Recruit a worldwide team of 200 peripatetic celebrities, critics, food writers, hoteliers, restaurateurs and assorted entrepreneurs and ask them to report on what they consider to be the best in travel: This is the formula for the fifth edition of Courvoisier’s “The Book of the Best,” published this month in London (Vermilion/Random House, £12.99). It is edited by the food critic Loyd Grossman, who is taking over from Lord Lichfield, founder-editor, who started the publication 10 years ago.
The result is a travel guide packed with tips and opinions, verdicts and often idiosyncratic insights. The new edition covers 58 countries with 2,500 entries on the best hotels, restaurants, bars and cafés, clubs, museums, galleries, markets, fashion designers, festivals, spas, sports, theater, music, shopping and sightseeing.
Scattered throughout the book are essays on such eclectic topics as Wolfgang Puck (”chef to the stars” in Los Angeles); Literary New York (readings, bookshops and tours); Best of the Bush (Australia); Melbourne Foodie Musts; Big Breakfasts in Sydney; Indian Choice; Top Tailors, and Pub Grub (London); Nile Tours (Egypt); Bistros, Choice Cheeses, Chocoholics Choice (Paris); Exotic Adventures (Himalayas); Private Palace Hotels (India); Pub Culture (Ireland); Piazza Campo dei Fiori (Rome); Best Parks in Tokyo; Café Life (Amsterdam); A Great River Journey (Papua New Guinea), and the Blue Train in South Africa.
Don’t look for consistency or objectivity (it takes a serious celebrity to be as fatuous as: “Taillevent is easily the best in France,” Judith Krantz). But there’s too much good stuff here to quibble about that.
Entries are arbitrary and inconsistent. The United States gets 41 pages; Britain 34; Hong Kong, seven; Japan and Thailand six each; Singapore three; South Africa two; places like Fiji, Sri Lanka, Bermuda and Jamaica have half a dozen entries among them; Cuba gets a page; while Finland, Malta, Israel, most of the Gulf states and the Philippines are left out altogether.
“The book is highly subjective; we make no claim to objectivity. Most guidebooks either rely on one person’s opinion, or like Michelin on a highly trained team of professionals. Whereas ours is based purely on the subjective thoughts of 200 people who are demanding, cosmopolitan, and sophisticated,” says Grossman. “The best is going to be their collective view. But there’s no question that the best has more to do now with best value and local character than it did, say, two or three years ago. There has been a pretty healthy turn away from the sort of preposterous ostentation of international luxury.
“Of course, you’re going to have predictable things; I mean when you talk about Paris hotels, the Crillon is going to be there. But what we’ve tried to do this year is to get off the beaten track and stress the interest of things that are local and particular to the various places, to counteract the wave of homogenization one finds everywhere. This is not my personal restaurant guide. But I have attempted to stress value, more about attractions for kids and culture, which I find play an increasingly important role in determining travelers’ itineraries. That may explain why travel to cities has become increasingly popular. Many people visit the Far East on business and return for pleasure. This is my first year as editor. But Patrick [Lichfield], who started it, is a benign influence; he travels incessantly and knows a lot of people.
“The length of contributions, and indeed which countries get listed at all depends on our contributors; that’s why we have these little essays on places like Vietnam that our gang are increasingly traveling to. If one of our contributors said, ‘By the way, I’ve just spent three months in Timbuktu, it’s a fabulous place,’ we’d write about it. This year we’ve identified places, like Lyon, that tend to get missed out. It’s very amusing to see the opinions of people both on sacred cows and new discoveries. It’s an exceptionally good worldwide telephone directory.”
I recognized only a handful of the celebrities listed at the front of the guide - authentic luminaries like Peter Ustinov, Richard Branson, David Frost, Andre Previn, Ralph Steadman, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jeffrey Archer, Michael Caine, Joan Collins, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Dame Barbara Cartland.
Lichfield and Grossman recruited 12 of the top celebrities as a jury for 16 somewhat gimmicky “Best Value” awards (”Not the best of the best but amongst the most interesting and stimulating of the best,” Grossman says). Singapore Airlines (Best Airline), Four Seasons-Regent Hotels (Best Hotel Group), Dubai (Best Airport Shopping) and Hong Kong (Best Destination) are arguable, though what you might expect; but Melbourne Moomba (Best Festival); Roscoff Belfast (Best British Restaurant); St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art in Glasgow (Best British Museum), and Opera North in Leeds (Achievement in the Arts in Britain) started me turning the pages. And I wouldn’t quarrel with Best British Breakfast (Simpson’s-on-the- Strand) and Best Pub (The Dove) both in London, or Lyon as Best European Weekend Destination.
“The Book of the Best” carries the usual disclaimer about not accepting advertising or payment for entries. But it may be a tad incestuous when celebrities just happen to praise one another. Alain Ducasse (a contributor) at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo is hyped as the World’s Greatest Chef - which he may well be - but did he pay for his meal at Joël Robuchon’s “temple of gastronomy” in Paris? And is it cynical to suppose that Ustinov got the presidential suite at the Westbury in Dublin because he is Sir Peter Ustinov? Perhaps you have to be a celebrity to get a free lunch.
“I would be extremely distressed to find out that anyone involved with the book had ever had a quid pro quo, or said, let me stay for free and I’ll give you a write- up,” Grossman says. “At least we didn’t ask Alain Ducasse to write his own blurb. And I happen to think that because he is a great chef, his views on a restaurant, colored as they may be by his philosophy, are bound to be interesting.”
Well, yes. Until we read that Mohamed al Fayed praises the Ritz in Paris as meeting the exacting standards of César Ritz 100 years ago, when al Fayed is both a contributor and owner of the Ritz.
A crucial test for a travel guide is what it says about places in your own backyard or familiar stamping ground.
“The Book of the Best” barely scrapes by on its listings for the Côte d’Azur - sound on art and museums; otherwise predictable and pedestrian.
But for London, the guide comes alive. Apart from a few dud entries, it’s an excellent London restaurant guide, with an inside track to the trendiest and best value places in town. So I’ll take it with me when I next go to Hong Kong.
1994 International Herald Tribune