The organisation behind The World’s 50 Best Restaurants has released its first ever e-cookbook, entitled Home Comforts: simple lockdown recipes from the world’s best chefs and bartenders, featuring the mealsthat the world’s most revered chefs are cooking for their families at home. Available for a $10/£8 minimum donation through the 50 Best Bid for Recovery donation site with immediate effect, the cookbook will raise funds to support the global hospitality community as part of the 50 Best for Recovery programme announced earlier this year in partnership with founding donor S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna.
The cookbook contains 50 unique recipes from an equal balance of female and male chefs who have featured on recent 50 Best lists, alongside 25 cocktail pairings from bartenders behind The World’s 50 Best Bars. The result is a collection of simple and delicious comfort food creations, from Tokyo to San Francisco, split into categories of vegetarian, fish and seafood, meat and dessert. Whether it’s Alain Passard’s inspired veg-led cookery, Daniela Soto-Innes’ versatile mole, Manu Buffara’s Sunday family favourite or Vicky Lau’s brilliant bao, Home Comforts offers something to suit any amateur cook and every palate.
This initiative offers a means for every food-and-drink lover to help the cause of the hospitality sector in return for a very special collection of recipes and insights. The release of Home Comforts coincides with the impending ‘Bid for Recovery’ Auction of out-of-this-world gastronomic experiences and rare items. Bidding on the auction opens on 3 rd July and closes on 12th July at www.50BestForRecovery.com.
50 Best is also launching the #50BestRateMyPlate Instagram challenge for food lovers to create, and post, dishes inspired by those in the Home Comforts recipe book. Every week for five weeks from 20th July, 50 Best will choose its favourite three #50BestRateMyPlate dishes and share these with its 1.1m followers, who will then vote on their preferred dish. The plate with the most votes during that week will become a finalist and win the chance to be judged by a panel of 50 Best chefs in late August. The winner will receive two VIP tickets to The World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards event in Antwerp, Flanders in 2021.
Home Comforts has been created to give an insight into what 50 Best chefs have been cooking during lockdown, giving readers special access to the simple suppers they make at home, away from the polished plating in their restaurants. Anyone, anywhere in the world can donate, download a copy, and start cooking like a 50 Best chef, with ingredients easily sourced from supermarkets and localstores. With a balance of female and male chefs and bartenders, those participating reflect the gender parity that 50 Best promotes with its ‘50/50 is the new 50’ campaign.
The funds raised will go towards providing direct and tangible financial relief for restaurants and bars worldwide as they emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic as part of the 50 Best for Recovery programme. Independent restaurants and bars across the world will be able to apply for a direct grant in late July. Additional donations will be made to non-profitorganisations: Lee Initiative’s Restaurant Reboot Relief Program and Black Urban Growers (US); Nosso Prato (Brazil); the Eat Out Restaurant Relief Fund (South Africa); Feed the Needy (India); Horeca Next (Belgium); Ambasciatori del Gusto (Italy); Chefs for Spain; Singapore Cocktail Bar Association; and the worldwide Social Gastronomy Movement. You can find out more about the fund distribution process and recipient non-profit organisations here.
William Drew, Director of Content for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, says: “We are thrilled to have some of the world’s leading chefs and bartenders come together and offer their favourite recipes for our first ever e-cookbook. Chefs who have featured on The World’s 50 Best Restaurantslists are opening their kitchens and encouraging food loversto recreate their best-loved dishes in the comfort of their own homes. We urge people to support us in raising as much money as possible for the global hospitality industry – and help give back to the restaurants and bars struggling around the world – with a minimum $10 or £8 donation.’’
The 50 Best team continues to offer its heartfelt support to all those businesses and individualssuffering from the global pandemic. The organisation is hugely grateful to all those in the hospitality world who are dedicating their time and skill to help others, as well as to its partners. 50 Best is committed to using its platform to help fight for equality. The Black community has been hit disproportionately hard by COVID-19. This fact will continue to help shape the distribution of funds in the 50 Best for Recovery campaign.
A selection of Home Comforts recipe previews are available by request. All details of the ecookbook and auction will be available on the 50 Best for Recovery webpage, as well as via Instagram @TheWorlds50Best and Facebook @50BestRestaurants.