2011 Reader Restaurant Awards: Votes by Nationality

One of the most common complaints we hear about Annie's winning "Best Italian" awards in our annual Reader Restaurant Awards is that "Italians don't go to Annie's." Actually, they do. In fairly sizeable numbers as well, judging by our results.

But maybe Annie's isn't the Italians' favorite Italian spot – which begs the question, what is? And while we’re at it, do the French turn their noses up to Maison Boulud, or do they agree with our readers’ judgment that it’s the best non-Chinese restaurant in town? What about our Chinese readers? Do they scoff “silly laowai” when the Beijinger Reader Restaurant Award for “Best Dim Sum” goes to Jin Ding Xuan? Or do they enjoy a late-night Ditan Park shao mai as much as anyone else stumbling out of Tango at 4am?

To answer all of these questions, we broke down the voting in our 2011 Reader Restaurant Awards by nationality (and in the case of the Cantonese category, by region also). We only considered the vote of a national group to be representative if at least 50 people from that country or region voted in the category up for discussion – thus no mention of the Korean, Russian, Thai or Vietnamese constituencies. Here are the highlights of the results by nationality/region, each followed by the with the overall survey winner in parentheses:

Italians on Italian
Best Italian (Affordable) – La Pizza (overall pick: Annie’s)
Best Italian (High End) – Tavola (overall pick: Sureno)
Best Pizza – La Pizza (overall pick: The Tree)

Chinese on Chinese
Restaurant of Year (Chinese) – Da Dong (agreement)
Best Beijing Duck – Da Dong (agreement)
Best Hot Pot – Haidilao (agreement)
Best Yunnan – Middle 8th (agreement)
Best Cantonese (Affordable) – Jin Ding Xuan (agreement)
Best Chinese (New) – Xuxian Lou (overall pick: Little Yunnan)
Best Sichuan – Chuan Ban (overall pick: South Beauty)
Best Cantonese (High End) – Summer Palace, China World Hotel (overall pick: Lei Garden)
Best Dim Sum – Jin Ding Xuan (overall pick: Din Tai Fung)
Best Kung Pao Chicken – Chuan Ban (overall pick: Xiao Wang Fu)

Cantonese (Hong Kong and Guangzhou) on Cantonese
Best Cantonese (High End) – Lei Garden (agreement)
Best Dim Sum – Lei Garden (overall pick: Din Tai Fung)
Best Cantonese (Affordable) – Crystal Jade (overall pick: Jin Ding Xuan)

French on French
Best French (High End) – Maison Boulud (agreement)
Best French (Affordable) – Café de la Poste (overall pick: Brasserie Flo)

Spanish on Spanish
Best Spanish – Agua (agreement)

Americans on American
Best American – Element Fresh (agreement)