World's 50 Best Restaurants 2021: The Complete Ranking

Noma holds three Michelin stars and a multi-year record atop the World's 50 Best Restaurants list, making it the restaurant most associated with the global rise of New Nordic cooking. René Redzepi's kitchen on Refshalevej organises the year into three seasonal programmes built around foraged and local ingredients. Booking windows run months ahead, and dinner service runs Tuesday through Friday only.

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, and 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.

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.

Central occupies a converted house in Barranco, Lima's bohemian coastal district, and 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.

Disfrutar holds three Michelin stars and ranked number one on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2024, placing it at the top of Barcelona's creative dining tier. Eduard Xatruch, Oriol Castro, and Mateu Casañas run two tasting menus from their Eixample address, with a permanent waiting list making advance planning essential. The format rewards preparation: booking windows, seasonal closures, and the optional 'living table' experience all require prior arrangement.

Stockholm's only three-Michelin-star restaurant, Frantzén operates across three floors of a 19th-century Norrmalm townhouse, delivering a single tasting menu that merges Nordic technique with Asian reference points. Ranked #2 in Europe by Opinionated About Dining (2025) and 99 points by La Liste (2026), it holds a position among the most decorated tables in Scandinavia. Booking demand is high; plan well in advance.

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.

Odette occupies a gallery-facing address inside the National Gallery Singapore, where Julien Royer's French Contemporary cuisine — shaped by Michel Bras training and seasoned by years in Asia — has earned three Michelin stars, a World's 50 Best top-25 ranking, and a 98-point La Liste score. The tasting menu operates at the upper tier of Singapore's fine dining market, with award consistency that places it in a narrow peer set globally.

Two Michelin stars, a decade-long presence on the World's 50 Best list, and a mole aged for over a thousand days: Pujol in Polanco has done more to define contemporary Mexican fine dining on the global stage than any other single address. Chef Enrique Olvera's tasting menu moves between pre-Hispanic technique and modern precision, placing ancient ingredients inside a rigorous, architecturally considered format.

The Chairman has accumulated one of the most scrutinised award trails in Hong Kong dining — Michelin-starred, ranked #2 in Asia's 50 Best in 2025, and placed in the World's 50 Best across six consecutive years. On the third floor of The Wellington in Central, Danny Yip and head chef Kwok Keung Tung run a Cantonese kitchen built on deep ingredient research and original recipes rooted in Chinese culinary tradition.

Den occupies a particular position in Tokyo's innovative dining scene: two Michelin stars, a Tabelog Silver Award held continuously since 2017, and a World's 50 Best ranking that peaked at number 11. Chef Zaiyu Hasegawa's omakase format reinterprets the seasonal discipline of Japanese multi-course cooking through a playful, technically precise lens, housed in the JIA architectural hall in Jingumae, Shibuya.

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, and ingredients grown on the building's own rooftop.

Don Julio holds a Michelin star and a top-ten World's 50 Best ranking, placing it at the apex of Buenos Aires' parrilla tradition. Booking two months ahead is standard; walk-in queues form close to opening time. The wine cellar runs to 60,000 bottles, and the beef — Aberdeen Angus and Hereford, dry-aged in-house — is sourced from the restaurant's own regenerative farm outside the city.

Mugaritz occupies a singular position in the Basque Country's dining hierarchy: two Michelin stars, a sustained presence inside the World's 50 Best (reaching as high as third place), and a format that dispenses with the conventions of a restaurant meal entirely. Located in Errenteria, a short drive from San Sebastián, it operates a single tasting menu built around conceptual provocation and hands-on eating, closing for four months each year to redesign itself from scratch.

Lido 84 occupies a converted lido building on the western shore of Lake Garda, where Riccardo Camanini applies deep research into Italian ingredients and technique to a menu that rewrites familiar classics. Ranked No.12 on the World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2024 and holding one Michelin star, it operates Thursday through Monday for both lunch and dinner, closing Tuesday and Wednesday.

Founded in 1964 in the fishing village of Getaria, Elkano has built its reputation on a single discipline: cooking the day's catch over a wood-fired grill with minimal intervention. Ranked #28 in the World's 50 Best Restaurants (2024) and holding a Michelin star, it is one of Spain's most decorated asadors. The turbot, roasted whole over embers, remains the reference point against which all Basque grilling is measured.

A Casa do Porco sits at the intersection of democratic pricing and serious culinary ambition in downtown São Paulo. Chef Jefferson Rueda's whole-animal pork programme has earned a World's 50 Best ranking (#83 in 2025, previously as high as #7 in 2022) and a Michelin Bib Gourmand, placing this República address in a different competitive tier from the tasting-menu circuit that surrounds it.

