It was in July of 2022 that Stanley Tucci unveiled The World’s 50 Best Restaurants of the year. It was perhaps unsurprising that a Danish restaurant took home the top honour (given Noma has held the title five times) – closely pursued by contenders from Peru and Spain.
With Noma out of the running due to new rules that prevent previous winners from competing, Rasmus Kofoed’s three-Michelin-starred Copenhagen restaurant, Geranium, swooped in from last year’s number-two spot to clinch the title of World’s Best Restaurant. Geranium has been making waves for a while, with Kofoed removing all meat from his menu to elevate plant-based elements, along with seafood.
But… there’s not a single Australian restaurant in the top 50.
Why? Should we be worried? This year only Melbourne’s Gimlet at Cavendish House made the top 100 longlist – at number 84. Andrew McConnell’s heady and chic mix of classic early 20th-century design – a place where NYC steakhouse and Parisian bistro collide – is certainly seductive and its food is elegant and inventive, but its inclusion feels almost tokenistic. It doesn’t really answer why outstanding Australian restaurants such as Brisbane’s ELSKA, Hobart’s Fico, and Jarrahdale’s Millbrook Restaurant aren’t included.
Perhaps we shouldn’t really care. In previous years it’s been rare that more than one Australian restaurant is featured in the top 50. So, when a restaurant as sure-footed as Attica, Ben Shewry’s love letter to indigenous ingredients, is included for several years, we should celebrate. When it mysteriously disappears from the list, despite serving consistently inspirational dishes, we should treat it with a shrug rather than feeling too downbeat.
There’s an issue here, certainly (enough for The Guardian to devote 1,000 words to it), but it’s not a list that should knock our confidence. It seems, as with many things, we just need to wait for the rest of the world to catch up.
So, let’s enjoy this list and dream of dinners at Geranium or an Asian-inspired 12-course flavour expedition at Madrid’s ever-fun and imaginative DiverXO, still comfortable in the knowledge that Australia’s restaurants are among the best in the world.
See the full list of winners and special awards recipients below.
- The World’s 50 Best Restaurants: the top 10
- The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 11-50
- The World’s Best Female Chef 2022
- American Express One To Watch Award
- Icon Award 2022
- Champions of Change Award
- Sustainable Restaurant Award 2022
As you’d expect, demand for the top 50 is huge year round – but Westpac Concierge has specialists on the ground across the world and we’re able to give our members the best chance of securing a reservation at any of the restaurants on the list. Did you know, if you’re a Westpac cardholder, you might already have access to the service.
The World’s 50 Best Restaurants: the top 10
Geranium
Copenhagen, Denmark
Awarded two Michelin stars and with a top spot on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, this eighth floor venue above Fælledparken presents ingenious New Nordic tasting menus. The contemporary, relaxed dining room features city and park views on one side and a Bocuse d’Or-winning open kitchen on the other. Best enjoyed without limits on either time or credit cards, the photo-worthy dishes are served by attentive, professional staff.
📍 Per Henrik Lings Allé 4, 2100
Central
Lima, Peru
*Best Restaurant in South America*
Former head chef of Astrid & Gastón, Virgilio Martinez, opened this bright, modern restaurant to showcase the best of Peruvian cuisine. As well as the main dining room, the venue has a private chef’s table, a cookbook library, a chocolate cellar and an orchard that guests can walk around before dinner. Ranked among the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, reservations are essential.
📍 Avenida Pedro de Osma 301, Barranco, Lima, 15074
Disfrutar
Barcelona, Spain
Chefs Mateu Casañas, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch met and trained at the legendary El Bulli before opening their first restaurant Compartir in Cadaqués. This two Michelin-starred restaurant in Eixample came next in 2014 and ranks high on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. The avant-garde cuisine can be experienced across three creative tasting menus two of which are available in standard or grand sizes.
📍 Carrer de Villarroel, 163, 08036 Barcelona
DiverXO
Madrid, Spain
David Muñoz, head chef at this remarkable restaurant, worked at both Hakkasan and Nobu before heading to Madrid to open his own establishment. This influence is reflected in his menu and willingness to innovate, blending the Iberian with the oriental in a style that has earned the restaurant three Michelin stars and a place on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. The contemporary dining room is brightly lit and welcoming.
