worlds best restaurant

Noma Is The New World's Best Restaurant

Filed under: Dining

Forget El Bulli and The Fat Duck, there's a new world's best restaurant, Copenhagen's Noma. The two Michelin star-rated restaurant on Copenhagen's docks won first place in the S. Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurant awards recently. Young chef René Redzepi is the man behind the new restuarant which eschews molecular gastronomy and serves more down-to-earth fare like radishes in edible dirt. Redzepi is half Danish and half Macedonian and has, according to the Wall Street Journal, five full-time foragers on staff. All employees are expected to participate in harvesting produce. Noma doesn't use olive oil or nonseasonal garlic and all produce is from Denmark and neighboring Nordic countries. He has also use non-traditional ingredients like milk skin, wild beach roses, birch syrup and unripe elderberries. The seven course menu runs around $175 per person.

The awards are decided by regional committees made up of top chefs and food writers. El Bulli, Ferran Adria's restaurant and Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck didn't fall too far, they were ranked second and third.

The top U.S. restaurant, ranked seventh was Chicago's "best restaurant ever" Alinea which is headed by Grant Achatz and it was followed by Daniel in New York in the eighth slot. Other top-ranked U.S. restaurants included Thomas Keller's The French Laundry in Yountville, California in the 32nd slot and his Per Se in the tenth slot. Le Bernardin was 15th. New entries to the list from the U.S. included Wylie Dufresne's WD-50 at 45th and Eleven Madison Park rounding out the top 50 in the last slot.

Tags: copenhagen, denmark, noma, rene redzepi, worlds best restaurant