Thomas Keller's Per Se and French Laundry Drop Off World's 50 Best List

The full list will be unveiled next week

Next week, the somewhat fickle culinary deities at San Pellegrino and Acqua Panna will unveil the World's 50 Best List in New York City, an annual guide that dictates which restaurants you won't be able to get into. But today, the guide veiled its "back fifty," a mix of younger establishments that didn't make the full list and a handful of other more seasoned venues that fell in the rankings.

This year, some of the mightiest have fallen.

Chef Thomas Keller, whom some regard as one of the godfathers of the modern American tasting menu scene, saw both of his pricey venues, the French Laundry and Per Se, fall into the back fifty. That's a heck of a drop given than the Laundry, now coming in at No. 85, occupied the No.1 spot in 2003 and 2004, while Per Se, now No. 52 was No. 6 in 2013. Per Se was the subject of negative two-star reviews by Eater's Ryan Sutton (that's me) and the NYT's Pete Wells in recent years.

Helen Rizzo's Mani (in São Paulo, Brazil) dropped to the 51 spot, which means the proper list has lost one of few female chefs (there were only two last year). But it's quite likely that she'll be replaced by Dominique Crenn of San Francisco's Atelier Crenn next week.

Other heavy hitters who fell off the main list: Restaurant Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée in Paris, Pascal Barbot's L'Astrance, and Inaki Aizpitarte's heavily influential Le Chateaubriand. Aizpitarte is considered an original gangster of sorts in the neo-bistrot movement in Paris and New York, heavily influencing venues like Contra which serve short set menus in stripped-down settings at affordable-ish prices. Some might raise eyebrows if the San Pellegrino judges replace it with yet another expensive tasting menu venue; many of the spots on the full list can easily exceed $250 per person.

Please do add your thoughts in the comments. But for now, here's the full back fifty.

51. Mani

52. Per Se

53. Hof Van Cleve

54. The Jane

55. Nerua

56. Mikla

57. L'Astrance

58. Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athenee

59. Martin Berasategui

60. Hedone

61. Maaemo

62. La Grenouillere

63. Aqua

64. Lasai

65. Brae

66. Lyle's

67. The Restaurant at Meadowood

68. Teguie

69. Epicure

70. Burnt Ends

71. Daniel

72. Pavilloin Ledoyen

73. Hertog Jan

74. Le Chateaubriand

75. Twins

76. La Colombe

77. Den

78. Belcanto

79. Diverxo

80. L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon St. Germain Paris

81. Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare

82. Hajime

83. Manresa

84. Reale

85. The French Laundry

86. 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana

87. Indian Accent

88. Die Schwarzaldstube

89. Zuma

90. Benu

91. St. John

92. Quintesence

93. Daniel Berlin

94. Bras

95. L'Effervescence

96. Cosme

97. Momofuku Ko

98. Quay

99. La Petit Maison

100. Chestnaya Kukhnya

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