The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list for this year was announced at an awards ceremony held in Valencia, Spain on Tuesday. An article published by Bloomberg goes into detail about the event and the restaurants on the list.
This year, Peru secured four spots on the list, with the first place going to Central in Lima. The restaurant features a 17-course tasting menu showcasing Peruvian ingredients that take diners through the different altitudes and ecosystems of the country.
The restaurant prides itself on including local produce, with potatoes from the Andes mountains and fresh sea urchins, clams, and squid from the coastline. The restaurant is run by chefs Virgilio Martínez and Pía León, and has been climbing the ranks on the list since 2013.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Martinez says, “Holding the no.1 title is meaningful for the visibility it brings not just to Central but other restaurants in the region celebrating (Peruvian) culture and art.”
The second place went to Barcelona-based Disfrutar whose menu features dishes like Fear: The Prawn, where the diner must blindly fish through dry ice vapour in order to find the cooked crustacean. The restaurant is run by chefs Oriol Castro, Mateu Casañas and Eduard Xatruch, who previously worked at El Bulli, the world-renowned experimental restaurant.
Atomix in New York City, a Korean restaurant, was ranked the best restaurant in North America. It also won the Highest Climber award, after rising 25 spots since last year. With a 12-course tasting menu, Atomix offers dishes like sea urchin with carrot cake and wagyu beef served over cold noodles. Other restaurants in Dubai, Paris, Madrid, and London also had high rankings on the list.
These rankings are compiled from votes from 1,080 industry experts, which includes restaurateurs, food writers, and chefs who represent 27 regions around the world, with each region having 40 voters.
With inputs from Bloomberg.
