What the World’s Best Restaurant Reveals About Fine Dining Today

10 Minute read

06 Nov 2026

All images courtesy of The 50 Best

At The 50 Best Restaurants 2026, Asador Etxebarri’s win put Basque cooking over fire in the spotlight. Is fine dining putting ingredients ahead of technique?

A standing ovation greeted the announcement of Spain’s Asador Etxebarri as the world’s best restaurant at The 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony, sponsored by S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna, held on 4 November at the Teatro Municipal de Lima.

Onstage, chef Víctor Arguinzoniz, deeply admired by his peers (and the recipient of the Chefs’ Choice Award in 2021), thanked the generations of cooks who came before him and passed down the knowledge that allows him to keep working with the ancient technique of cooking over fire. It is the driving force behind his restaurant, which opened 36 years ago in the small Basque village of Axpe.

But what does the recognition of a restaurant like Asador Etxebarri say about this moment in gastronomy? Arguinzoniz has reinvented cooking over fire, modernizing it with custom-made tools, including grills and perforated pans that allow smoke to reach the food, and an obsessive control of heat that lets him draw the best from each ingredient.

From thick cuts of Rubia Gallega beef to delicate caviar, everything in his kitchen encounters fire, whether through the heat of the embers or their smoke. “I work in service of the ingredient in front of me,” he said at a press conference after receiving the award. “My aim is to bring out its purity.”

It is a very different path from those taken by the Spanish restaurants that reached the top before him. Etxebarri joins El Bulli (2002 and 2006-2009), El Celler de Can Roca (2013 and 2015), and Disfrutar (2024), restaurants celebrated for transforming ingredients through textures, spherification, and foams. Their work helped define the new Spanish cuisine, marked by technical experimentation and creative freedom.

Etxebarri stands out among this select group of past winners, which also includes Italy’s Osteria Francescana, Peru’s Central and Denmark’s Noma, for its pursuit of a more elemental form of cooking. Rather than building its identity around conspicuously modern dishes, it updates the repertoire of a traditional Basque grill cook. In doing so, it offers another path for restaurants at the highest level.

A New Geography

The list offers other revealing details about the dining landscape it seeks to reflect. Its geography points east, with Asian restaurants prominently represented.

Bangkok has the most restaurants, with five, accounting for 10% of the list and placing four in the top 20. Copenhagen and Lima, with three restaurants each, continue to exert considerable influence as dining capitals. Hong Kong, with two restaurants in the top 10, and Seoul, also with two entries, further underscore Asia’s presence.

Indian cooking deserves particular attention, with four representatives across three countries: India, the United Arab Emirates and Thailand. Gaggan Anand, whose namesake Bangkok restaurant placed second, has been leaning further into the culinary roots of his native country. Trèsind Studio in Dubai adds to that international reach, while Naar in Kasauli and Masque in Mumbai are both newcomers to the top 50.

South America’s substantial representation offers another striking feature of this year’s geography. It has five times as many restaurants as North America, spread across six countries and led by Peru, the evening’s host. Yet the presence of restaurants across six continents still conceals an uneven distribution: Europe accounts for 42% of the list, Asia excluding the Middle East for 28%, and the Middle East for another 2%. Africa and Oceania have just one representative each.

Etxebarri also illustrates the established appeal of restaurants outside major cities, particularly in Europe. The victory of a restaurant in Axpe, alongside entries in Getaria, Alba, Castel di Sangro, Skillinge, and Fürstenau, shows the place that small towns and villages hold on the international fine-dining circuit. These are destination restaurants, places that give diners a reason to make the journey.

Territory Cuisine

The list also invites a closer look at restaurants whose cooking is rooted in a place, drawing on an established cultural heritage to imagine its future. Sorn in Bangkok and Onjium in Seoul turn deep cultural research into dining experiences, an approach already demonstrated by restaurants such as Central, named the world’s best in 2023.

At Naar, which also won the Sustainable Restaurant Award, Himalayan ingredients and preservation techniques shape menus that follow the region’s six seasons. At Le Coquillage, fish, vegetables and seaweed underpin a meat-free cuisine. At Etxebarri, the Basque larder supplies many of the dishes diners come to expect from Arguinzoniz. In each case, the ingredients’ origins help define the restaurant itself.

With 11 newcomers, this year’s list offers fresh perspectives on global gastronomy and the different ambitions shaping its most celebrated restaurants. Several themes emerge: technical innovation in service of ingredients, culinary identities that cross borders, and regional traditions informing contemporary cooking.

Does Asador Etxebarri point to a different future for fine dining? “I think there’s room for every path, and 50 Best has shown that over the years,” Arguinzoniz tells Fine Dining Lovers. “Mine is to keep working to improve what I do every day, something I believe is essential to our industry.”

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