The world’s best restaurant is still playing with fire
The restaurant at the top of the world has no need to turn dinner into a multimedia production. Asador Etxebarri, in the Basque village of Axpe, has been named No. 1 in the 2026 World’s 50 Best Restaurants ranking. Its organising principle is fire.
Chef Bittor Arguinzoniz works with custom-made grills and exceptionally good ingredients. The awards organisation describes a menu in which even the final milk ice cream is touched by the grill. A red Palamós prawn can arrive with almost nothing to distract from it; the beef chop is the point, not a platform for a speech.
Arguinzoniz grew up nearby in a house where his mother and grandmother cooked on a hearth. More than three decades of working with fire have turned that starting point into an exacting restaurant technique. Simplicity on the plate is not simplicity in the kitchen.
The result, announced at the November 4 ceremony in Lima, puts Etxebarri ahead of Bangkok’s Gaggan, Copenhagen’s Alchemist, Mexico City’s Quintonil and Hong Kong’s Wing. New York’s Atomix is No. 11 and the only US restaurant in the top 50.
There is a useful contrast here. Alchemist’s immersive tasting experience and Etxebarri’s grills can both belong near the top of the same list. The ranking is a poll of restaurant-world voters, not an objective measurement of the best possible dinner. But this year’s winner makes a persuasive case for travelling a long way to eat something that still looks like itself.
Source: Eater
