
The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2017
Internationally acclaimed 2017 ranking celebrating the world's finest restaurants.
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Eleven Madison Park
New York City, United States
Eleven Madison Park is where New York fine dining's old signals of luxury meet a plant-based tasting-menu format built around provenance, restraint, a serious wine program. Daniel Humm's kitchen carries major recognition, including OAD's 2026 North America ranking, La Liste scoring, Star Wine List inclusion, Les Grandes Tables du Monde membership, but the more interesting story is how the room tests what luxury means without meat at the center.

Osteria Francescana
Modena, Italy
Osteria Francescana is Modena’s high-concept reading of Emilia-Romagna, where Parmigiano Reggiano, balsamic vinegar, pasta memory, contemporary Italian technique are treated as cultural material rather than comfort-food nostalgia. Massimo Bottura’s dining room carries rare external validation, including La Liste 97 points in 2026, Les Grandes Tables du Monde membership, sustained international ranking history.

El Celler de Can Roca
Girona, Spain
El Celler de Can Roca sits at the high-theatre end of Girona dining, where Catalan hospitality, progressive Spanish technique and the Spanish habit of shared anticipation are stretched into a formal tasting-menu language. Its three Michelin stars, 99-point La Liste score for 2026 and long history on The World's 50 Best Restaurants make it a benchmark for travellers comparing Girona with Barcelona, Madrid and the wider Iberian creative circuit.

Mirazur
Menton, France
Mirazur is Menton’s defining high-form restaurant, a three-Michelin-star and Michelin Green Star address shaped by Mauro Colagreco’s borderland cooking between France and Italy. Its appeal is not only luxury dining but a tighter reading of place: gardens, coastal proximity, mountain produce and a Modern French, creative format that treats provenance as structure rather than decoration.

Central
Lima, Peru
Central occupies a converted house in Barranco, Lima's bohemian coastal district, has held the number-one position on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list (2023). The tasting menu moves through Peruvian ecosystems by altitude, ocean floor to high Andes, using ingredients sourced by the research collective Mater Iniciativa. For serious diners visiting Lima, it represents the clearest single-table argument for Peru's biodiversity as a culinary framework.

Asador Etxebarri
Atxondo, Spain
In a mountain village between Bilbao and San Sebastián, Asador Etxebarri has ranked among the World's 50 Best Restaurants continuously since 2008 and holds the title of Best Restaurant in Europe 2025. Victor Arguinzoniz cooks everything over live fire using custom-built grills and a pulley system of his own design, producing a tasting menu that runs to 14 courses and books out months in advance.

Gaggan Anand
Bangkok, Thailand
Bangkok's progressive Indian dining scene has few rooms as choreographed as Gaggan Anand, where a 14-seat L-shaped counter turns dinner into a staged sequence of courses, light, sound and participation. The cooking draws from Indian foundations while pulling in French, Thai and Japanese references, with major recognition from Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, Opinionated About Dining and La Liste.

Maido
Lima, Peru
Named The World's Best Restaurant 2025 by the 50 Best organisation, Maido occupies a specific position in Lima's dining scene: the city's clearest expression of Nikkei cuisine, where Japanese technique meets Peruvian ingredient with precision and seasonal intent. Chef Mitsuharu Tsumura has built a decade-and-a-half of credential around this intersection, earning consecutive top-ten rankings and a loyal international following from a Miraflores address on Calle San Martín.

Mugaritz
Errenteria, Spain
Mugaritz sits in Errenteria’s Basque dining orbit as a research-led restaurant shaped by Andoni Luis Aduriz’s long move from regional craft into conceptual cuisine. Its recognition, including Michelin two-star status in 2025, Guía Repsol 3 Soles in 2026, a long history on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, signals a table built for diners who want provocation rather than comfort.

Steirereck im Stadtpark
Vienna, Austria
Inside a 1904 pavilion in Vienna's Stadtpark, Steirereck im Stadtpark operates at the intersection of architectural drama and Austrian culinary research. Three Michelin stars and consistent placement inside the World's 50 Best Restaurants top 25 position it as the reference point for serious dining in the city. The menu is built around rare breeds, near-extinct produce varieties, ingredients grown on the building's own rooftop.

Blue Hill at Stone Barns
Tarrytown, United States
Blue Hill at Stone Barns is the Hudson Valley's defining argument for farm-led American dining: a working agricultural campus, a progressive kitchen, a wine program with serious depth. The restaurant's recognition, from Michelin 2 Stars in 2024 to Star Wine List accreditation and La Liste scoring, matters because the format is not conventional luxury; it is a meal built around land, season, supply.

