No, India’s not on the list, I checked

Remember this name Disfrutar Although it sounds like the latest weightloss pill itrsquos actually a restaurant in Spain It was recentlymdashthree days agomdashranked 1 in the prestigious lineup of the Worldrsquos 50 Best Restaurants regarded as the Oscars of global fine dining Itrsquos owned and run by chefs Oriol Castro Eduard Xatruch and Mateu Casanas alumni of El Bulli Spainrsquos school for kitchen magicNothing is what it seems to be in Disfrutarrsquos 31course menu What looks like a simple cheese sandwich turns out to be bread made from frozen tomato water with a filling of gazpacho In another dish they somehow liquify corn make little spheroids out of it reassemble it to look like corn again and serve it on a cracker with a bed of caviarAll thatrsquos fine but Irsquom from the second country on the planet that says itrsquos the worldrsquos greatest country and I want to know where we stand in this list Has Indian cuisine once again broken all records and emerged as the worldrsquos leader shining the light towards new culinary frontiers for others to followIn brief you want to know about the other 49 names on the list Irsquove checked the list thoroughly and I donrsquot think yoursquoll like the answer Firstly there is not a single Indian restaurantmdashthat is one situated in Mahaan Bharatmdashon the list Indian cuisine is present though in spirit rather than on the plateBefore you burn down the Worldrsquos 50 Best Restaurants Academy let me add that none of its employees or sponsors has any influence over the results The Academy has more than 1000 members each an expert on food and restaurants with as many men as women The winnersrsquo list is decided by dividing the world into 27 geographical regions each with its own culinary chairperson selected because of their local cuisine savvyEach chair selects a voting panel of 40 chefs restaurateurs food journalists and gourmets All votes are anonymousSo maybe itrsquos a good time to start asking where Indian cuisine stands among the planetrsquos cuisinesApparently we donrsquot Indian cuisine is not in the top three of any list A cuisine without rules where you can add as many spices as you like to anything you like and call it genius is probably best acknowledged as a freeforallTime and again Italian and French cuisines top the list and we may put this squarely as the white Western civilisation putting its thumb on the scale But even the worldrsquos socalled ldquothree grand cuisinesrdquo are Chinese French and TurkishTherersquos a small glimmer of hope In 2023 pickyeaterblogcom did a worldwide survey of the top five cuisines with the greatest influence on the worldrsquos palate by analysing Instagram hashtags mentions and 82095 restaurants in 50 great cities Italian cuisine topped again of course but Japanese Indian and Korean came close behind The study found that Chinese restaurants were the most visited followed by Italian Indian and JapaneseSince yoursquore dying to know the most popular single item eaten in the world is not the uthappam but the pizza with over 60 million mentions on InstagramI lied a little about Indiarsquos absence on the worldrsquos 50 Best Restaurants of 2024 There are two that could be said if yoursquore not paying attention to be inspired by Indian cuisineGaggan by Kolkata boybratgenius Gaggan Anand has been on this list five times ranking 10th 2015 23rd 2016 7th 2017 and 4th 2019 Then he broke up with his partners and started his own restaurant with the strikingly original name of Gaggan Anand Hersquos back on the world list now in position 9Gaggan Anand however is food as performance You go here to be awed and humbled not ravished with Chicken Tikka Masala Dal Makhani and Reshmi Kebabs It is molecular Indian food ingenious clever and full of surprises but not a show yoursquod go twice for Gaggan himself told me once that he agreedI initially skipped the other restaurant on the Worldrsquos 50 Best list because it sounded like a shampoo Tresind Studio On closer inspection it turned out to be an Indian eaterie in Dubai The menu following the mesmerising tradition of all Indian menus tells us that we are a civilisation that is over 5000 years old and in a deep bow to the ruling partyrsquos preferences calls it the Rising India menu It offers the apparently rich cuisines of the Thar Desert who knew the Deccan Plateau the Coastal Plain and Islands umm which ones Port Blair and the Northern Plains and the Himalayan Mountains Omitted are the cuisines of Bengal Kashmir Tamil Nadu and KeralaOn even closer scrutiny the menu seems to feature nonconsensual sex between various Indian classics and standards from Italy France Japan and China I spotted Shiso papadum Cacao ghevar tender coconut kushiyaki yuzu rasam buttermilk ravioli and kebab scarpettaMy humble suggestion is that we start our own Worldrsquos 50 Best Restaurants all of which are known to be in IndiaYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper