First thing in the morning on Thursday the name of the best restaurant in the world will be known in Spain. It will be in Las Vegas (United States) where the mystery of which are chosen to be part of the list of The World’s Best 50 Restaurants will be revealed, in an edition, the 22nd, in which Spain has many ballots, more than ever, to show off this title again. Although it is one of the most controversial classifications, due to the secrecy surrounding the voting method, it is the list that generates the most expectation throughout the planet. It puts the chosen ones on the world map, but above all it catapults them to number one stardom, at least during the 12 months that the reign lasts —since 2019, those who have reached the top will not be able to apply again for this recognition and pass to be part of the elite, a group called Best of the best, and in which there are already two Spaniards, elBulli and El Celler de Can Roca, in addition to the Americans The French Laundry and Eleven Madison Park, the British The Fat Duck, the Italian Osteria Francescana, the French Mirazur, the Danes Noma and Geranium, and to which the Peruvian Central joins in this edition—.
This year there are three Spanish restaurants very well placed to take over from the restaurant managed by Virgilio Martínez and Pía León, in Lima. The strong candidate to succeed them is the restaurant Diseño in Barcelona, which last year, at the gala held in Valencia, rose to second position. “I think they are going to win, because tradition says that the second goes to number one, although that might not be the case. Anything could happen, and they have us [los organizadores] accustomed to not giving clues until the gala itself,” Joan Roca, chef and co-owner of El Celler de Can Roca, points out by phone from Las Vegas.
“Logically it will be Enjoy. Apart from deserving it, I think that if you analyze the last three years, the second has become the first, but it is always a mystery,” Ferran Adrià, the chef who has achieved this title the most times with elBulli, assured EL PAÍS this Monday. —on five occasions, being the first to inaugurate the list in 2002—. As a curious fact: when the legendary Cala Montjoi restaurant, closed in 2011 and now converted into a museum, rose to the top, the three chefs and owners of Mejor – Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch and Mateu Casañas – worked there, where they learned how to All these awards must be celebrated fairly. “We are happy, but we celebrate little, that does not mean that we are not excited,” they say.
Always cautious, before traveling to Las Vegas, they assured, as happened last year, when they were part of the pools of the restaurants candidates for a third Michelin star, that they prefer not to think about it and that what has to be will be — in the end they got the third distinction of the French guide. “We don’t like to get our hopes up. Anything can happen here. We are excited, but we don’t work for awards,” says Xatruch. Next to him, Casañas, nods: “We know who we are. We started together to make a living from our craft. Everything we receive is a gift.” Oriol Castro also downplays the moment: “We never thought we could get to where we are now. We work for clients and to be happy ourselves, not to get recognition, which is always good because of the excitement it gives to the team, the families and the clients.” What’s more, he assures that “if we had started thinking about what we were going to achieve, we would not be what we are now.”
In third position on the list, another strong candidate: Dabiz Muñoz, with DiverXO, in Madrid. The Madrid chef entered the club of the 50 best restaurants in 2021, in one of the most resounding entries on the list in recent years. He rose from 81st place to 20th, the month after being chosen for the first time, and three in a row, as best chef of the year, according to The Best Chef Awards. The following year he climbed to the fourth rung of the ladder and since 2023 he has been in third position. Muñoz is preparing an important move for DiverXO: he will leave the NH Eurobuilding hotel next year, as announced a few months ago, and will move to the exclusive La Finca development, in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), where he will open the one that, according to It will be the best restaurant in the world. In the project he will invest “between 12 and 14 million euros, between the works and the construction of the building.”
The fourth position in the classification is occupied by the Spanish restaurant that has been in the restaurant for the longest time, since 2016. top ten: Etxebarri, in Atxondo (Bizkaia). The Bittor Arginzoniz steakhouse has become one of the reference restaurants and with one of the longest waiting lists in Spanish gastronomy. Fifth place is from the Danish Alchemist, in Copenhagen, a city that has won the title of best restaurant in the world six times – Noma was the best five times and Geranium achieved it in 2022. The entry on the list of chef Ramus Munk, who in 2019 moved and expanded the restaurant with the help of millionaire businessman Lars Seier (also a partner of Geranium), to a space of 2,200 square meters, has also been brilliant: in 2021 he was in 51st place, the following year it was placed 18th, and last year it was behind the three Spaniards. The Dane is followed by the Peruvian Maido, in Lima, in sixth place; Lido 84, in Gardone Riviera (Italy), Atomix, in New York, Quintonil, in Mexico City, and the Parisian Table by Bruno Verjus.
The rest of the Spaniards on the list of the 50 best restaurants in the world in the last edition were Quique Dacosta (Dénia, Alicante), in 20th place, Elkano (Getaria, Gipuzkoa), in 22nd place, and Mugaritz (Errenteria, Gipuzkoa). ), in 31st place. This last restaurant, led by Andoni Luis Aduriz, has jumped to 81st place, as announced a few days ago by the organization of The World’s Best 50 Restaurants, prepared by the media company William Reed, which released the list from 51 to 100. Also in this block are Aponiente (El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz), by Ángel León, in 71st position, down from 64th, and Enigma, by Albert Adrià (Barcelona), in 59th position from 82nd. Disappearing from this group this year: Eneko Atxa’s restaurant, Azurmendi (Larrabetzu, Bizkaia), which in the last edition was in 81st place, and Ricard Camarena (Valencia), who was in 96th.
#restaurant #world #Spain #votes