Arpège
Paris, France
Arpège belongs to the Paris fine-dining tier where technical French cooking is judged against its ability to evolve, not merely preserve. Alain Passard’s long turn from slow-cooked meats toward garden-led cuisine gives the restaurant its critical importance: vegetables are treated as the main argument, backed by Michelin in 2025, La Liste Top Restaurants 2026 at 97 points, decades of international ranking history.

Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée
Paris, France
Historical profile: Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée at 25 Av. Montaigne, 75008 Paris is listed by Google Places as permanently closed as of a June 21, 2026 audit. Active booking, hours, contact details have been removed.

Restaurant André
Singapore, Singapore
At Restaurant André, dinner unfolds as a quietly luxurious narrative where terroir, seasonality, memory guide each course. In an intimate, art-forward dining room, Chef André crafts modern French cuisine with Asian sensibility, precise, poetic, deeply personal, elevating pristine ingredients into elegant expressions of texture, temperature, time. Attentive yet near-invisible service, a discerning cellar with thoughtful pairings, an atmosphere of hushed refinement create a rarefied experience that lingers well beyond the final bite, an invitation to savor beauty, restraint, the pleasure of considered craft.

Piazza Duomo
Alba, Italy
Piazza Duomo places Alba’s truffle-and-Barolo identity inside a progressive Italian frame, with Enrico Crippa’s plant-led menus pulling the Langhe into a far more technical register. The draw is not only Michelin three-star status, La Liste 96 points for 2026, or its long World’s 50 Best Restaurants run, but the way regional produce becomes the grammar of the meal rather than a decorative accent.

D.O.M.
São Paulo, Brazil
D.O.M. holds two Michelin stars and a sustained presence in the World's 50 Best Restaurants list, positioning it at the top of São Paulo's fine dining tier. Chef Alex Atala's kitchen treats the Amazon as a pantry, bringing native ingredients like jambu, tucupi, priprioca into a tasting format that has redefined how Brazilian cuisine is read internationally. Reservations are essential, the Jardins address has anchored the city's premium dining scene since 1999.

Le Bernardin
New York City, United States
Le Bernardin New York reigns as the city's premier seafood destination, where Chef Eric Ripert's three-Michelin-starred artistry transforms ocean treasures into transcendent cuisine. This legendary Midtown institution has maintained The New York Times' four-star rating for over two decades, offering an unmatched fine dining experience centered on the philosophy that "the fish is the star."

Narisawa
Tokyo, Japan
Narisawa is Tokyo's long-running argument for Japanese terroir through a French-informed lens: satoyama thinking, disciplined technique, a room built for serious dining rather than spectacle. The 15-seat restaurant carries Michelin two-star recognition, Tabelog Silver status for 2026, La Liste scoring, a history on the World's 50 Best Restaurants rankings, with pricing in the JPY 80,000–99,999 bracket for lunch and dinner.

Geranium
Copenhagen, Denmark
Denmark's only three-Michelin-star restaurant, Geranium occupies the eighth floor of Copenhagen's Parken stadium with a menu that runs approximately 80% plant-based across 20-plus courses. Chef Rasmus Kofoed, the sole chef to have won gold, silver, bronze at the Bocuse d'Or, leads a program recognised by the World's 50 Best (#1, 2022) and La Liste (98pts, 2026). The wine list, curated by co-owner Søren Ledet, spans 6,085 selections across 22,900 bottles.

Pujol
Mexico City, Mexico
Pujol is Mexico City's benchmark modern Mexican dining room, led by Enrique Olvera and carrying Michelin two-star recognition, La Liste 98 points for 2026, a long run on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list. The experience sits in the high-price tier and is better understood as a national culinary reference point than as a simple tasting-menu stop.

Alinea
Chicago, United States
Alinea remains Chicago's defining modernist dining room: theatrical, technical and more concerned with changing the grammar of American fine dining than with repeating luxury-restaurant conventions. Grant Achatz's long-running flagship carries two Michelin stars, a Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star rating, AAA Five Diamond recognition and a 2026 OAD North America ranking, placing it in a narrow tier of U.S. restaurants where format is part of the argument.

Quintonil
Mexico City, Mexico
Quintonil is one of Mexico City's defining modern Mexican dining rooms, with Jorge Vallejo's cooking placing native herbs, vegetables, masa, insects and local technique inside a contemporary tasting-menu format. Recognition includes Michelin two stars, Les Grandes Tables du Monde membership, La Liste 96 points for 2026, a 2026 Opinionated About Dining North America ranking at No. 35.