📍 Calle de Padre Damian 23, Madrid, 28036
Pujol
Mexico City, Mexico
*Best Restaurant in North America*
Enrique Olvera owns a number of venues across the city but his flagship restaurant remains his finest, ranking among the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Serving up innovative interpretations of popular local dishes, expect creative uses of zucchini flowers, mescal and corn. We recommend the nine-course tasting menu to experience a variety of flavour combinations. The Dom Pérignon dining room is available for private events.
📍 133 Tennyson, Polanco, 11550
Asador Etxebarri
Axpe, Spain
Located at the foot of Mount Anboto, this World’s 50 Best Restaurants-listed and Michelin-starred Basque restaurant makes use of what is available in the surrounding area, from the produce used in the dishes to the carefully selected firewood for the grill. The tasting menu changes daily, depending on the freshest available seasonal produce. The wooden ceilings and exposed stone walls give the main dining room a distinct farm house style.
📍 San Juan Plaza, 1, Axpe, Bizkaia, 48291
A Casa do Porco
São Paulo, Brazil
Since 2015, chef and butcher Jefferson Rueda has brought his passion for South American cuisine, specifically his hand-raised Brazilian pigs, to São Paulo’s downtown area. Living up to its name – The Pig’s House – this nose-to-tail dining experience is as sustainably minded as it is ingeniously executed which has garnered the restaurant awards including a position on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Offering pancetta crackling and Paraguayan-style nine-hour roasted whole hog to the more unconventional pork jowl sushi and pig-hoof mocotó, not one element of the animal goes unchampioned.
📍 Rua Araújo, 124, Centro, 01220-020
Lido 84
Gardone Riviera, Italy
With the lapping waters of Lake Garda set out before you, this restaurant is as much about savouring its special northern Italy location as it is about the food. Dishes celebrate its landscape too by heralding local produce sourced from the region. The kitchen is run by a tight-knit team of expert chefs who bring courses right up to the table, and the tasting menus are innovative and theatrical, like the signature take on cacio e pepe, which is cooked in a pig’s bladder, steaming the pasta and blending it perfectly with its simple ingredient list of EVOO, salt, pepper and pecorino.
📍 Corso Giuseppe Zanardelli, 196, 25083 Gardone Riviera
Quintonil
Mexico City, Mexico
*Chefs’ Choice Award*
Trained by Enrique Olvera, one of Mexico’s most influential chefs, Jorge Vallejo opened his own restaurant in 2012 transforming traditional Mexican recipes using cutting-edge techniques. This creativity and culinary prowess have earned the restaurant on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Dishes such as rib eye with grasshopper and queltites chimichurri are among the menu’s innovative offerings, and we recommend completing the experience by ordering the frozen cactus sorbet.
📍 Newton 55, Polanco, 11560
Le Calandre
Rubano, Italy
Opened over 30 years ago, this culinary trend-setting restaurant went stellar in 2003 when it was awarded three Michelin stars and became a regular fixture on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Chef Massimiliano Alajmo’s tasting menus capture the essence of Italian cuisine, each dish designed to expose the unique and unexpected charateristics of its base ingredients to create a multi-sensory dining experience.
