And the best restaurant in the world is …
Today in Singapore, The World’s 50 Best announced its list of the best restaurants and chefs in the world. Whereas Michelin is decided by a small, anonymous number of inspectors, the World’s 50 Best is decided by “over 1,000 international restaurant industry experts.” And while Michelin has been criticized as being Eurocentric in its focus, World’s 50 Best has … also been criticized for being Eurocentric in its focus.
World’s 50 Best took a few steps in order to bolster the diversity of its picks. Previous top winners were made ineligible to place anywhere on future lists, making room for some new faces to get into the mix. (Another possibility is that this decision was made to coddle the egos of chefs who don’t want to be seen as “falling” in ranking upon being dethroned.) Another change was that the voting body would be split 50-50 between male and female voters.
However, this attempt at shaking things up wasn’t reflected in the final results, which saw a predictable mix of European and Eurocentric restaurants dominating much of the list. And out of 50 restaurants, only 5 were helmed by women chefs. Indeed, instead of actually awarding more women they still opted for a separate (patronizingly worded) award: “World’s Best Female Chef.”
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Among the people that noted this disparity was, José Andrés (who won the Icon Award). According to CNN, he said in his speech, “We need to be honoring not only the men who seem to be getting the most credit [but also the women who are] really feeding the world.”
The top 10 restaurants were Mirazur (Menton France), Noma (Copenhangen, Denmark), Asador Etxebarri (Axpe, Spain), Gaggan (Bangkok), Geranium (Copenhagen, Denmark), Central (Lima, Peru), Mugartiz (San Sebastian, Spain), Arpege (Paris, France), Disfrutar (Barcelona, Spain), and Maido (Lima, Peru).
But it’s one thing to know that a restaurant is good when it comes to narrowing down which spot to knock off your bucket list first we’ve compiled a few superlatives for you to consider.
Most Expensive in the Top 4
According to Eater, Copenhagen’s Noma will run you somewhere in the neighborhood of $380.
Least Expensive in the Top 4
You can get away with a night at the number one restaurant, Mirazur (Menton, France), costing you around $125.
Most Instagrammable
Of course, any dish from any of these restaurants is sure to win you some solid Insta-points, but it’s hard to top Central’s (Lima, Peru) bouquet of snarling piranha faces when it comes to presentation.
Most Instagrammable (Non-Food Category)
The only thing that’s even close to being as delicious as the food at White Rabbit (Moscow, Russia) is its interior décor!
Most Charming Use of Vegetables
Den (Tokyo, Japan) serves up a variety of grinning faces carved into their rounded slices of veggies.
You can see the full list of winners (including those ranked 51-120) at The World’s 50 Best.