White Rabbit
Moscow, Russia
Positioned at the top of Moscow's fine dining scene, White Rabbit operates under a glass dome atop a skyscraper on Smolenskaya Square, pairing 360-degree city views with a tasting menu built around rediscovered Russian ingredients and techniques. Chef Vladimir Mukhin has placed the restaurant consistently inside the World's 50 Best, reaching number 13 in 2019, the kitchen remains one of the clearest expressions of the New Russian culinary movement.

Amber
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Amber has held three Michelin stars continuously and ranked as high as #20 on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list, making it a fixed reference point for French Contemporary dining in Hong Kong. Chef Richard Ekkebus frames each structured meal around dairy-free technique, Japanese sourcing, a sustainability program that now extends from rooftop herb cultivation to fermentation-led flavour building. The wine list runs to 11,000 bottles, with Wine Director Dirk Chen steering a Burgundy-weighted program.

Tickets
Barcelona, Spain
Tickets in Barcelona reimagined tapas as playful, modernist Spanish cuisine under Albert Adrià’s hand. Must-try plates included the signature half-liquid olive, a seasonal tasting menu that shifts with local produce, whimsical desserts served from the restaurant’s nostalgic ice-cream van. The setting married a circus-themed palette with precise modernist technique, delivering dishes that surprised with texture and bright, balanced flavors. Celebrated internationally, ranking #25 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2017 and featured on Chef’s Table (Volume 5, Episode 4), Tickets combined accessible tapas energy with haute gastronomy, creating instantly memorable bites and a lively, sensory dining rhythm in Barcelona’s Poble Sec neighborhood.

The Clove Club
London, United Kingdom
The Clove Club sits in London’s expensive creative-dining tier, where tasting-menu discipline, wine depth and international rankings have to justify the bill. Its Shoreditch room keeps the mood less ceremonial than Mayfair fine dining, while Isaac McHale’s kitchen uses British produce, smoke, offcuts and sharp contrasts to make the format feel contemporary rather than deferential.

The Ledbury
London, United Kingdom
Three Michelin stars and a La Liste ranking of 81 points in 2026 place The Ledbury among London's most decorated fine-dining addresses. Brett Graham's eight-course evening menu, priced at £285 per person in Notting Hill's Ledbury Road, draws on produce from his own farm and in-house mushroom cultivation. The wine list holds the Star Wine List number-one ranking for three consecutive years.

Nahm
Bangkok, Thailand
Nahm at the COMO Metropolitan Bangkok holds a Michelin star and an Opinionated About Dining Top 92 ranking for Asia in 2025, placing it among the city's serious Thai fine-dining addresses. Chef Pim Techamuanvivit leads the kitchen with a focus on heritage Thai technique. The Heritage set menu is the recommended format for a first visit.

Le Calandre
Rubano, Italy
Three Michelin stars since 2002, a 99-point La Liste ranking in 2026, a permanent position in the World's 50 Best since 2006: Le Calandre in Rubano operates at the upper tier of Italian fine dining. Chef Massimiliano Alajmo runs three tasting menus from a minimalist dining room where tables are carved from a single 300-year-old ash tree, forty minutes from Venice.

Arzak
San Sebastián, Spain
Arzak belongs to San Sebastián’s serious dining circuit: modern Basque cooking in a family mansion at Alto de Miracruz, led by Juan Mari Arzak & Elena Arzak and backed by 2026 Guía Repsol 3 Soles and La Liste’s 99-point score. Its relevance is not nostalgia alone; it is how a city built on pintxos, sharing, appetite for experimentation translates that social grammar into a formal tasting-menu room.

Alléno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen
Paris, France
Paris grand dining has narrowed into a serious contest between palace rooms, chef-led temples, creative tasting-menu houses. Alléno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen belongs to the city’s highest luxury bracket, anchored by Yannick Alléno’s modern French vocabulary and a recognition stack that includes Michelin 3 Stars, La Liste 98 points for 2026, repeated appearances in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants extended rankings.

Attica
Melbourne, Australia
Attica sits in Ripponlea, south of Melbourne's CBD, where Ben Shewry's tasting menu draws on native Australian ingredients, from outback flora to local rivers and farms, in compositions that have placed the restaurant inside the World's 50 Best Restaurants list every year from 2013 to 2018. La Liste awarded 96 points in 2025 and 95 in 2026. The format is formal, the commitment to indigenous produce is foundational, bookings require significant lead time.

Astrid & Gastón
Lima, Peru
Set inside the 17th-century Casa Moreyra hacienda in San Isidro, Astrid & Gastón has held a place in the World's 50 Best Restaurants every year from 2011 to 2018, peaking at #14 in 2013 and 2015. Under chef Jorge Muñoz Castro, the restaurant runs a tasting format built around Peruvian biodiversity, with vegetables as a recurring editorial thread. Ranked #9 in South America by Opinionated About Dining in 2025.