📍 Via Liguria 1, Sarmeola di Rubano, PD, 35030
The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 11-50
Maido, Lima, Peru
Uliassi, Senigallia, Italy *Highest new entry*
Steirereck, Vienna, Austria
Don Julio, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Reale, Castel di Sangro, Italy
Elkano, Getaria, Spain
Nobelhart & Schmutzig, Berlin, Germany
Alchemist, Copenhagen, Denmark *New entry*
Piazza Duomo, Alba, Italy
Den, Tokyo, Japan *Best Restaurant in Asia*
Mugaritz, San Sebastian, Spain
Septime, Paris, France
The Jane, Antwerp, Belgium *New entry*
The Chairman, Hong Kong
Frantzén, Stockholm, Sweden
Restaurant Tim Raue, Berlin, Germany
Hof van Cleve, Kruisem, Belgium
Le Clarence, Paris, France *New entry*
St. Hubertus, San Cassiano, Italy *New entry*
Florilège, Tokyo, Japan
Arpège, Paris, France
Mayta, Lima, Peru *New entry*
Atomix, New York City, New York, USA
Hiša Franko, Kobarid, Slovenia
The Clove Club, London, UK
Odette, Singapore
Fyn, Cape Town, South Africa *New entry*
Jordnær, Copenhagen, Denmark *New entry*
Sorn, Bangkok, Thailand *New entry*
Schloss Schauenstein, Fürstenau, Switzerland *Re-entry*
La Cime, Osaka, Japan *New entry*
Quique Dacosta, Dénia, Spain *Re-entry*
Boragó, Santiagó, Chile
Le Bernardin, New York City, New York, USA
Narisawa, Tokyo, Japan
Belcanto, Lisbon, Portugal
Oteque, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil *New entry*
Leo, Bogotá, Colombia *Best Female Chef*
Ikoyi, London, UK *New entry*
SingleThread, Healdsburg, California, USA
The World’s Best Female Chef 2022 – Leonor Espinosa, Colombia
Colombia is increasingly carving out territory on the international culinary atlas – and chef, artist, and social entrepreneur Leonor Espinosa has been the defining force behind it.
The chef’s ‘ciclo-bioma’ philosophy uses gastronomy as an impetus for social and economic development in indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities – recent accolades include her restaurant Leo in Bogotá, Colombia, ranking in both The World’s and Latin America’s 50 Best lists (#48 and #14 respectively), while her peers in the region also selected her for the Chefs’ Choice Award in 2020.
In 2017, she was anointed Latin America’s Best Female Chef, and was also awarded the Basque Culinary World Prize for Funloe, her socio-environmental foundation that reintroduces ancestral culinary knowledge from some of Colombia’s 87 rural communities into mainstream gastronomic culture.
American Express One To Watch Award – AM par Alexandre Mazzia, Marseille
A key player in Marseille’s culinary revival since its opening in 2014, Alexandre Mazzia’s three-Michelin-starred, 24-seat fish- and vegetable-led restaurant takes a holistic approach to dining. The chef’s-choice menu encapsulates global influences, including textures and flavours inspired by African cuisine (the result of a childhood spent in the Democratic Republic of Congo), and pairings run the full gamut – from sake and Champagne to a full-bodied list of French vintages.
Icon Award 2022 – Wawira Njiru
The Icon Award 2022 went to Kenyan social entrepreneur Wawira Njiru, whose social enterprise Food for Education provides meals to 40,000 kids per day across 41 schools in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kiambu Counties. Her next target is to feed 100,000 schoolkids per day by the end of 2022, then to work on expanding the model to other African countries.
Champions of Change Award – Dieuveil Malonga, Olia Hercules and Alissa Timoshkina, and Koh Seng Choon
Introduced in July 2021, the Champions of Change Award recognises and celebrates unsung heroes of the hospitality sector who’re driving meaningful action to create blueprints for a better world. This year’s recipients were Dieuveil Malonga in Kigali, Rwanda, whose groundbreaking online platform Chefs in Africa helps cooks overcome barriers such as discrimination and lack of training, employment and equipment; Olia Hercules and Alissa Timoshkina in London for launching #CookForUkraine, a restaurants-powered fundraising initiative for UNICEF; and Koh Seng Choon in Singapore, who opened Dignity Kitchen, Asia’s first community food court managed by people with disabilities, in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Sustainable Restaurant Award 2022 – Aponiente, Spain
Lying at the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean in sunny El Puerto de Santa María near Cádiz, Ángel León’s Aponiente has long been considered a leading example of planet-friendly gastronomy. The acclaimed Spanish chef consistently spins out dishes that hero myriad eclectic marine species at the seaside establishment, with its strong ethos surrounding sustainable fishing practices, stewardship of marshland, and water conservation.
