To dine at one of the world’s best restaurants is to step into a performance — a choreography of taste, time, and story. It is not only food, but philosophy; not only dinner, but theater. The annual ranking of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants has become the haute couture calendar of gastronomy, and in 2025, its top ten reflect a thrillingly global vision. From the Andes to Atxondo, these are the tables that define how we eat — and how we dream.
1. Maido — Lima, Peru
Crowned the World’s Best Restaurant 2025, Mitsuharu Tsumura’s Maido is where Japanese precision meets Peruvian soul. The Nikkei tasting menus are journeys across oceans: sea urchin and rocoto chili, Amazonian river fish with shiso, beef short rib smoked in miso. Every dish is a story of migration and belonging.
http://www.maido.pe
2. Asador Etxebarri — Atxondo, Spain
In the Basque hills, Victor Arguinzoniz has elevated fire to an art form. At Etxebarri, everything touches flame: butter warmed in embers, caviar kissed by smoke, beef grilled over custom wood. Simple, elemental, unforgettable.
asadoretxebarri.com
3. Quintonil — Mexico City, Mexico
Chef Jorge Vallejo’s Quintonil is a hymn to Mexico’s biodiversity. From cactus and quelites to spider crab in green mole, the menu is a sophisticated love letter to terroir. It’s contemporary Mexican at its most elegant.
http://www.quintonil.com
4. DiverXO — Madrid, Spain
Dabiz Muñoz’s DiverXO is theater on a plate. Expect whimsical flights — Pekinese dumplings with strawberry hoisin, Iberian pork with chili-chocolate mole — all served in a dining room of surreal, butterfly-covered walls.
diverxo.com
5. Alchemist — Copenhagen, Denmark
Part dinner, part art installation, Rasmus Munk’s Alchemist offers a 50-course tasting menu set in a planetarium-like dome. Themes range from climate change to politics, making dining an act of consciousness as well as pleasure.
http://www.alchemist.dk
6. Table by Bruno Verjus — Paris, France
One of Paris’s most coveted reservations, Bruno Verjus’s Table focuses on pristine ingredients, often prepared with minimal intervention. Langoustines shimmer with citrus; vegetables sing in their purest form. It is luxury redefined as restraint.
http://www.table.paris
7. Disfrutar — Barcelona, Spain
Run by three former El Bulli chefs, Disfrutar is a masterclass in modern gastronomy: olives that aren’t olives, “panchino” buns filled with caviar, trompe-l’œil plates that challenge perception. Joy, wonder, and invention in every bite.
http://www.disfrutarbarcelona.com
8. Atomix — New York City, USA
Atomix is the jewel of contemporary Korean cuisine abroad. Junghyun and Ellia Park’s 10-course tasting menu is served with illustrated cards explaining each dish — a dialogue between heritage, artistry, and identity.
http://www.atomixnyc.com
9. Gaggan Anand — Bangkok, Thailand
Known for breaking rules with a grin, Gaggan Anand’s eponymous restaurant serves dishes described with emojis rather than words. Playful, irreverent, but deeply skilled, it’s Southeast Asian fine dining that refuses solemnity.
gaggananand.com
10. Central — Lima, Peru
At Central, Virgilio Martínez and Pía León map Peru’s ecosystems course by course: scallops from 10 meters below sea level, tubers grown 4,000 meters up in the Andes. Each dish is an atlas of altitude, geography, and taste.
http://www.centralrestaurante.com.pe
How to Book: Insider Guidance
- Plan six months ahead: Restaurants like Central, Maido, and Alchemist release tables months in advance, often at midnight local time. Set alerts.
- Join the waitlist: Even if fully booked, cancellations are common. Atomix and Table in Paris often open slots a week out.
- Use concierge services: Luxury hotels in Lima, Copenhagen, or Madrid frequently hold allocations. Guests of properties like Belmond, Ritz-Carlton, or Aman may secure otherwise impossible tables.
- Travel smart: Pair your booking with low season travel (e.g. Lima in May, Copenhagen in September) when crowds thin and reservations are more attainable.
- Follow on Instagram: Many of these restaurants announce last-minute tables or seasonal menu updates via their social feeds.
TL;DR
The world’s top restaurants are more than destinations; they are cultural emissaries. They tell stories of land and sea, migration and memory, tradition and experiment. To dine at one of these tables is to witness the frontier of cuisine — where craft becomes art, and art becomes experience.
In 2025, the global stage of fine dining is thrillingly diverse, stretching from Lima to Copenhagen, from Mexico City to Bangkok. What unites them is not a single style but a spirit: that dining, at its best, can still astonish.
My World of Interiors 