De Librije
Zwolle, Netherlands
De Librije has held three Michelin stars since 2004, making it the most consistently decorated restaurant in the Netherlands over the past quarter-century. Housed in a converted women's prison in Zwolle, it operates Thursday through Saturday evenings under chef and co-owner Nelson Tanate, with a programme built on regional produce, fermentation, a vegetable-led approach that shaped modern Dutch cooking.

Septime
Paris, France
Septime is a Paris neo-bistro shaped by the modern bistro shift: seasonal cooking, natural-wine gravity, a dining room that feels casual without lowering the technical bar. Bertrand Grébaut’s restaurant carries Michelin one-star recognition for 2025 and a long run on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, with a four- or seven-course seasonal format that places it in the city’s serious reservation tier.

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
London, United Kingdom
Housed inside the Mandarin Oriental Knightsbridge, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal holds two Michelin stars and a sustained presence in the World's 50 Best Restaurants. The menu draws from centuries of British culinary history, then reassembles those references through a contemporary technical lens. Dishes like the Meat Fruit have become shorthand for what modern British cooking can do when it takes its own heritage seriously.

Saison
San Francisco, United States
Saison belongs to the Bay Area's serious farm-to-table lineage, but its vocabulary is fire, coastal sourcing, a dining room built around the kitchen rather than separated from it. Richard Lee's current era keeps the restaurant in San Francisco's high-end Progressive American conversation, backed by OAD, La Liste, James Beard, Relais & Châteaux, AAA, World's 50 Best recognition.

Azurmendi
Larrabetzu, Spain
Azurmendi Larrabetzu elevates sustainable fine dining to an art form, where Chef Eneko Atxa's three-Michelin-starred vision unfolds through an immersive greenhouse-to-table experience. This architectural marvel seamlessly integrates Basque tradition with cutting-edge gastronomy, offering the acclaimed Adarrak tasting menu in a bioclimatic structure that defines the future of responsible luxury dining.

Relae
Copenhagen, Denmark

Cosme
New York City, United States
Cosme has occupied a specific position in New York's fine dining conversation since it opened: the restaurant that made contemporary Mexican cooking legible to a city already fluent in tasting menus and seasonal ingredient sourcing. Located in the Flatiron District, it holds a World's 50 Best ranking and a La Liste score of 80 points (2026), with a bar program and dining room that function as much as social infrastructure as culinary destination.

Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet
Shanghai, China
Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet closed after its final table on March 29, 2025. The ten-seat secret-location Shanghai restaurant paired each course with synchronized light, sound, scent, held a consistent position in the World's 50 Best Restaurants across eight years of rankings, reaching #24 twice. It remains a landmark of Shanghai fine dining, but it is no longer taking reservations.

Boragó
Santiago, Chile
Boragó has held a place in the World's 50 Best Restaurants every year since 2015, its tasting menu, Endémica, remains one of South America's most rigorous expressions of native-ingredient cooking. Chef Rodolfo Guzmán works with over 200 foragers and small producers across Chile, drawing from coastlines, high-altitude terrain, a biodynamic orchard to build a menu rooted in Mapuche food culture.

Reale
Castel di Sangro, Italy
Reale occupies a 16th-century monastery outside Castel di Sangro and holds three Michelin stars, a place in the World's 50 Best (ranked 19th in 2024), and a La Liste score of 97.5 points. Chef Niko Romito's tasting menus pursue radical minimalism, extracting maximum intensity from single ingredients, with a 14-course plant-based format that has drawn international attention to an otherwise overlooked corner of Abruzzo.

Brae
Birregurra, Australia
Brae sits on a working organic farm in the Otway Ranges, two hours southwest of Melbourne, where chef Dan Hunter applies fine dining technique to produce grown on the property. Scored at 93 points by La Liste in both 2025 and 2026 and ranked 44th on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2017, it operates as one of Australia's most closely watched destination restaurants. On-site accommodation makes the journey practical for guests travelling from Melbourne or further afield.

Den
Tokyo, Japan
Den belongs to Tokyo's creative kaiseki tier, where seasonal structure is kept but the room loosens the formality. Chef Zaiyu Hasegawa's restaurant carries two Michelin stars, a 2026 Tabelog Silver Award, a place on major international lists, yet its point is not ceremony for its own sake; it is kaiseki made warmer, more playful, less rigid.

