The restaurant world’s most watched list has a new number one, and it is not where anyone would drop a pin for a gala dinner. Asador Etxebarri, in the Basque countryside, has been named The World’s Best Restaurant 2026 at The 50 Best Restaurants ceremony, held on the night of November 4 at the Teatro Municipal in Lima.
The 50 Best Restaurants, formerly The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and organised by the British media group William Reed, has ranked the world’s dining rooms since 2002. This year’s list comes from the votes of more than 1,100 industry experts across 28 regions, with an independent check on the voting process by the consultancy Deloitte. The ceremony covered 28 territories on six continents, with 14 cities appearing for the first time.
The winner: simple food, fire and patience
Etxebarri restaurant is run by chef-owner Víctor Arguinzoniz, who has built a restaurant around a single idea: cooking over wood fire. It sits in the peaceful Basque village of Axpe, in the municipality of Atxondo, and serves a 14-course tasting menu in which high-quality ingredients take centre stage and the grill does the rest. It climbed from number two last year. It succeeds Maido in Lima, last year’s winner, which now moves into the Best of the Best hall of fame, the group of past number-one restaurants no longer eligible for the vote. Thirteen restaurants belong to it, from El Bulli and The French Laundry to Noma, Mirazur, Disfrutar and Maido.
Gaggan in Bangkok is second and Alchemist in Copenhagen third. Quintonil in Mexico City is fourth, followed by Wing and The Chairman in Hong Kong, Kjolle in Lima, Kadeau in Copenhagen, Diverxo in Madrid and Plénitude in Paris. Atomix in New York is the highest North American entry at number 11.
The 50 Best Restaurants 2026 prizes around the podium
- Tuju Restaurant in São Paulo is the Highest New Entry at number 16, and also the Art of Hospitality winner.
- Kadeau Restaurantin Copenhagen is the Highest Climber, up 33 places to number eight.
- Jessica Rosval of Al Gatto Verde Restaurant (number 24), at Massimo Bottura‘s Casa Maria Luigia in Modena, is Best Female Chef, recognised for her wood-fired cooking and for Roots, a restaurant she co-founded to train migrant women.
- Naar in Kasauli, in the Himalayan foothills, is the Sustainable Restaurant (number 49), cooking to six mountain seasons and storing food in hardwood ash.
- Best Pastry Chef is Dej Kewkacha of Bangkok, Best Sommelier is Lesley Liu of Odette in Singapore, and the chefs’ own vote goes to Junghyun “JP” Park of Atomix.
What the 50 BEST list is telling us
Fire is the quiet winner. The top restaurant is a grill, and the Best Female Chef cooks with wood fire too. After years of fermentation labs and tweezers, the world’s most admired kitchens are reaching for the oldest technique there is. It chimes with what we saw earlier this autumn: ingredient-first, artisanal and unshowy, with luxury expressed as restraint.
The map of the 50 best restaurants has tilted. Bangkok has five restaurants on the list: Gaggan, Sorn, Sühring, Nusara and Potong. Lima has three even without Maido, Copenhagen three, and Italy five. New entries arrive from Shanghai, Hangzhou, Mumbai, Seoul, Quito, Brussels and Sydney. The elite of fine dining no longer sits in Paris and San Sebastián alone, and the middle of the list reads like an itinerary for a very well-funded gourmand.
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Discover the world’s most prestigious gatherings & exhibitionsThe hall of fame is a clever machine. Every winner graduates out of eligibility, so the number one is always a new name. It keeps the list fresh and also rewards ambition: the road to the top is a one-way trip. The Best of the Best group has also become a sort of alumni association, with its members expected to give back through new projects.
The list is a commercial ecosystem. The ceremony is hosted with PromPerú, Peru’s export and tourism promotion body, as official host destination partner, and sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna, with partners that include SevenRooms (the restaurant booking platform), Visa, Lexus, DoorDash, illycaffè and an official concierge partner. That is not a criticism, since awards need funding, but it explains why the winners’ circle is also a booking funnel. When we wrote about how hard it has become to reserve at the very top, this was the machinery we meant: a list that sends global attention, and diners, to a few tables.
A gentle reading of the result
It is worth remembering what a ranking measures. It is a snapshot of the opinions of a global panel, with no fixed criteria, and it reflects who has travelled where. The panel is large and the process is audited, which is reassuring, but “best” remains a collective judgement, and one that favours long tasting menus and places experts can reach. A neighbourhood trattoria that feeds you superbly for a tenth of the price will never appear on it.
Still, there is something heartening in the winner. A restaurant in a village in the green Basque hills, run by a chef who has devoted his life to fire, has been crowned by the whole world. The last word goes, appropriately, to the grill.
