The catalonian restaurant El Celler de Can Roca took home the golden toque Monday as the world’s best restaurant. Led by the foodie trio the Roca brothers, the Spanish eatery reclaimed the title it previously won in 2013.
The coveted top spot from the world’s 50 best restaurants ranking comes from Restaurant magazine, a British publication that has hosted the awards since 2002. Noma, the Danish restaurant known for foraging local ingredients and last year’s world’s best restaurant, came in second place.
A statement accompanying the announcement, which was made early this week in London, said that the winning restaurant of the three brothers—Joan Roca (head chef), Josep (dessert lead, and winner of last year’s world best pastry chef) and Jordi (sommelier)—”has continued to gain global recognition for its gastronomic prowess.”
They “have created a culinary experience which explores traditional Catalan ingredients combined with an extraordinary variety of cooking methods that stimulates diners’ senses, emotions and memories – whether via an evocative smell, an explosion of flavour or a visual trick,” read the statement. “The food is matched with an ambitious array of wines and finished with a selection of Jordi’s magical masterpieces.”
Landing a slot on the world’s 50 best restaurants list is highly prized in the fine dining world, although the ranking has received some criticism for its methodology, which some claim is not adequately rigorous. This year the magazine selected the accounting firm Deloitte to audit its voting process.
According to the list, here are the world’s 10 best restaurants:
- El Celler de Can Roca (Girona, Spain)
- Osteria Francescana (Modena, Italy)
- Noma (Copenhagen, Denmark)
- Central (Lima, Peru)
- Eleven Madison Park (New York, USA)
- Mugaritz (San Sebastian, Spain)
- Dinner (London, UK)
- Narisawa (Tokyo, Japan)
- D.O.M (São Paulo, Brazil)
- Gaggan (Bangkok, Thailand)
Bon appétit, fellow gastronomes.