50 Best Explores Ontario
2020 Ontario Tourism Marketing Award Winner
THREE JOURNEYS.
TWO OF THE WORLD’S BEST CHEFS.
The Culinary Tourism Alliance works with communities to grow food tourism by leveraging the history, heritage, and culture behind the food and drink that makes each destination unique. For this project, we joined forces with Destination Canada, Destination Ontario, and our network of industry partners to bring the ‘50 Best Explores’ series by World’s 50 Best to Canada for the first time.
The World’s 50 Best champions a global community of chefs and gourmets, which travel the world to explore and always push gastronomy forward. Capturing chefs’ and media attention, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants is internationally recognized as the only worldwide ranking for premium dining that showcases leading trends and highlights upcoming food destinations. They have never been to Canada, and there has only been one restaurant on their list in the last decade.
The purpose of the 50 Best Explores Ontario project was to take Chefs and Restaurateurs from the 50 Best family and bring them on an adventure to highlight the diverse, dynamic and delicious food experiences available in Ontario. This project showcased the diversity, strength, and local secrets of Ontario’s culinary culture, focussing not only on restaurants but farms and producers as well.
With the keen eyes of an international chef, established local chef, young local chef, journalist and a dedicated camera crew, we documented their journeys across three key Ontario regions: Toronto, Kawarthas Northumberland, and Wine Country Ontario.
The footage we captured was featured on 50 Best’s social media channels, entertaining a 2 million+ global audience of well-travelled foodies and restaurant enthusiasts.
“I think the highlight for me was the countryside on the whole. Seeing first hand how dynamic and responsible they are at every level, from caring for the animals to looking after the crops really resonated with me. One day I would love to work so closely with a place that grows the ingredients.”
— Ignacio Mattos, World’s 50 Best Chef
This was not a traditional project.
Ultimately, the goal of the project was to build a sense of pride in place for the Ontario hospitality industry by bringing world renowned culinary talent they admire to the province.
It is only once that pride has rooted that the province (and country) can truly stand tall and attract the global attention it deserves for its diverse and dynamic culinary scene.
Lifelong friendships were between chefs, farmers and makers - while the world watched. Since the project wrapped, Toronto chefs have popped up for collaborative dinners in New York City with the visiting chefs. We’ve also been told that the 50 Best Chefs have also provide mentorship and support to the local chefs they visited.
It was considered
a huge success.
Utilizing The World’s 50 Best Channels, we were able to reach an enormous global audience. A large portion of the audience resided in the United States - the key demographic identified by both Destination Canada and Destination Ontario for tourism in the province.
The 50 Best Explores Ontario videos were presented as a mini documentary series in three 5-minute episodes, exciting and engaging audiences on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Framing it in this way has kept the content relevent and it continues to draw viewers - over a year later.
IMPRESSIONS: 13,487,383
ENGAGEMENTS: 583,017
VIEWS: 782,218 (so far!)
WATCH TIME: 3800+ hours
ENGAGEMENT: 484,730
“I didn’t expect their level of hospitality and cuisine. All the produce and the wines, everything was amazing.”
— Junghyun ‘JP’ Park, World’s 50 Best Chef