Piazza Duomo holds three Michelin stars and a consistent place inside the World's 50 Best Restaurants, operating from a pink-walled dining room on Alba's central square. Chef Enrico Crippa structures the menu around four tasting formats, with vegetables, herbs, and seasonal produce from the restaurant's own gardens driving the kitchen's approach. The wine program runs to 30,000 bottles across three distinct lists.

Two decades after opening in Minami-Aoyama, Narisawa remains the reference point for what Japan's innovative dining tier looks like when French technique meets satoyama philosophy. With two Michelin stars, a 4.25 Tabelog score, and a re-entry to the World's 50 Best in 2025, the 15-seat room prices at JPY 80,000–99,999 per head — a figure that positions it squarely against the most demanding tables in Asia.

Madrid's only three-Michelin-star restaurant, DiverXO sits in a tier of its own among Spain's creative kitchens. Chef Dabiz Muñoz's single 'Flying Pigs Cuisine' tasting menu draws on Asian technique, Spanish pantry, and a hedonistic refusal to respect category boundaries — earning a #4 ranking in World's 50 Best Restaurants (2024) and 98 points from La Liste in 2026.

Three Michelin stars and a place in the World's 50 Best Restaurants confirm what visitors to this remote Soča Valley farmhouse already know: Hiša Franko operates at a level rarely found outside major capitals. Chef Ana Roš, self-taught and hyper-local in her sourcing, has built a menu anchored in the Julian Alps, drawing ingredients from foragers, shepherds, and fishermen across the valley's tight community of producers.

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.

In Paris's 7th arrondissement, Arpège holds three Michelin stars and a decades-long position inside the World's 50 Best — currently ranked 45th globally. Alain Passard's decision to remove red meat from a grand Parisian kitchen in 2001 reshaped how the city's haute cuisine thought about vegetables. Produce arrives daily from three biodynamic farms outside Paris, and the menu follows nature's calendar more closely than any printed card.

Septime has held a place in the World's 50 Best Restaurants every year since 2013, peaking at number 11 in 2024, while maintaining a single Michelin star and lunch pricing that undercuts nearly every restaurant at comparable recognition. Bertrand Grébaut's seasonal, vegetable-forward menus on Rue de Charonne defined the 11th arrondissement's neo-bistro template before the term became a Paris cliché.

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 — and the kitchen remains one of the clearest expressions of the New Russian culinary movement.

Three Michelin stars since 2002, a 99-point La Liste ranking in 2026, and 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.

Quintonil holds two Michelin stars and ranked #7 on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2024, placing it among the most closely watched restaurants in the Americas. Chef Jorge Vallejo's tasting menu draws on fresh local produce, traditional Mexican technique, and a counter section serving insect-based tacos that distills the kitchen's priorities into a single, direct statement.

Benu holds three Michelin stars and a 2025 AAA Five Diamond rating at its SoMa address, where Corey Lee's tasting menus draw on Korean and broader Asian culinary traditions against a California-produce foundation. Ranked No. 7 in North America by Opinionated About Dining in 2025, the restaurant operates in the same tier as Atelier Crenn and Quince but occupies a distinct lane: seafood and vegetable-forward, technically rigorous, and shaped by San Francisco's particular cosmopolitanism.

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.

Twins Garden has placed Moscow's fine dining on the global map with consecutive appearances in the World's 50 Best Restaurants, reaching as high as number 19 in 2019. Led by the Berezutskiy brothers and anchored by a wine list of 1,400 selections across 8,000 bottles, the restaurant operates at the top of Russia's Modern European tier, drawing regulars back through a combination of technical rigour and a wine program that punches well above its geography.

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, and Chinese traditions while eliminating white sugar, gluten, and lactose, the kitchen produces food that reads as rigorous European fine dining through an Asian lens.

Housed in the former Shoreditch Town Hall, The Clove Club holds two Michelin stars and has appeared in the World's 50 Best Restaurants list consistently since 2016. Isaac McHale's tasting menus draw on prime British ingredients — Orkney scallops, Herdwick lamb, Torbay prawns — handled with technical precision and a looseness that keeps the cooking from feeling ceremonial.

Lyle's London elevates modern British cuisine to Michelin-starred heights within Shoreditch's converted Tea Building, where James Lowe's ingredient-driven philosophy transforms daily-changing seasonal menus into refined culinary statements. This minimalist industrial space champions technical precision over theatrical presentation, delivering exceptional fine dining through radical simplicity.

Singapore's open-flame standard-bearer, Burnt Ends occupies a converted space on Dempsey Road where a custom four-tonne wood-fired oven sets the terms for everything on the plate. Ranked #93 in the World's 50 Best Restaurants (2025) and holding a Michelin star, it represents the serious end of fire-led cooking in Asia, placing Australian barbecue technique in direct conversation with Singapore's broader fine-dining scene.

Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet takes ten diners per night through a fixed programme in a secret Shanghai location, pairing each course with synchronized light, sound, and scent. The format has held a consistent position in the World's 50 Best Restaurants across eight years of rankings, reaching #24 twice, and was ranked #1 in Asia by Opinionated About Dining in 2023. It occupies a category of its own in the city's high-end dining tier.

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.

Three Michelin stars, a 24-acre working farm, and a kaiseki-influenced tasting menu that changes daily with the harvest: SingleThread sits at the precise intersection of Northern California produce and Japanese technique. Ranked #80 on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2025 and scoring 99 points on La Liste, it operates as a restaurant, inn, and agricultural operation in downtown Healdsburg.

Boragó has held a place in the World's 50 Best Restaurants every year since 2015, and 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, and a biodynamic orchard to build a menu rooted in Mapuche food culture.

Florilège sits at the intersection of French technique and Japanese seasonal thinking, operating from a single long communal table inside Azabudai Hills since late 2023. Chef Hiroyasu Kawate holds two Michelin stars and ranked 17th at Asia's 50 Best Restaurants in 2025. Dinner runs from ¥22,000 before service charge, with a plant-forward tasting menu and dedicated sommelier program.

Sühring holds two Michelin stars and a position at number 11 on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2025, making it one of Bangkok's most decorated fine-dining addresses. Twin chefs Thomas and Mathias Sühring serve a modern German tasting menu from a restored 1970s villa in Chong Nonsi, drawing on fermentation, pickling, and curing techniques alongside a wine list of 715 selections weighted toward Germany, Austria, and Burgundy.

At Pavillon Ledoyen, one of the oldest restaurant addresses in Paris, Yannick Alléno holds three Michelin stars and a 98-point La Liste rating, placing him among the most decorated chefs working in France today. His creative approach to classical French technique — centred on extraction-based sauces and fermentation — has kept Ledoyen in the World's 50 Best since 2017. Dinner runs Tuesday through Saturday evenings on Avenue Dutuit, steps from the Grand Palais.

Belcanto holds two Michelin stars and ranked #31 on the World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2024, placing it at the top of Lisbon's fine dining tier. Chef José Avillez runs two tasting menus and an à la carte from a 45-seat room beneath vaulted ceilings in Chiado. La Liste scored it 96.5 points in 2025. Book well ahead; Tuesday through Saturday only.

Atomix holds three Michelin stars and ranked No. 1 in North America's 50 Best Restaurants 2025, making it the continent's most decorated Korean fine dining address. Chef Junghyun Park's 12-course tasting menu operates from a 14-seat basement counter in NoMad, Manhattan, where custom ceramics and course cards frame each dish within its Korean culinary context.

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."

Nobelhart & Schmutzig on Friedrichstraße operates under a strict regional sourcing philosophy: if an ingredient does not grow within roughly 20 kilometres of Berlin, it does not appear on the plate. The result is a six-course set menu that reads as a precise argument for Brandenburg produce, backed by a 9,250-bottle wine list and a place in the World's 50 Best Restaurants (No. 59, 2025).

Leo has held a place in the World's 50 Best Restaurants every year since 2019, peaking at #43 in 2023 and sitting at #76 in 2025. Chef Leonor Espinosa's seasonal tasting menu moves through Colombia's ecosystems — Amazon, Caribbean, Pacific coast — using indigenous ingredients that rarely appear on any menu outside their region of origin. It is the most externally validated address in Bogotá's modern Colombian dining scene.

Norway's first three-Michelin-star restaurant, Maaemo has held that distinction since 2016 and earned 95 points on La Liste's 2026 ranking. Chef Esben Holmboe Bang's 20-course format draws entirely on organic and natural Norwegian ingredients, tracing a seasonal arc from the Arctic waters of the north to the farmland around Oslo. Bookings open well in advance; Tuesday through Saturday, from 6 pm.

Atelier Crenn holds three Michelin stars and a place in the World's 50 Best at number 96 (2025), operating from a quiet stretch of Fillmore Street in Cow Hollow. Chef Dominique Crenn's pescatarian tasting menu is presented as a poem, with each line corresponding to a course drawing on French-Californian sourcing — seafood, seasonal produce from her Sonoma farm, and a wine list of 1,195 selections weighted toward Burgundy and Champagne.

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.

Wolfgat sits at the edge of the Atlantic in the whitewashed fishing village of Paternoster, drawing its menu almost entirely from the surrounding coastline, dunes, and fynbos. Ranked 50th on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2021, it represents a strand of South African cooking defined by foraged sea vegetables, local dairy, and whatever the fishermen bring in that morning. Advance booking is strongly advised.