BON APPETIT!
The Best Restaurants Worldwide. Here's the Top 10!
Published on May 26, 2024
Credit: Peter Dawn
The world of fine dining is truly a fascinating one. Chefs get to experiment and innovate in something as primordial to the human race as food. As the popular saying goes: "Chefs are like musicians, but instead of music they play with food."
We have selected ten of the finest restaurants in the world that know how to transform food from a nutritional tool into a truly life-changing experience. And, if reading about these restaurants makes you a little hungry, you can always save this article in case you are in the neighborhood.
Noma - Copenhagen, Denmark
Credit: Yohan Marion
Noma is an iconic restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark, ranked as "Best Restaurant in the World" on four different occasions. The name comes from the abbreviation of two Danish words: Nordisk for Nordic and mad for food.
As the name indicates, this three-Michelin-star restaurant seeks to redefine traditional Nordic cuisine. Founders René Redzepi and Claus Meyer focus on foraging and using fresh, local ingredients for creating and reinventing new dishes.
Eleven Madison Park - New York City, USA
Credit: Sebastian Coman Photography
Located in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, Eleven Madison Park offers thousands of New Yorkers a fine dining experience since 1998. This three-star restaurant offers a seasonal tasting menu inspired by New York’s local history and culture. The menu usually includes from eight to ten courses,
Since 2021, Eleven Madison Park only serves plant-based dishes. During the COVID pandemic, it became a commissary kitchen and made meals to help food-insecure New Yorkers.
Dinner - London, England
Credit: Edward Howell
Celebrity English chef Heston Blumenthal created this restaurant in 2011 and within a year it had already received its first Michelin star. Located in London, Dinner’s menu is based on traditional British cuisine, thoroughly researched by food historians. Some recipes were even inspired by information found in the British Library.
The restaurant changes its courses every three months, but every menu contains historical dishes that range from the 14th to the 19th century. So, if you are looking to take a culinary step back in time, then Dinner is the place for you.
Alinea - Chicago, USA
Credit: Romain Briaux
One of Chicago’s two restaurants with three Michelin stars, Alinea is definitively a culinary institution in the Windy City. Founded in 2005, its name comes from the pilcrow, a grammatical symbol that indicates a new paragraph. According to co-owner Nick Kokonas, the name was chosen to indicate the restaurant’s mission to "represent a new train of thought about food."
True to its name, Alinea’s menu consists of truly groundbreaking experiences. One of its most famous dishes is a chocolate dessert, mixed with several other ingredients, which is directly painted and scattered by a chef on the diner’s table.
Arzak - San Sebastian, Spain
Credit: David B Townsend
Located in the heart of the Basque Country, Arzak is a Spanish restaurant founded by Juan Mari Arzak, considered one of the masters of "New Basque" cuisine. While it is considered one of the best restaurants in the world, Arzak is, above all, a family business: it is located in the house of the current owner’s grandparents, on which they originally ran a tavern. When Juan Mari’s parents took over, they turned the inn into a restaurant. By 1989, Arzak had been awarded three Michelin stars.
Arzak manages to perfectly combine tradition with innovation. Their dishes keep the regional flavor of Basque cuisine, using ingredients like local monkfish or spider crab, while still featuring a fresh and creative take on their presentation.
Central - Lima, Peru
Credit: Jay Wennington
It probably goes without saying that Peruvian cuisine is world-famous: it effortlessly combines the traditions of different immigrant cultures, like European, Asian, and African, with local Peruvian ingredients and customs. The result is a fantastic gastronomic experience that attracts hundreds of culinary tours every year. One of the most visited stops on these trips is Central, an iconic restaurant located in the Barranco district, in Lima.
Virgilio Martínez Véliz, Peruvian chef and owner of Central, uses it as both his flagship restaurant and workshop for creating new "Contemporary Peruvian" dishes. Central was named "World’s Best Restaurant" in 2023.
Den - Tokyo, Japan
Credit: Giovanna Gomes
A number of excellent Japanese restaurants could be included in this article. Not for nothing is Japan one of the countries with the most three Michelin stars restaurants. However, we have chosen Den, chef Zaiyu Hasegawa’s flagship location in Tokyo, as a must-visit restaurant in the "Land of the Rising Sun".
Den is unlike any other Japanese restaurant: it features contemporary, innovative dishes that mix traditional Japanese recipes with modern and original styles. Hasegawa is a unique chef who goes out of his way to make eating in Den both a groundbreaking and welcoming experience.
Atelier Crenn - San Francisco
Credit: Nick Karvounis
Located in the Cow Hollow neighborhood, on the outskirts of the Golden City, Atelier Crenn is a French restaurant opened by chef Dominique Crenn. It features a 12-course tasting menu, which heavily focuses on fish courses.
Crenn has stated that Atelier Crenn is an homage to her father. The menu is written as a poem, on which each line features a teaching of Dominique’s father, which she learned during her childhood on a French farm.
Mirazur - Menton, France
Credit: Jay Wennington
Mirazur is a restaurant that understands that a fine dining experience doesn’t just involve excellent food: Sitting on the banks of the French Riviera, this restaurant offers its diners wonderful views of the Mediterranean Sea which pair up perfectly with expertly prepared French food.
Run by Argentine-Italian chef Mauro Colagreco, Mirazur dishes draw inspiration from nature. Many of the ingredients used are grown in the restaurant’s garden, on which aromatic herbs, flowers, and vegetables are grown.
Le Bernardin
Credit: Louis Hansel
Just like Arzak, Le Bernardin takes the most pride in knowing that, almost forty years after its opening, it still is a family restaurant. Founded by siblings Gilbert and Maguy Le Coze, this French restaurant was first opened in Paris before relocating to Midtown Manhattan in 1986. The name comes from a folk song that the father of the Le Coze siblings sang to them as children.
Le Bernardin focuses mainly on French seafood and fish recipes, which combine traditional French cuisine with Asian influences. It received three Michelin stars in 2005, in the first year in which Michelin published a guide to New York City.
