World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025: Maido in Lima Named World’s Best Restaurant, Bangkok’s Gaggan is Best Restaurant in Asia

Peruvian-Japanese restaurant Maido, previously Best Restaurant in South America 2024, has also been named World’s Best Restaurant this year. The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025 includes stunning showings from South America, no less than six restaurants in Bangkok, and Singapore’s own Odette at number 25.

Like its predecessors in the number-one spot, Maido has slowly climbed to the top over the years: it was placed at number five in last year’s rankings. The restaurant, led by Lima-born Mitsuharu Tsumura, uses a vibrant fusion of Japanese technique and Peruvian flavour, offering a multi-course menu rooted in seasonality and cultural storytelling. Maido is followed on the list by Asador Etxebarri, in Atxondo in the Basque Country, which has also been named the Best Restaurant in Europe, and Quintonil in Mexico City, the Best Restaurant in North America.

This year’s Best Restaurant in Asia is Gaggan in Bangkok, which also placed at number six in the overall rankings. This restaurant is named after its founder, Kolkata-born Gaggan Anand, who began with a career in music and infuses dishes with colour and delight. Highest New Entry this year also goes to Bangkok: Potong, a restaurant in the heart of Chinatown headed by Pichaya Soontornyanakij, debuts at an impressive #13. The infamous Alchemist in Copenhagen by Rasmus Munk appears on this year’s list, with surreal culinary creations like freeze-dried butterflies and cherry meringue served from a realistic human head.

^{The Chefs' Feast in Turin this year, prior to the awards ceremony.}

About World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025

Every year, the competition gathers 1080 international restaurant industry experts, the World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy, to give their votes in this globally recognised event. The competition is a reference point for global restaurant trends and an evaluation of international taste. This year’s edition is sponsored by S. Pellegrino and Acqua Panna, and the results were announced in Turin, Piedmont, after months of votes.

Voting is limited to this pool of experienced gourmets, and involves restaurants from all around the world: there are no pre-determined metrics for voting or eligibility. From 2019, previous number-one restaurants have joined the Best of the Best list, which makes them ineligible for future rankings and allows the competition to be refreshed annually with new spots.

Each regional panel is made up of anonymous food writers, critics, chefs, restauranteurs and gourmets, each of whom has 10 votes. Notably, the voting base has a 50/50 gender split, and gathers experts from 27 regions around the globe.

^{Image credit: mitsuharu_maido on Instagram / Maido Cocina Nikkei on Facebook}

Maido, Lima – World’s Best Restaurant 2025 and Best Restaurant in South America 2025

When you walk through the door, you’ll be greeted with “maido”: a Japanese term of welcome. Maido in Lima, which opened in 2009, is both World’s Best Restaurant 2025 and Best Restaurant in South America 2025, a phenomenal feat. Since joining the list in 2013, Maido has been South America’s Best Restaurant four times.

Maido is led by Mitsuharu “Micha” Tsumura, a Lima-born chef who has specialised in Japanese cuisine in Osaka, and the recipient of the Estrella Damm Chefs’ Choice Award in 2024. The restaurant focuses on serving the best-quality seasonal ingredients, with increasing reference to the culinary traditions of the vast Peruvian Amazon. Japanese Nikkei cuisine is brought together with rainforest staples like jaune parcels of pork jowl and palm heart, sustainable paiche fish “ham”, and yucca served with Amazonian beans.

The tasting menu features more than 10 courses. Among them, you may find The Triple, a combination of avocado, eggs, tomato and braised pork belly; caracoles al sillao (soy sauce) sea snails with yellow chili foam and Nikkei sauce; and squid ramen with Amazonian chorizo. An a la carte menu, with seasonal dishes and a “catch of the day”, is also available.

^{Image credit: asadoretxebarrioficial on Instagram}

Asador Etxebarri, Atxondo – World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025 #2 and Best Restaurant in Europe 2025

Destination restaurant Asador Etxebarri takes second place on the list this year, as well as Best Restaurant in Europe 2025. This rustic restaurant is located in the Valley of Atxondo, somewhere in the Basque Country between Bilbao and San Sebastian, where gourmets travel to experience Bittor Arguinzoniz’s culinary creations by way of a set of custom-made grills.

Arguinzoiz grew up around the corner from where the restaurant now stands, and has long been a champion of locally-sourced, simple ingredients and the joy of cooking. The elegant dishes that he creates are ingredient-forward and hearty: anchovy on toast, grilled Palamós prawn, milk ice cream with beetroot. One of them is fresh mozzarella, from the chef’s own buffalo, served with a juicy tomato slice. All of these dishes have been cooked on the grill, a signature of the restaurant’s.

Asador Etxebarri is very much a small-town restaurant, in a spacious dining room overlooking the village square. For that reason, it’s popular with locals, who tend to order from the a la carte menu. Visitors, though, are encouraged to order from the tasting menu to sample everything the restaurant has to offer: 14 courses of seasonal delicacies and rustic fare. Homemade chorizo and baby eels make the menu, alongside the main dish: a charcoal-charred beef chop with an extraordinarily tender texture.

^{Image credit: QUINTONIL on Facebook}

Quintonil, Mexico City – World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025 #3 and Best Restaurant in North America 2025

North America’s favourite restaurant this year is Quintonil in Mexico City, which leads the charge in reinventing Mexican gastronomy. Named for quintonil, a fresh green herb, the restaurant is led by Jorge Vallejo and his wife Alejandra Flores, and serves an innovative menu with a distinctly Mexican palate. 

