Led by chef-owner Victor Arguinzoniz, the Basque restaurant is renowned for its wood-fire cooking, serving a 14-course tasting menu of ‘dishes that allow high-quality ingredients to take centre stage, elevating simple produce into extraordinary masterpieces through the mastery of the grill’.
The restaurant has been a mainstay of The 50 Best Restaurants awards since making its debut at number 44 back in 2008. It didn’t appear in the 2010 ranking but made its return the following year and has featured every year thereafter, being ranked at number two last year.
It now leaves the top 50 to become part of the Best of the Best list of previously top ranked restaurants that includes El Bulli, The French Laundry, The Fat Duck, Noma, El Celler de Can Roca, Eleven Madison Park and last year’s number one Maido.
Asador Etxebarri is followed by Bangkok restaurant Gaggan, ranked at number two this year, and Alchemist in Copenhagen, which was ranked third on the list.
Ikoyi, in London’s The Strand, was the only UK restaurant to make this year’s list, placed at number 48
This year’s ranking, which was revealed at a ceremony held in Teatro Municipal de Lima, in Peru, sees 11 new entries to the 1-50 list, with restaurants from 28 territories across six continents featuring.
Restaurants that made their debut were São Paulo’s Tuju (16); Meet the Bund (21) in Shanghai; Al Gatto Verde (24) in Modena; Masque (26) in Mumbai; Le Coquillage (34) in Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes, France; Ru Yuan (36) in Hangzhou, Mainland China; Nuema (37) in Quito; Onjium (41) in Seoul; Bozar (No.42) in Brussels; Naar (49) in Kasauli, India; and Saint Peter (50) in Sydney.
A further five restaurants re-entered the 1-50 ranking this year: La Colombe (35) in Cape Town; Schloss Schauenstein (39) in Fürstenau, Switzerland; Jordnær (40) in Copenhagen; El Chato (46) in Bogotá; and Le Louis XV – Alain Ducasse (47) in Monte Carlo.
Jessica Rosval, head chef of Al Gatto Verde in Italy, ranked at number 24, was named the Best Female Chef Award, and Junghyun Park from Atomix (number 11) in New York City received the Estrella Damm Chefs’ Choice Award.
Dej Kewkacha received the Best Pastry Chef Award and Ferran Adrià was presented with the SevenRooms Icon Award. Celebrated for his commitment to culinary research and education through the El Bulli Foundation, a pioneering non-profit institution, Adrià was recognised for continuing to shape the future of gastronomy by inspiring the next generation of chefs.
The 50 Best Restaurants awards is sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna. To view the list, click here.