Takeaways from the 2024 World’s 50 Best Restaurants List
Photography by Evan Sung
Spain dominated this year’s rankings of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, taking three of the first four spots on the list—including number one—as tasting menus, modernist cooking, and what the new guard may look like was on display as the final list was cemented.
Disfrutar in Barcelona took the top honor shortly after it was announced that the final two restaurants on the list were both from Spain, the other being Asador Etxebarri, a restaurant located in Basque country where every dish on a 14-course tasting menu implements live fire.
When the ceremony came to a close shortly after 10 p.m. in Las Vegas, the list offered some insight into the future of global dining, as the organization has taken extensive efforts in recent years to expand the map to be more inclusionary and diverse but also reward chefs who are pushing efforts of sustainability and work-life balance in a high-pressure industry. The day before the awards, a series of talks discussed these efforts.
Josh Niland of Saint Peter in Sydney led a sustainability demonstration, using every part of an entire fish right down to the bones and eyeballs. Daniel Humm of New York’s Eleven Madison Park talked about the responsibility he felt in turning his restaurant into an all-vegan menu. And chefs Billy Wagner and Micha Schäfer of Nobelhart & Schmutzig in Berlin (number 43 on the list) talked about the work they have done installing processes for better work-life balance in their restaurant to hold them accountable.
“I am going to have to face up with my own shitty behavior. It really sucks to be called out,” Wagner said, adding that it has been four-year process of creating a blueprint for the restaurant. “We are still not doing everything right, but it’s a process that makes our industry better for the people.”
Few restaurants on the list have grinded their way to the top the way Disfrutar has since opening in 2014. Owned by a trio of chefs—Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch, and Mateu Casañas, all disciples of El Bulli, the restaurant from chef icon Ferran Adrià that cemented Spain as a modern-day culinary destination—Disfrutar has been a mainstay on the list and has moved up in recent years from number three in 2022 to number two last year and finally claiming the top spot this year. Members of the team broke down in tears as they accepted the award and talked about their unwavering commitment to an hours-long tasting menu and avant-garde cooking.
“We are so proud, and we think our struggle will be quieter now,” Casañas said during a press conference after the ceremony. “Maybe it’s not the more fashionable way to do things, but for us, we do the things we want, and we never change our way. And today, we are here.”
Founded in 2002, the organization known as 50 Best has annually published a global review of top restaurants, expanding its coverage over the years into regional lists—spanning Asia, Latin America, and in 2022, the Middle East and North Africa—plus Best Bars, and it is working to add additional lists, including a regional one for North America that we have been told is in the works.
Restaurants that make the list are selected by a panel of 1,080 judges, made up of journalists, chefs, and well-traveled gourmands from 27 separate regions across the world, each of which has 40 members including an Academy Chair. (Disclosure: Bon Appétit Editor in Chief Jamila Robinson is one of the organization’s Academy Chairs.) In recent years there has been a focus on gender diversity on the list and making sure younger voters are represented.
A consultant, the global firm Deloitte, is hired to independently oversee the voting process, and the list is closely guarded until the winners are announced, though the top 50, along with chefs and restaurateurs around the world, are invited to the ceremony so they know they have made the list.
Along with Disfrutar and Asador Etxebarri, DiverXo in Madrid were among the three Spanish restaurants in the top four. Table by Bruno Verjus in Paris was number three. Five of the top 10 were from Europe which, along with the United States, has dominated the list 21 of the 22 years. The lone exception so far was Central in Lima, Peru, which won in 2023.
Nearly all restaurants that ultimately end up being winners spend years on the list, and often make slow rises to the top. Based on this history, the list offered some insight into the future. Mexico City had three restaurants on the list, eight are from South America, and three come from Thailand.
For example, New York City’s Atomix came in as the Best Restaurant in North America for the second year in a row, rising two places to number six and cementing husband-and-wife team Junghyun “JP” and Ellia Park’s status as leaders in the Korean fine dining movement. The only other US restaurant to make the list was Single Thread, the farm-to-table tasting menu spot in Healdsburg, California, that reentered the list at number 46.
