For this, our first post-pandemic list, we were obliged to change a few of our rules. In the past, we have always asked of our judges to vote on the complete dining experience: service, décor, the depth of the cellar – and, above all else, the quality of the food. this time, to broaden the class of restaurants we recognize, we asked our judges to simply vote for great food wherever they found it.
Further, to help even the playing field between those restaurants in cities that were in total lockdown while others were open for business, we told judges that they were free to assess restaurant quality based on takeout. As for most of our judging period travel was at best inconvenient and often prohibited, we waived our customary requirement that judges include on their list of ten restaurants a minimum of three that were outside of their home province or region. And, as we skipped our 2021 list, we decided that for this year only, we would extend our normal definition of “new” restaurants to those that opened over the preceding two calendar years instead of one. Lastly, in a change that we are going to keep, we welcomed a dozen new judges, selected from the enthusiastic respondents to our contest back in 2020.
