The World's 50 Best Restaurants (2014) - San Pellegrino

Picture: #1 -Noma in Copenhagen (Source: Noma Facebook Page)

The new World's 50 Best Restaurants list, sponsored by San Pellegrino and Acqua Panna, was released a few weeks ago.

For previous years, see:
The 2010 World's Best Restaurants
The World's 50 Best Restaurants (2013) and the World's 10 Best Cities to Eat Well (2009)

The Top 10

Chef Rene Redzepi's Noma in Copenhagen regained the top spot, after losing it to El Celler De Can Roca last year. The two Michelin star restaurant in Copenhagen was toppled in 2013 after three consecutive years at the top by El Celler de Can Roca, a Spanish family restaurant, but has now had its title restored.

Noma opened in 2004. The 45-seat restaurant features Nordic cuisine based on ingredients foraged from the nearby forests and shores in Denmark. Guests dine on 20 small plates of food that look more like art. The tasting menu costs $296 a head and the wine pairing is an additional $185, reports businessinsider.com.

El Celler de Can Roca, long been hailed for its combination of Catalan dishes and cutting edge techniques, moved back to #2. The restaurant is helmed by three brothers: the oldest on, Joan Roca, mans the kitchen; Josep is sommelier; and the youngest one, Jordi is the pastry chef.

Massimo Bottura's comparatively low-key Osteria Francescana in Modena, Northern Italy, retained third place, followed by Eleven Madison Park (with Swiss-born chef Daniel Humm) in New York City. Dinner by Heston Blumenthal in London rose to fifth place from seventh. Mugaritz in San Sebastian, Spain fell to sixth from fourth, followed by D.O.M. in Sao Paulo, Arzak in San Sebastian, Alinea in Chicago and at 10th place the Ledbury in London.

The Best Restaurant Award has been dominated by El Celler de Can Roca, El Bulli and Noma in the past years. In 2002 and 2006–2009, El Bulli was the world's best restaurant, winning more times than any other restaurant. In 2013 El Celler de Can Roca won. In 2010 to 2012 and Noma was #1 and is again in 2014

Best Restaurants by Country (2014)

• Spain (7)
• United States (6)
• France (6)
• Italy (3)
• United Kingdom (3)
• Germany (2)
• Asia (7)

Notwithstanding the economic crisis, Spain has the largest number of top restaurants. 3 Spanish restaurants are in the top 10.

Seven US restaurants made the cut: Coi in San Francisco at #49 (this is its first time on the list), the French Laundry in Yountville at #44; Daniel in NYC (the flagship restaurant of French Chef Daniel Boulud) at #40, Per Se in NYC at #30, Le Bernardin in NYC at #21 (Chef Eric Ripert specializes in fish), Alinea in Chicago at #9 and Eleven Madison Park in NYC at #4.

Further down on the No. 51-100 list includes: Blue Hill at Stone Barns (Westchester, N.Y. #54), Manresa (Los Gatos, Calif. #62), The NoMad (New York #68), Saison (San Francisco #69), Momofuku Ko (New York #70), The Restaurant at Meadowood (St. Helena, Calif. #80), Marea (New York #93) and Jean Georges (New York #98).

France’s restaurants lost ground except for L’Aperge, which was flat at #16 (and has become the #1 French restaurant), and Septime, which was newly added at #49. Other French restaurants on the list are: Le Chateaubriand #18 (Paris, France), L'Astrance #23 (Paris, France), L'Atelier Saint-Germain de Joël Robuchon #24 (Paris, France) and Mirazur #28 (Menton, France), the only French restaurant not in Paris.

Italy has 3 restaurants on the list with Osteria Francescana remaining at #3 for the second year running.

UK – 3 entries. Heston Blumenthal's Dinner restaurant climbed two places to occupy the #5 and another London restaurant, The Ledbury, climbed three places to #10.

Germany continues to have 2 restaurants on the list: Vendôme #12 (Bergisch Gladbach) and Aqua #28 (Wolfsburg).

Just 7 restaurants from Asia made it into the rankings. They include Nahm in Bangkok, Thailand, at #13 – best restaurants in Asia. The highest debut entry was Gaggan from Bangkok, which came in at #17.

The highest-ranked restaurant outside of the US and Europe was Sao Paulo's DOM, although it dropped one spot to #7. Another Brazilian Chef, Helena Rizzo, saw her Mani restaurant rise ten places to #36 while the highest climber award was picked up by Central in Lima, which made it to #15 after climbing 35 places.

The group of countries without any top restaurant include Russia, India, Turkey and Canada.

The list was drawn from the votes of more than 900 leading figures in the industry - including food critics, chefs, restaurateurs and highly regarded "gastronomes". The World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards is sponsored by San Pellegrino and Acqua Panna.

The List