Le Bernardin in NYC, which has slowly slid down the list in recent years, fell off the top 50 this year, going from 44 in 2023 to 71.
The international expansion could be viewed through the four new restaurants that entered the top 50 this year: La Colombe in Cape Town, South Africa, came in at number 49 (Africa’s highest rated and only restaurant on the list) and Mingles in Seoul, South Korea, which came in at number 44.
Mingles chef and owner Mingoo Kang said when he started 20 years ago as a chef, his dream was making a European fine dining restaurant, but after years of cooking in some of the world’s top restaurants, he realized his calling was to cook the food of his heritage.
“Twenty years ago when I was taught, my dream was European fine dining,” he said, adding that after cooking in Spain, “I realized I had to respect my country.”
The fourth new entry was Wing, the Hong Kong restaurant from chef Vicky Cheng, which entered the list at number 20 and was recognized as the highest new entry in the top 50.
Cheng’s first restaurant is Vea, a French-Chinese mash-up, and it has been a staple on the 50 Best Asia list for years. He followed it up with Wing in 2021, moving to more modern Chinese cooking. Cheng, along with a number of chefs in Vegas this week, noted the impact of being on the list is immediate.
“The day it was announced the next day it was you couldn’t book,” Cheng said of when Vea made the Asia list. “It definitely puts pressure, it definitely just means that you want more, we will push more. It keeps us on our toes. And it almost feels like it's a responsibility. It feels like it’s a responsibility for Hong Kong.”
Reflecting on his journey, Cheng, like so many others at the awards from underrepresented cultures on the world’s fine dining stage, said it was never his dream to open a Chinese restaurant.
“As a young kid, French food was dining. I wanted to learn French. I wanted to become a French chef when I grew up, you know, that was the mentality,” Cheng said. “But sometimes, you know, dreams and goals lead you in certain ways, where it just makes sense to follow that. So I feel like what is the best restaurant in the world is always going to be changing all the time—fine dining, casual—but we're just extremely, extremely proud to put Hong Kong and Chinese cuisine on the list.”
These Are the 2024 World’s 50 Best Restaurants Honorees
Disfrutar, Barcelona, Spain
Asador Etxebarri, Atxondo, Spain
Table by Bruno Verjus, Paris
DiverXo, Madrid
Maido, Lima, Peru
Atomix, New York
Quintonil, Mexico City
Alchemist, Copenhagen
Gaggan, Bangkok
Don Julio, Buenos Aires
Septime, Paris
Lido 84, Gardone Riviera, Italy
Trèsind Studio, Dubai, UAE
Quique Dacosta, Dénia, Spain
Sézanne, Tokyo
Kjolle, Lima, Peru
Kol, London
Plénitude, Paris
Reale, Castel di Sangro, Italy
Wing, Hong Kong
Florilège, Tokyo
Steirereck, Vienna
Sühring, Bangkok
Odette, Singapore
El Chato, Bogotá, Colombia
The Chairman, Hong Kong
A Casa do Porco, São Paulo
Elkano, Getaria, Spain
Boragó, Santiago, Chile
Restaurant Tim Raue, Berlin
Belcanto, Lisbon
Den, Tokyo
Pujol, Mexico City
Rosetta, Mexico City
Frantzen, Stockholm
The Jane, Antwerp, Belgium
Oteque, Rio de Janeiro
Sorn, Bangkok
Piazza Duomo, Alba
Le Du, Bangkok
Mayta, Lima, Peru
Ikoyi, London
Nobelhart & Schmutzig, Berlin
Mingles, Seoul
Arpege, Paris
Single Thread, Healdsburg, California
Schloss Schauenstein, Fürstenau, Switzerland
Hisa Franko, Kobarid, Slovenia
La Colombe, Cape Town
Uliassi, Senigallia, Italy
Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit
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