Strong Support for Organic at US's Top-Ranked Restaurants

USA: STRONG SUPPORT FOR ORGANIC AT BEST RESTAURANTS

November 11, By Thane Peterson, BusinessWeek Online

The October issue of Gourmet magazine offers up its list of the top 50 U.S. restaurants and is already giving a big boost to
some of the eateries that made the cut. `

The list is significant because it could be a major step toward creating a national arena in which fine restaurants anywhere in the
U.S. can compete with one another, rather than against other local champions. That's the way things are in France, where
every halfway decent restaurant is regularly rated by critics from the Gault Millau and Michelin guides.

Many of these restaurants are strong supporters of organic growing techniques and the other principles of sustainable
agriculture. Arrows in Ogunquit, Maine, which ranked No. 26, has its own huge organic garden and greenhouse tended by
three full-time gardeners. Frank Stitt, chef-owner of the Highlands Bar & Grill in Birmingham, Alabama and No 5 on the list, is
on the board of Chef's Collaborative, a group of 1,500 chefs and others who promote sustainable agriculture. He also advises
Alabama's governor on sustainable agriculture and promotes the cause on a talk-radio show.

`Our business is out of control,'' says Paul Kahan, the 38-year-old chef-owner of Chicago's trendy Blackbird [No. 33], which
also earned a recent rave review in The New York Times.

As far as I know, this is the first time a magazine with Gourmet's credentials has flat-out tried to rate the best U.S. restaurants
-- as opposed to rating the best in each city or the ones with the best new chefs or top wine cellars. ``It takes tremendous
resources. There's lot of traveling, eating, and fighting [among the editors],'' says Ruth Reichl, Gourmet's editor-in-chief, who
was previously the top restaurant critic for The New York Times. Says Reichl: ``You have to be nuts to try it.''

Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California is No. 1.

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