The 50 Best Group is Launching a North America Best Restaurants List
Europa Press News/Getty Images
A new player is joining the crowded business of ranking the best restaurants in America.
The British organization 50 Best is adding an annual North America restaurant list to its growing catalogue of regional and global rankings in pursuit of an audience on this side of the pond. It’s the next step in an ongoing effort to evolve on what constitutes “best.”
Historically, these lists have tilted toward pricey fine dining restaurants with hard to secure reservations, even as what designates “best” has evolved beyond white table clothes, weighty wine lists, and French technique. “It’s not designed to be a fine dining list,” said William Drew, the director of content for 50 Best. “It’s designed to be a list of great restaurants of any sort. Hopefully, we bring that to the table.”
There was chatter that a regional North American list was in the works during the global awards ceremony, which was held in Las Vegas this past June. Monday’s announcement makes it official.
It comes on the heels of the North America’s 50 Best Bars list, which was launched in 2022, and at a time when the organization’s signature World’s 50 Best Restaurant awards has increasingly been less centered on dining in the United States (and to a lesser extent Europe). After years of criticism, the organization diversified its 50 Best voting pool to be more racially and gender diverse and began to include restaurants in South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.
Dubbed North America’s 50 Best Restaurants, the list is the latest in an expanding field of best restaurant kingmakers. Along with the Michelin Guide and James Beard Foundation, it includes media organizations such as Eater, Esquire, Food & Wine, Infatuation, The New York Times, and this magazine to name a few.
These lists rank restaurants in the US and North America, weighing cooking, service, innovation, approachability, sustainability, and staff welfare as points of consideration.
Drew acknowledged the tough terrain and said the goal was to be a guide for a North American audience, but also “what we can bring to an audience outside North America that is interested in traveling to North America.”
World’s 50 was launched in 2002 by William Reed, a London-based business-to-business media group centered on food and beverage that has been around since 1862.
Only two North American restaurants made the most recent World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Judges who scout for the organization voted New York City’s Atomix as the top restaurant in North America for the second year in a row, and Single Thread, the farm-to-table tasting menu spot in Healdsburg, California, reentered the list as the world’s 46th best restaurant.
Drew said the dwindling number of American restaurants on the list “was an influence” for the new regional list, but noted that even in years that America has been better represented, restaurants have almost exclusively been from New York City and California, with restaurants from Canada and the Caribbean nearly nonexistent.
The North American list will include restaurants from the United States, Canada and non-Latin parts of the Caribbean, but will not include Mexico, Central America, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic because they have been an “integral part” of the organization’s Latin America list, which has existed since 2013, Drew said.
Along with Latin America, 50 Best regional lists include one for Asia and another for North Africa and the Middle East. With the addition of North America, the remaining parts of the world that 50 Best currently does not regionally curate include sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.
“The majority of Africa is still to be explored, so that is certainly on our long-term radar,” Drew said. He said there may be a European list down the line, but as of now Europe still has a strong presence on the global list. Nearly half of the top 50 restaurants on the 2024 list are in Europe including the top four—three from Spain and one from Paris.
The first North American list will be unveiled later this year at a ceremony similar to other 50 Best lists where the awards are announced in real time from 50 to the top restaurant. A date was not released for the list, which will be determined by about 300 anonymous voters, including a mix of chefs, restaurateurs, food and drinks journalists, educators, and well-travelled eaters. The global list is decided by about 1,200 voters.
The voters will be selected and overseen by eight regional “Academy Chairs.” The full slate of chairs for the North America list will be announced in April, Drew said, adding that current North American based chairs Renée Suen in Canada and Bon Appétit editor in chief Jamila Robinson will be among them.
Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit
More Restaurant Stories From Bon Appétit
Get Bon Appétit’s restaurant coverage in your inbox with our daily newsletter.
Look ahead to the most anticipated restaurant openings of 2025.
In the latest Taste of the Town, contributor Lenore T. Adkins shares the best doro wat in Washington, DC.
This is how Sacramento, California, quietly became the capital of American caviar production.
