This Restaurant Was Just Voted the Best in the World

The World's 50 Best Restaurants list was just released in Valencia, Spain. Here are the restaurants that took the top spots — start scouting reservations and booking flights.

At a ceremony in Valencia, Spain, Central in Lima was today named the best restaurant in the world by 1,080 restaurant industry experts in the annual World's 50 Best Restaurants rankings.

Central, by chefs Virgilio Martinez and Pía Léon, edged out Barcelona’s Disfrutar and brought the top prize down to South America following Copenhagen’s recent claims to the crown with Noma, in 2021, and Geranium, in 2022.

Copenhagen only showed up once in the top 50 this year, with Alchemist at No. 5, known for lengthy meals served in what feels like an immersive art exhibit.

Spanish restaurants had a strong showing on the list, including the introduction of Valencia’s own Restaurante Ricard Camarina at No. 96, and the re-addition of chef Albert Adria’s Enigma at No. 82. Since Enigma first opened in 2016, with the idea of taking diners on a culinary journey between futuristic cooking stations serving oysters in Iberico pork fat and barnacles with barnacle juice, it’s repeatedly reinvented itself throughout COVID-19, now refocused on seasonal tapas. Although the crown for the country’s finest tapas belongs to Barcelona’s Disfrutar, which ranked No. 3 last year and today moved one place closer to perfection. Total perfection was achieved by chef Antoni Luis Arduiz who received the Icon Award for his lifetime of work at San Sebastian’s Mugaritz and Madrid’s Diverxo. The latter restaurant ranked No. 3 in the world, and in-house sommelier Miguel Angel Millan took home the prize for Best Sommelier in the World.

Other notable additions to this year’s full list include Mauro Colagreco’s Ceto, which only opened two years ago at the new Maybourne Riviera in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France, just east of Monaco. Colagreco’s Le Mirazur, in nearby Menton, claimed the top slot on the list in 2019. Not every chef wants the pressure of climbing the list for a second time with a completely new concept, but Colagreco tells Travel + Leisure he was eager for the challenge.

“It was very important for me to propose another vision of fine dining, and highlight a more creative way to cook fish and pay tribute to the Mediterranean Sea," he says. "It's also a source of pride for me and for my team to be awarded such a recognition after two years. When we decided to create Ceto, it was a risk because of the geographic proximity of the two restaurants, but Ceto is a totally different concept than Mirazur even if it highlights the same terroir.”

Ceto is one of the few hotel restaurants on the list, in addition to a new entry at No. 36, Sezanne, at the Four Seasons Tokyo at Marunouchi; their inclusions today may foreshadow those properties appearing on the inaugural World's 50 Best Hotels list, which will be revealed later this year in London. So might this week’s appearance of the legendary chef Alain Ducasse, who in the days leading up to this year’s World's 50 Best ceremony, joined his executive chef, Jean-Philippe Bondet in a collaborative dinner at Valencia’s La Salita. The pair is representing, among other things, their new collaboration restaurant at London's newly revamped The Dorchester.

Of course, there is plenty of room on the World’s 50 Best list for restaurants that defy the most identifiable trappings of old-school white tablecloth haute cuisine, and no city better represents that casualness than Berlin. Here, the intentions of restaurants like the eight-seat counter Ernst, ranked at No. 55, and Nobelhart & Schmutzig, at No. 45, focus all their efforts on playfully elevating hyper-local ingredients from lobsters to lard.

At Nobelhart, the communal dining counter is anchored by a record player where owner Billy Wagner feels comfortable listening to whole albums of his choosing while handing out stacks of vintage books for customers to read between nightly specials of unpretentious decadence. (That means chef Micha Schafer’s plump pork fat schnitzel, sourced from milk-fed pigs at a nearby family farm, and paired with a spread made of even more pork fat.) There’s also an inches-thick award-winning wine list to distract, just one of the lo-fi charms that makes the restaurant’s strict no-phone policy seem less enforced.

“Today’s greatest luxuries are time and the ability to savor true craftsmanship undisturbed. That is why we have decided to ban photos and videos inside the restaurant,” Wagner explains to T+L, explaining that he got the idea from Berlin’s nightlife culture where phone and photo bans continue to be enforced at venues like the infamous Berghain.

The most ambitious American asterisk to the list was Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi, which opened late last year at New York’s Lincoln Center and has already received three stars from The New York Times. Onwuachi received the special One To Watch award, for his menu highlighting the down-to-earth flavors of Onwuachi’s childhood in the Bronx. It features decadent reinterpretations of dishes like Hot Pockets, here stuffed with pepperoni cacciatore and smoked mozzarella, and the Bodega Special, a dessert inspired by Little Debbie brownies and donuts.

Last year’s winners were announced in London after the host city was changed from Moscow, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This past March, World’s 50 Best confirmed no Russian restaurants would again be eligible for the list. The country’s two most celebrated restaurants had been steadily climbing in recent years. (In 2021, Vladimir Mukhin’s White Rabbit was ranked at No. 25, and twin brothers Ivan and Sergey Berezutsky’s Twins Garden at No. 30.)

And while Dubai has long been a refuge for western chefs looking to open satellite restaurants and reach international audiences, this year’s list also shows there’s plenty of opportunity today for Eastern chefs looking for the same success.

Earlier this year, the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list for the Middle East and North Africa featured four Dubai restaurants in its top five. The top two spots went to Syrian Orfali Bros. Bistro at the Wasl 51 Mall, an alcohol-free option at the new indie dining incubator in Jumeirah, and Indian chef Himanshu Saini’s Tresind Studio, at the Palm Jumeirah, where he transports diners throughout the dining room as they move through the flavors of the subcontinent, from iridescent blossom chaat to ghee-roasted crab. This year, Orfali Bros entered the world stage at No. 46 and Tresind Studio at No. 11, making it the highest ranking Middle Eastern restaurant on this year’s list.

You can find the full list of the World's 50 Best Restaurants here.

For more Travel & Leisure news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on Travel & Leisure.