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Slideshow
World’s best restaurants 2015
As Spain’s El Celler de Can Roca is named the world’s best restaurant for a second time, we roundup the top 10 restaurants currently rocking the culinary scene.
Sponsored by S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna, the World’s 50 Best Restaurants celebrates extraordinary culinary talent providing an annual barometer of the greatest gastronomic experiences across the globe.
In terms of countries, Spain beat France and the US with seven entries in the top 50, including Albert Adrià’s tapas bar Tickets in Barcelona, a new entry this year.
Lyon born, New York-based Daniel Boulud picked up a lifetime achievement award, while Sydney’s Sepia was named One to Watch and Rabbit in Moscow won the Highest Climber award as a new entry to the list in 23rd place. In the UK, Brett Graham’s The Ledbury slipping seven places to number 20, while Heston’s The Fat Duck failed to make the top 50.
“As the appetite for reaching new gastronomic heights continues to grow we feel privileged to play a part in this journey of discovery and are proud to bring together this unique community of extraordinary talent within the industry”, said William Drew, group editor of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
The list is created from the votes of The Diners Club World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy, a group of almost 1,000 food writers and critics, chefs, restaurateurs and highly regarded ‘gastronomes’. The Academy comprises 27 separate regions around the world, each of which has 36 members, including a chairperson, and each member casts seven votes.
Click through to discover this year’s top rated restaurants….
10. Gaggan – Bangkok, Thailand
Images: Allwecandid, Varavudh Lattanand
On the pass: Gaggan Anand
Style: “Progressive Indian”
Established in 2010, Gaggan is the brainchild of Chef Anand, who took inspiration from the street food of his home town of Kolkata and a stint at El Bulli to create this “boundary-pushing” restaurant in Downtown Bangkok that reinvents regional indian cuisine using modern cooking methods. Liquid nitrogen, smoke and dehydrated ingredients are just a few of the the theatrical elements employed by the restaurant, while its lamb chops are subjected to a “molecular makeover” with smoked whisky, spherified yoghurt and mango chutney.
“The approach is playful, adventurous and thought-provoking with classic street dishes deconstructed and reinterpreted without losing what made them special in the first place”, said the competition’s judges.
+66 2 652 1700
9. D.O.M. – São Paulo, Brazil
Images: Studio SC
On the pass: Alex Atala
Style of food: “Contemporary Brazilian with Amazonian ingredients”
Chef Alex Atala makes regular trips to the Amazon in search of new ingredients to fuel his contemporary Brazilian restaurant in São Paulo.
Recent discoveries include jambu – a “tongue-tingling herb” that he also sells infused in a cachaça – and priprioca, a root previously used only in cosmetics and developed into a foodstuff by his team. Such exotic produce promises to make a visit to D.O.M. a particularly eye-opening culinary experience.
+55 11 3088 0761
8. Narisawa – Tokyo, Japan
Yoshihiro Narisawa
On the pass: Yoshihiro Narisawa
Style of food: “Japanese with strong French influences”
While a decidedly Japanese restaurant, Narisawa has a distinct French influence at its core, which has held it in good stead with its international audience.
Dishes include fugu from Aichi prefecture, skewered, grilled and served with sudachi citrus; or irabu sea snake from Okinawa transformed into an elegant broth abob with cubes of taro. It’s drinks offering is particularly intriguing, with Japanese Pinot Noir from Nagano, Riesling lion from Iwate and aged Bordeaux-style blends from Yamagata on offer.
The judges described Narisawa’s dishes as “restrained and highly thoughtful without being austere or anything less than generous.”
+81 3 5785 0799
7. Dinner by Heston Blumenthal – London, UK
On the pass: Ashley Palnmer-Watts
Style of food: “Historical British food reinvented for the 21st century”
Open less than five years, Dinner has once again made it into the top 10, slipping two places to number seven. Presided over by British techno-chef Heston Blumenthal, Dinner offers guests a lesson in molecular gastronomy serving up signature dishes that include meat fruit (a ball of chicken liver parfait encased in mandarin jelly) and tipsy cake (brioche soaked in Sauternes, brandy and vanilla cream served with spit-roast pineapple). With chef Ashley Palmer-Watts at the helm of the kitchen, the restaurant is bringing back forgotten dishes from as far back as the 1300s, using present-day ingredients and modern cooking techniques.
“Dinner is not about avant-garde wizardry or table theatrics. Instead it offers flavour-led cooking that showcases 600 years of British cuisine and provides diners with a world-class contemporary dining experience”, said the judges.
+44 20 7201 3833
6. Mugaritz – San Sebastián, Spain
On the pass: Andoni Luis Aduriz
Style of food: “Techno-emotional Spanish”
Holding its place at number six is Mugaritz – the restaurant with no menu. Diners are instead treated to 24 individually tailored courses to suit their tastes on arrival. Its aim is to deliver a sensory and creative experience by doing away with traditional dining norms, offering edible cutlery and “stories” to take diners on a journey through food.
