This Is The World’s Best Restaurant

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Oct 10, 12:15PM EDT

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Rating restaurants is a business and a fairly large one. Newspapers like The New York Times, employ full-time food critics. Magazines like Food & Wine publish lists every year. Among the most highly regarded ratings is the Michelin Guide which covers restaurants all over the world. Oddly enough, it was created by the tire company of the same name. Establishments that get three stars are considered the greatest in the world.

The restaurant rating business is changing. Today, some are based on large polls like one from retailer rating company Yelp. Reviewers who have spent years evaluating restaurants and food often believe that this debases the process.

One a year, review sites 50 Best releases its list of the world’s top restaurants. The methodology involves a poll of 1,040 “independent” experts. It is not, unfortunately, clear how these people are picked. There is a 50/50 gender balance according to publishers William Reed Business Media. Critics are asked to cast 10 votes for restaurants they believe are the best ones based on their last 18 months of dining. Restaurants cannot apply to be on the list. Voting is also done by region.

Because of the effects of COVID-19, the approach was changed slightly:

The 2021 list was therefore created from a combination of wider pre-pandemic experiences and, where possible, contemporary local updates, spanning the period from July 2019 through to March 2021

The methodology seems as good as any other and better than most.

It is then probable that a Michelin three-star restaurant would top the list. The winner on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list was Noma in Copenhagen which topped the four previous lists. The current restaurant opened in February 2018. Previously, it was in a different location. It has a “tasting only” menu.

The U.S. does poorly. Its top spot on the list is in 22nd place, represented by Cosme in New York City. There are not any other American establishments in the top 25.

Click here to read The World’s 20 Most Expensive Restaurants

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.