On March 5, the Esplanade Hotel in Zagreb will host a major culinary spectacle. The chef of the best hotel in the city, Ana Grgić from the Esplanade Hotel, and Igor Jagodić from the Strelec restaurant in Ljubljana, both award-winning Gault&Millau chefs from Croatia and Slovenia, will prepare a gala dinner for 150 chefs from restaurants who have been selected by the prestigious gastronomic guide. The event will also mark the announcement of the best Croatian chefs for 2019.
Gault&Millau, one of the two most prestigious gastronomic guides in the world and the only one which has a special edition for Croatia, presents annual trophies to chefs who have distinguished themselves with their cooking and culinary philosophy. These are not necessarily chefs of the most elite restaurants but chefs who are creative, who do not follow gastronomic trends, who are innovative but respect the tradition of their regions, who know modern culinary techniques but cook with a great deal of emotion and “have a feel” for ingredients.
This is the vision of the Gault&Millau guide which has always been trying to discover new talents and has been advocating for unconventional cuisine for over fifty years. It was the duo Gault&Millau who in 1972 invented the concept of nouvelle cuisine and launched a revolution in the French gastronomy.
This year’s Croatian winners of the Gault&Millau trophy will be declared at a gala event organised on the occasion of the release of the guide’s second edition. The long-awaited night of culinary Oscars, which was the largest gathering of Croatian chefs last year, will be held at the hotel’s Emerald Hall.
“How many did we get?” is the most common question asked by restaurants for which the Gault&Millau chef caps represent a confirmation of their quality and a strong incentive to be even better. The 2019 Croatian edition of Gault&Millau will evaluate 150 restaurants and 70 POP venues, and present 111 wines and 25 leading hotels from all over Croatia. The guide is bilingual (in Croatian and English) and is intended for both the local fans of good food and fine wines and for foreign tourists who are increasingly looking for destinations which offer wine & gourmet experience, and Gault&Millau offers them honest reviews of restaurants of all price categories and for different occasions.
“The luxury is in quality, not in price,” is the motto of Gault&Millau, which has gained credibility and international prestige thanks to its independent, competent and anonymous inspectors, who assess restaurants for quality according to strictly defined international standards. Apart from the printed guide, all restaurants will be presented on G&M’s website (2,000,000 global users and 6,000,000 views) and the free G&M app (500,000 global users).
Recently, Gault&Millau has gotten new owners. Jacques Bally, formerly the director of the Ducasse advisory division, has replaced former President Côme de Chérisey at the head of the company. He and his investors, led by Vladislav Skvortsov, took over the respected French company with the intent of strengthening its international network. “I will remain faithful to the original values and principles established by the founders of Gault&Millau, popularising the nouvelle cuisine. We are preparing major projects in France and abroad,” said Bally.
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