Having worked under the watchful eye of Ferran Adrià at El Bulli, chef-owner Andoni Luis Aduriz is “capable of extraordinary things”, according to this year’s judges.
+34 943 522 455
5. Eleven Madison Park – New York, USA
On the pass: Daniel Humm and chef de cuisine Chris Flint
Style of food: “A New York twist on modern European”
With a belief that restaurants should be run “from both sides of the wall” – the kitchen and the dining room – Eleven Madison Park’s co-owners Daniel Humm and Will Guidara make a formidable team.
Housed in grand, ceiling dining room, dishes are playful and often interactive, without being stuffy. A particularly interesting quirk comes in the form of its ‘Name That Milk’ dessert which comes in a wooden box containing four bars of Mast Brothers chocolate, some pencils and a card with four animal drawings. Diners must taste each bar to determine which belongs to which animal: cow’s milk, sheep’s, goat’s or buffalo’s.
+1 212 889 0905
4. Central – Lima, Peru
Virgilio Martinez
On the pass: Virgilio Martinez and head chef Pia León
Style of food: “Avant-garde Peruvian”
A celebration of Peru’s biodiversity and ancient Andean heritage, Central offers diners an altogether unique experience, taking them on a vertical journey serving up native ingredients sourced from varying altitudes. From the mountains, sea, desert and jungle, Central’s tasting menu boasts ingredients sourced from 25 metres below to 4,200 metres above sea level.
Little-known ingredients include cushuro, the caviar-like bacteria found in the mountains after a rainstorm; tunta, a white freeze-dried tuber dating back to Inca times; and airampo, a bright magenta member of the cactus-family grown in the Andes.
+51 1 242 8515
3. Noma – Copenhagen, Denmark
On the pass: René Redzepi and head chef Daniel Giusti
Style of food: “Seasonal, terroir-led Scandinavian”
Last year’s number one, this year Noma slips to number three. Known for its back-to-nature style of cooking, using foraged ingredients from the Nordic landscape, Noma’s dishes reliably change with the seasons. With dishes such as milk curd and the first garlic of 2015 and the first green shoots of spring with a scallop marinade, this year sees Redzepi doing what he does best: “playing with techniques such as fermenting and pickling for creations beyond most people’s eating perceptions”, as this year’s judges put it.
“Noma’s ability to remain fresh and to assimilate culinary cultures other than its own demonstrates not just the immense skill of Redzepi and his team, but also the global importance of Noma. It remains among the most influential restaurants of this century,” added the judges.
+45 3296 3297
2. Osteria Francescana – Modena, Italy
Images: Paolo Terzi
On the pass: Massimo Bottura, Takahiko Kondo and Davide Di Fabio
Style of food: “Contemporary Italian”
Presided over by famed chef Massimo Bottura, the two-decade old Osteria Francescana is a deeply Italian restaurant that celebrates the produce of Emilia-Romagna in the north of the country – the chef’s home town.
Dishes include classics such as tagliatelle with hand-chopped ragu and risotto cooked with veal jus alongside innovative dishes such as its Five Ages of Parmigiano Reggiano, which sees the region’s famed cheese served in all manner of forms and textures. Further taste sensations include rabbit macaroons, eel ravioli and suckling pig with balsamic vinegar.
“The faultless service and imaginative wine programme is directed with quiet charisma by Beppe Palmieri. But it’s in the kitchen, as well as in Bottura’s inventive imagination, that the real magic is produced”, said the judges.
+39 059 223912
1. El Celler de Can Roca – Girona, Spain
On the pass: Joan Roca
Style of food: “Modern Spanish”
This year’s number one spot went to El Celler de Can Roca – a local family-owned restaurant rooted in the fiercely independent state of Catalonia which has risen through the ranks to gain outstanding world wide acclaim.
Judges were won over by head chef Joan’s “thoughtful but original cooking”, pastry chef Jordi’s “imagination-defying desserts” and sommelier Josep’s “beautifully considered wine pairings”.
Brothers Joan and Josep opened El Celler de Can Roca in 1986, relocating to their current premises in 2007 when they were joined by younger brother Jordi. Not a trio to stand still, in in 2013 the Roca brothers premiered El Somni, a theatrical multi-sensory production that explored the interaction between food, music and art. While in 2014, the entire team embarked on an ambitious restaurant tour across the southern US and part of Latin America, temporarily closing their restaurant in Spain in a bid to driver forward their culinary innovations.
“Crucially, this is a restaurant that has never forgotten its humble roots, its sense of familial warmth, or the need to serve remarkably delicious dishes and outstanding wines”, added the judges.
+34 972 222 157
Top restaurants – 11 to 20
20. The Ledbury – London
19. Azurmendi – Larrabetzu, Spain
18. Le Bernardin – New York, USA
17. Arzak – San Sebastián, Spain
16. Pujol – Mexico City, Mexico
15. Steirereck – Vienna, Austria
14. Astrid y Gastón – Lima, Peru
13. Asador Etxebarri – Atxondo, Spain
12. L’Arpège – Paris, France
11. Mirazur – Menton, France