L'Astrance
Paris, France
L'Astrance occupies a storied address on Rue de Longchamp in the 16th arrondissement, where Pascal Barbot's contemporary French kitchen draws on Asian influences and a deep commitment to produce. The glass wine cellar, curated by maître d' Christophe Rohat, has become as much a reason to book as the food itself. Ranked in the World's 50 Best Restaurants every year from 2006 to 2017, this is one of Paris's most credentialled creative tables.

Vendôme
Bergisch Gladbach, Germany
Vendôme at Althoff Grandhotel Schloss Bensberg has held a place in the World's 50 Best Restaurants for over a decade and carries two Michelin stars under chef Joachim Wissler. The restaurant's Modern European tasting format runs Wednesday through Sunday evenings in a grand hotel setting outside Cologne, ranking 54th in Europe on Opinionated About Dining's 2025 list. For serious diners in the region, it represents the apex of the local fine dining tier.

Restaurant Tim Raue
Berlin, Germany
Berlin's most decorated Asian-inspired restaurant, Restaurant Tim Raue has held two Michelin stars since 2010 and ranked in the World's 50 Best every year from 2016 through 2025, reaching as high as #26. Drawing on Japanese, Thai, Chinese traditions while eliminating white sugar, gluten, lactose, the kitchen produces food that reads as rigorous European fine dining through an Asian lens.

Tegui
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Tegui sits at the sharper edge of Buenos Aires modern cooking, a Recoleta address that reached World's 50 Best Restaurants No. 49 in 2017 and continues to define the ceiling of Argentina's tasting-menu format. The kitchen frames local produce through technique-led courses that treat the country's regional larder as both subject and argument. Advance booking is standard practice here.

Hof van Cleve - Floris Van Der Veken
Kruishoutem, Belgium
In the rolling countryside of the Flemish Ardennes, Hof van Cleve represents one of Belgium's most decorated dining addresses, holding two Michelin stars and a consistent presence in the World's 50 Best Restaurants over more than a decade. Under Chef Floris Van Der Veken, the kitchen has pivoted toward a plant-forward direction, earning five Radishes with high distinction from We're Smart and a La Liste score of 96.5 points in 2025.
Overview
The 2017 World's 50 Best Restaurants crowned Eleven Madison Park in New York City as the top restaurant globally. The list recognized 50 establishments across 22 countries and 36 cities, with a notable concentration in Europe and strong representation from Spain, which placed four venues in the top ten including Asador Etxebarri and El Celler de Can Roca.
This edition represented a major shift from the previous year's rankings, with a completely refreshed list of 50 restaurants. The geographic spread covered 22 countries across 36 cities, with Spain particularly dominant in the upper ranks—claiming four of the top ten spots. Peru contributed two restaurants to the top ten with Central and Maido, both in Lima. European restaurants held the majority of positions, though Asia maintained presence through venues like Gaggan Anand in Bangkok. The list balanced fine dining destinations across established culinary capitals and emerging food cities, from Modena to Menton to Vienna.
Eleven Madison Park claimed the number one position in the 2017 World's 50 Best Restaurants, marking New York City's return to the top spot. The list saw complete turnover from the previous edition, with all 50 positions filled by new entrants. Spain dominated the top ten with four restaurants, while Peru placed two Lima establishments in the upper ranks. The 50 winners spanned 22 countries and 36 cities, representing a global snapshot of fine dining across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.
Quick Facts
- Edition year
- 2017
- Top restaurant
- Eleven Madison Park (New York City)
- Countries represented
- 22
- Cities represented
- 36
- Spain restaurants in top 10
- 4
- Total venues
- 50
- New entrants vs. previous year
- 50 (complete turnover)
About This Edition
The 2017 edition saw a fundamental restructuring, with all 50 positions occupied by restaurants that weren't on the previous year's list. Eleven Madison Park's ascent to first place put New York back at the center of the fine dining conversation, while Osteria Francescana in Modena and El Celler de Can Roca in Girona took second and third respectively.
Spain emerged as the geographic winner with four restaurants in the top ten alone—El Celler de Can Roca, Asador Etxebarri, and Mugaritz joining the upper echelon alongside Eleven Madison Park. Peru's presence through Central and Maido demonstrated Lima's growing influence in global fine dining.
The list spread across 36 cities in 22 countries, balancing European heritage restaurants with emerging dining scenes in Asia and South America. Bangkok, Lima, and Vienna all secured top-ten positions, while traditional strongholds like France and Italy maintained their presence through Mirazur and Osteria Francescana. The complete turnover from the previous edition reflected either a significant methodology change or a dramatic shift in the voting panel's preferences.
Frequently Asked Questions
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