Chef Tomos Parry of London's Brat and Mountain restaurants joined chef James Trees on Monday at Esther's Kitchen, his downtown restaurant, for one of the 50 Best Signature Sessions. The lunch that the chefs served lasted for four hours.

Virgilio Martinez, co-chef and owner of Central in Lima, and Sarah Thompson, executive chef of Casa Playa on the property, participated in a Tuesday morning conversation at Wynn. In 2023, Central ranked as the best restaurant globally.

Thompson talked about the week's opportunities and excitement. ‘It is vitally crucial to seize the moment. These partnerships with the world's top chefs advance the cause. These chefs are inspiring the city and the restaurants with their passions.’

Martinez discussed his restaurant philosophy among other things.‘ We try to cook ideas at Central, not recipes. Our goal is to prepare culture. Being the best restaurant in Central that we can be has always been our primary objective.’

From Plants to Animals

50 Best Talk, Treasure Hunt: The Quest for Culinary Gold, was held at Wynn. According to the talk, there are many ways to create gastronomic gold, such as repurposing simple plant-based ingredients, revitalizing age-old cooking methods, fostering the growth of underappreciated chefs, reevaluating the conventional restaurant hierarchy, and using the entire fish—from the snout to the tail—in culinary creations.

Chef Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park in New York City, the first plant-based restaurant to receive three Michelin stars, was one of the eight chefs and restaurateurs who took the stage. He discussed some of the difficulties Eleven Madison Park encountered upon reopening in June 2021 with a menu focused primarily on plants, having previously gained notoriety for its foie gras, duck, and lobster dishes.

"We were like, 'Oh my God, where do we start?' as soon as we entered the kitchen. What are our new milk and butter? What materials make up the stocks? We started by making our pantry before we started on our menu.

"It became political when the plant-based menu was announced. Meat suppliers wrote to us, saying, "This will never work; they will never deliver to me when I need their meat again." We received some extremely critical articles and reviews. But Eleven Madison Park will cease to exist if we don't adapt.

Using the Whole Fish

Josh Niland, a.k.a. The "fish butcher" and chef-owner of Saint Peter in Sydney, discussed how half of a fish usually ends up in the trash in restaurants during the Culinary Gold session. "We're using secondary cuts of fish, building out all the things you can do with fish," says Saint Peter. We see fish too often as just two filets. What can we do with the remaining fish?

A possible solution is to grill the collar and head. Another is to use the eyes to create "chips." Niland described the bite as crispy and salty. The first question posed to the crowd after the meal was what they thought of the chips at first? We declared, "Fisher eye." That encouraged the subsequent group of patrons to enter the eatery.

Fish bladder ricotta cheese was an unsuccessful experiment. It was rather disgusting, Niland remarked. People at the talk were served what the chef described as an ice cream sandwich. It tasted and felt like a version without dairy or gluten. Not horrible, but not very noteworthy.

However, the ice cream sandwich turned into a miracle when Niland revealed that the cake was made of fish bones and the filling was made of fish eye vitreous humor.

A World Feast

Three days of events are scheduled for the World's 50 Best week following the ceremony. These include pop-ups and collaborations at Resorts World's Indulge Festival and Wynn's Revelry Festival's Icons Dinner, which features some of the world's most renowned chefs.

On Saturday, the week comes to an end with Revelry's centerpiece event, The Feast, which brings together four distinct culinary genres: wood-fire rotisserie and barbecue, Mediterranean cooking, coastal Mexican dishes, and Tokyo street food.

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