What's Shaking? Tastemaker Virginia Miller of World's 50 Best at Bar Betsie with JP Sabatier

She decides which restaurants the world calls the best. Here is how that actually works. Over 30,000 restaurants and bars. More than 600 a year, still. I have met plenty of people in this business who call themselves obsessed, then I met Virginia Miller, who keeps spreadsheets on all of it and finds that unremarkable. We sat down at Bar Betsie because when this team heard who was coming, they did not say yes, they said Bar Betsie, obviously. If you have ever looked at a best restaurants list and wondered who picks it and whether any of it is real, this one pulls the curtain all the way back. Virginia walks through how the voting works, who gets to be a voter, how many of her own picks never make it, and why she says there is no number one. For anyone who follows this DC food podcast for the industry side, this is the view you rarely get on tape. Virginia Miller is Academy Chair for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and North America’s 50 Best Restaurants, a James Beard Awards Committee member, and a lead judge at San Francisco World Spirits and the American Distilling Institute awards, which she has judged for 17 years. She writes The Perfect Spot, the Substack she launched back in 2007. Then Bar Betsie co owner JP Sabatier got behind the bar, built a Love Yuzu, and explained how both of his bars got their names. Key Takeaways Virginia Miller moved to San Francisco in 2003 and hit roughly ten restaurants a week in her first year, purely out of obsession, before she was ever paid to write about any of it. World’s 50 Best has more than 1,000 voters and roughly 26 to 28 chairpeople worldwide, and every chair has to replace at least a quarter of their voters each year. Judging spirits is blind and technical, closer to a lab than a night out, while judging restaurants takes in aesthetics, hospitality and the whole experience. She deliberately went after every food she disliked until she learned to enjoy it, on the theory that you can train yourself to like anything. Jane Jane, Bar Betsie and even the business entity behind them are each named after one of the three owners’ mothers. Virginia Miller said, “There is no number one. There’s many.” JP Sabatier said, “Jane Jane should feel like you’re going to a school field trip and Bar Betsie should feel like you’re cutting school.” Timestamps 00:00 Welcome to Bar Betsie in the Union Market District 01:22 Meet Virginia Miller, 30,000 restaurants and counting 03:25 Homeschooled, half Sicilian, and collecting Zagat guides 06:22 Tom Martinez pours the Clover Cult 07:33 Moving to San Francisco and hitting ten spots a week 09:32 Launching The Perfect Spot in 2007 10:24 From the Bay Guardian to Zagat and Time Out 13:01 How the bar and spirits world changed since the early 2000s 14:36 Tasting everything, and training yourself to like anything 16:10 The on air cocktail competition begins 17:01 Judging spirits blind for the world’s biggest awards 19:58 What World’s 50 Best actually is, and how chairs are chosen 22:28 Inside the voting, and why it is never just your picks 25:04 Tasting the two competition cocktails 28:12 The writing world is shrinking, so she built her own 29:36 Travel guides, the arts, and food as a portal 31:41 JP Sabatier on Bar Betsie and the Union Market District 33:50 Jane Jane, Bar Betsie, and naming bars after your mom 35:39 The CIA, the cocktail program, and the Love Yuzu 41:36 What is coming up at Bar Betsie 42:29 Roasted Not by Us 43:43 Closing thoughts Connect with Virginia Miller Website: https://virginia-miller.com/bio/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/virginiamiller.sf/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/virginia-miller-33a2952/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7I7RheWhlACUjmb-URLIQg Connect with JP Sabatier Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/supergayp/ Bar Betsie Website: https://www.barbetsiedc.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbetsiedc