques are “The Culinary Nation“.
The World’s 50 Best – 20/4/2021 – Great Britain
Class of 2021.Discover the inaugural 50 Next list
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The World’s 50 Best – 20/4/2021 – Great Britain
Mikel and Ion Zapiain Gamechanging Producers
With a family cider-making tradition dating back to 1595, brothers Mikel and Ion Zapiain are bringing this time-honoured profession into the 21st century. From their cider house in the town of Astigarraga, the Mecca of cider-making in the Basque region of Spain, they are uncovering the true potential of a drink that has traditionally been associated with old customs and local traditions, and bringing it to the wider world.
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The World’s 50 Best – 20/4/2021 – Great Britain
Maitane Alonso Monasterio Science Innovators
Maitane Alonso Monasterio’s story starts with her brother’s dirty football boots and her father’s legendary barbecues. Food waste had always bugged her, especially as she often found herself eating barbecue leftovers for breakfast. But she knew the issue wasn’t a small one to tackle: it’s estimated that a third of all food produced globally is wasted, the equivalent of 1,300 tonnes per year. The resourceful medical student got her ‘eureka’ moment when she realised that her brother’s odorous shoes eventually lost their unpleasant smell after being left next to a device she was testing for a science fair project.
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Forbes – 20/4/2021 – USA
The 50 Next Awards: World’s 50 Best Names The Future Of Gastronomy
For 20 years, World’s 50 Best celebrated the hospitality industry with annual rankings of the finest restaurants and bars on the planet. Now the UK-based organization is looking for future stars in the gastronomical galaxy with a new list—50 Next.
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Evening Standard – 20/4/2021 – Great Britain
50 Next: Londoners named among global list of ‘young people shaping future of gastronomy’
A zero-waste chef, pioneering app developers and a duo who train prisoners up as baristas are among the Londoners named as part of a new list celebrating the “young people shaping the future of gastronomy”.
50 Next — a new initiative launched by the organisation behind two prestigious awards, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and the The World’s 50 Best Bars — features trailblazers aged 20 to 35, covering 34 countries across six continents.
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TK Media – 20/4/2021 – Ukraine
Меняют будущее гастрономии: Евгений Клопотенко вошел в список молодых людей 50 Next
Евгений Клопотенко вошел в список молодых людей 50 Next, которые меняют будущее гастрономии. Список 50 Next объявил международный рейтинг лучших ресторанов мира The World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
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El Comercio -20/4/2021 – Peru
Manuel Choqque: cusqueño obtiene reconocimiento mundial por proyectos a base de papa nativa
El nuevo proyecto de “The World’s 50 Best” en colaboración con Basque Culinary Center y Diputación de Bizkaia ha reconocido al ingeniero agrónomo y productor por sus proyectos acerca de la papa nativa y vino de oca
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Fine Dining Lovers – 20/4/2021 – USA
50 Next: The Young People Shaping the Future of Gastronomy
The World’s 50 Best Restaurants has today unveiled its new listing of young people from 34 countries across six continents, identified as next-generation leaders in food and drink.
The list includes 24 women and 19 men, scouted by the organisation’s academic partner the Basque Culinary Center, and a 50 Next event will follow in Bilbao in early 2022. The list is not a ranking, and it has no number one spot, so all the people who appear on the list are recognised equally.
Last Updated on Apr 21, 2021 by About Basque Country