There is an old saying in the Chinese: "The people take food as the sky". No matter how times change, our love for food has never diminished. In this era of pursuing food, on January 25, 2024, a banquet was held in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, and the Chinese's own food list, the "2024 Black Pearl Restaurant Guide", was grandly released, and it was launched on the Meituan app and Dianping app at the same time. This is the seventh consecutive year that the Black Pearl Restaurant Guide has been published, with a total of 341 restaurants from 30 cities around the world on the list. It is worth mentioning that second-tier cities have risen rapidly, with Fuzhou and Nanchang making their debut after six years, and Wuxi, Xiamen and Taizhou continuing to climb on the list. At the same time, there are also more new masterpieces with outstanding cost performance in first-tier cities, which marks that Black Pearl is entering a stage of high-quality development and will benefit more food lovers. In addition, the "2024 Black Pearl" also announced the first "Annual Cuisine Award" for the first time, and more local cuisines such as Chu cuisine, Yunnan cuisine, and Chaoshan cuisine have appeared on the list, further enriching the connotation of Chinese food culture.
Consumption has returned to the "quality-price ratio", and Black Pearl Restaurant has accelerated its high-quality development, which is a gratifying trend. Eating well does not mean eating expensive, which is the general consensus brought about by the changes of the times. With the rapid recovery of China's consumer market and the upgrading of industrial structure, consumers' tastes are also quietly changing, and they pay more attention to refinement, nutrition and health. This also makes more people-friendly fine restaurants stand out, and at the same time, it also gives Black Pearl new vitality in high-quality development.
In 2024, the number of restaurants on the Black Pearl list has grown steadily, with more than half of the cities setting new records for the number of restaurants. Shanghai is the vane of fine dining, with one-third of the new restaurants on the list focusing on value for money. For example, Noble has won the favor of customers with its people-friendly **, high-standard service and ingredient research and development. In Beijing, there is a Shengzuan Chinese restaurant, which has become a new highland for the development of exquisite Chinese cuisine. Cities such as Guangzhou and Wuhan have also shown impressive growth. In terms of newly opened cities, restaurants in Fuzhou and Nanchang and other regions also show local cuisine, enriching the territory of the Black Pearl list.
Zhang Chuan, senior vice president of Meituan, said that under the new era and new opportunities, the catering industry is full of hope, and consumers' pursuit of food will continue to promote the development of fine dining. In the future, Black Pearl will continue to uphold the concept of long-termism, encourage restaurants to return to their essence, return to taste, return to local ingredients, and return to operation, so as to provide more consumers with high-quality food and services.
For the first time, the Black Pearl Restaurant Guide has unveiled the "Dish of the Year Awards", which recognises 10 dishes based on their uniqueness, culinary level and market recognition, which represent the richness of Chinese cuisine culture. Among them, there are many masterpieces of local cuisines such as Chu cuisine, Yunnan cuisine, and Chaoshan cuisine. The birth of these dishes is inseparable from the efforts and innovation of generations of chefs, who continue to explore and create on the basis of tradition, and pass on the Chinese food culture to the next generation.
In order to ensure the fairness and impartiality of the list, the Black Pearl Restaurant Guide has further optimized the judging system from this year, increased the number of judges, and accelerated the rotation cycle. Different types of judges will evaluate restaurants from more angles to ensure the credibility of the list.
In this gastronomic feast, we have seen the vigorous development of China's catering industry and the inheritance and innovation of traditional culture. As consumers, we should cherish the food around us and feel the cultural heritage behind the food. Therefore, I would like to ask: what does food look like in your eyes?