With Disfrutar in Barcelona named The Best Restaurant in Europe and The World’s Best Restaurant 2024, here’s everything a foodie needs to know about 2024’s winners and culinary champions
Haute off the press! Just announced at a glittering awards ceremony in Las Vegas, The World’s Best Restaurant 2024 list has just been unveiled. The ranking includes restaurants from 26 territories in five continents worldwide and also introduces three restaurants making their coveted list debut.
2024’s champion, Disfrutar, the Barcelona restaurant run by the skilled chef trio of Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch and Mateu Casañas, has been named The World’s Best Restaurant 2024, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna, succeeding the 2023 winner, Central in Lima, which now enjoys an elevated position in the Best of the Best hall of fame.
Ranked at No.2 in the 2023 list, Disfrutar is famed for modern techniques and beautiful ingredients, resulting in an experience that subverts traditional fine dining in a completely surprising way. The tasting menu showcases a Mediterranean identity with avant-garde flavours to deliver daring contemporary food that is truly thought-provoking. Disfrutar is followed in the ranking by Asador Etxebarri (No.2) in Atxondo and Table by Bruno Verjus (No.3) in Paris.
William Drew, Director of Content for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, commented: “It is with great excitement that we announce the list of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2024, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna, and honour the iconoclastic Disfrutar as The World’s Best Restaurant. The team, led by Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch and Mateu Casañas, has shown extraordinary dedication to its craft, amazing and delighting diners with every dish on its extensive menu. This year sees the culinary community celebrate a truly global list featuring restaurants across 26 territories, demonstrating that the appetite for diversity and excellence in hospitality shows no sign of waning.”
Mitsuharu ‘Micha’ Tsumura, the chef-owner of Maido in Lima, wins the Estrella Damm Chefs’ Choice Award 2024, the only award to be voted for by his peers, in light of his dedication to putting Peru onto the world culinary stage, evidenced by Maido’s position as No.1 on Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2023.
Australian chef and restaurateur Neil Perry – whose restaurant portfolio has included the legendary Rockpool Bar & Grill, Rosetta and Spice Temple, as well as his latest venture, Margaret – has enjoyed a career spanning more than 45 years and is now rewarded with the Woodford Reserve Icon Award. Perry is arguably his country’s most influential chef and is known for his visionary interpretations of Modern Australian and Asian cuisines.
Nina Métayer is named The World’s Best Pastry Chef 2024, sponsored by Sosa. Métayer’s sculptural creations have garnered attention the world over and her beautiful work is inspiring a new generation of pastry chefs.
Restaurants from four new cities have entered or re-entered the list, with La Colombe in Cape Town (No.49), SingleThread in Healdsburg (No.46), Oteque in Rio de Janeiro (No.37), and Mingles in Seoul (No.44), showing the awards’ ever-expanding international footprint in recognising the best restaurants across the globe.
Berlin’s Nobelhart & Schmutzig (No.43) is also announced as the winner of the Sustainable Restaurant Award, in recognition of its unerring advocacy for better agricultural policies and the voices of producers. Its ‘brutally local’ ethos is testament to its personal relationships with farmers and growers, allowing the team to offer a truly regional and seasonal menu.
How It Works
The list of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2024 is created from the votes of 1,080 international restaurant industry experts and well-travelled gourmets who make up The World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy.
The gender-balanced Academy is comprised of 27 separate regions around the world, each of which has 40 members including an Academy Chair. No sponsor from the event has any influence over the voting process.
Professional services consultancy Deloitte independently adjudicates The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, including the ranking from 1-50. This adjudication ensures that the integrity and authenticity of the voting process and the resulting lists are protected.
Best of the Best
Those in the elite group of No.1 ranked restaurants have delivered on their exemplary reputations time and again and will be forever honoured as iconic dining destinations in the Best of the Best hall of fame.
The chefs and restaurateurs who have led these restaurants to the pinnacle of the list have expressed their desire to invest in the future of the sector and ‘give back’ to the foodworld through new projects and innovation.
The following restaurants have been named No.1 in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants since the list’s inception and were therefore not eligible for voting in 2024:
- El Bulli (2002, 2006-2009)
- The French Laundry (2003-2004)
- The Fat Duck (2005)
- Noma – original location (2010-2012, 2014)
- El Celler de Can Roca (2013, 2015)
- Osteria Francescana (2016, 2018)
- Eleven Madison Park (2017)
- Mirazur (2019)
- Noma – current location (2021)
- Geranium (2022)
- Central (2023)
The full list of winners is as follows:
To find out more, please visit theworlds50best.com