There are three dining areas: a counter seating area with a view of the open kitchen, a cosy entrance area, and a brightly lit dining area decorated with Mexican art. The counter seating area has its own menu, a shorter selection that includes insect-based tacos with grasshoppers and chicatana ants. The tasting menu includes a variety of seasonal dishes, which may include tamales of duck pibil with elote cream, braised oxtail in traditional black recado sauce, crème fraîche with melipona honey, and prickly pear sorbet. Most ingredients are sourced locally from urban gardens, and travel just 30 meters to your plate.

Though the food is excellent, diners say it’s the energy of the restaurant that keeps them coming back. Quintonil’s winning partnership of Vallejo’s culinary genius and Flores’ expert hospitality gives the restaurant a charisma and warmth that makes it beloved among visitors.

^{Image credit: restaurantalchemist on Instagram}

Alchemist, Copenhagen – World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025 #5, Surreal Fine Dining

Joining the list at number 5 is Alchemist in Copenhagen, a much talked-about venue that creates a surreal culinary experience for diners: seven hours of multi-sensory dining that takes you through different locations and forms of art. Courses aren’t even called courses at Alchemist: they’re “impressions”, divided into acts, masterfully crafted into an extraordinary experience.

Expect “Space Bread” canapes topped with caviar, seafood and pigeon aged in beeswax, and an increasing variety of dishes that don’t even resemble dishes. One is a freeze-dried butterfly, served atop a leaf of kale: presented as a sustainable source of protein. The famous “Food for Thought” is composed of cherry meringue filled with a lamb’s brain mousse that’s eaten scooped out of a realistic mould of a human head. Experimental is the right word for dishes at Alchemist, many supported by the most avant-garde ideas in the food world right now.

Head chef Rasmus Munk has designed each meal at Alchemist as a creative tour of the possibilities of food and a holistic dining experience. He also uses his platform to raise funds to feed homeless people in Copenhagen, and to create clean water solutions for people in Africa.

^{Image credit: Gaggan Anand Restaurant on Facebook}

Gaggan, Bangkok – World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025 #6, Best Restaurant in Asia 2025

Gaggan in Bangkok is one of six Bangkok-based restaurants to have made the list this year: it’s been named Best Restaurant in Asia five times. Headed by “rebel chef” Gaggan Anand, who was previously a professional musician, the restaurant has a disruptive philosophy and irreverent charm.

Though the menu is primarily progressive Indian, it has international influences from French to Thai to Japanese. Gaggan’s immersive 14-seater chef’s counter, which provides an open-kitchen experience, also incorporates changing light effects and a lively soundtrack. Each course breaks the rules in some way, whether it’s expecting diners to eat with their hands, or even to lick the plate (a carrot halwa dish needs to be eaten this way). Every dish is visually striking: mushroom “fireworks shells”, uni kiwi toast, and an artfully placed black garlic momo in a creamy sauce.

^{Image credit: Restaurant.Potong on Facebook / gastrofilm on Instagram}

Potong, Bangkok – World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025 #13, Highest New Entry 2025, Modern Thai-Chinese Cuisine

Potong makes its debut on the World’s Best Restaurants list at an impressive #13, having only opened in 2021: led by Pichaya ‘Pam’ Soontornyanakij, the restaurant offers innovative Thai-Chinese cuisine in the bustling heart of Bangkok’s Chinatown. Located in a generations-old five storey building that housed the family’s Chinese herbal medicine business at the turn of the 20th century, Potong now serves traditionally-inspired courses, centered around key tastes of Thai-Chinese cuisine. It’s accompanied by cocktail haven Opium Bar on its upper floors, and an original room filled with hand-painted tiger drawings.

The menu at Potong is created around five taste elements: salt, acid, spice, texture and Maillard reaction (the reduction of sugar). The degustation menu begins with house-made charcuterie and collaboration wine, before introducing dishes like Historical Stories (crab roe, blue crab and brioche), Bold (14-day aged duck) and Heritage (pandan, tamarind and a peanut bon bon). They reflect Soontornyanakij’s multicultural Thai-Chinese-Australian heritage and draw on her culinary memories and emotions.

^{Image credit: Odette on Facebook}

Odette, Singapore – World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025 #25, Beloved French Fusion Restaurant

Julien Royer’s Odette remains on the list this year, as one of Singapore’s most honoured culinary destinations: named for Royer’s grandmother, this modern French restaurant turns artisanal produce from Europe and Asia into stunning dishes.

This classically French menu has numerous Asian touches: the seven-course tasting menu features simply and elegantly composed dishes. You may find dishes like the “uni, brioche yuzu”, a yuzu-glazed, open-faced uni brioche tartlet, or the “amadai, squid, bouillabaisse”, a luscious seafood dish in bouillabaisse broth. Odette has a notable pastry menu, designed by Asia’s Best Pastry Chef 2023 Louisa Lim, that features the likes of citrus tart with bergamot, Buddha’s hand fruit and genmaicha.

Odette’s location in Singapore’s National Gallery gives it an artistic flair: the decor includes a hanging installation, made with raw ingredients from Royer’s kitchen, named “Theory of Everything”. Created by Singaporean artist Dawn Ng, the installation is a permanent feature in the restaurant.

World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025 – All Results

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy has ranked 100 restaurants as the best in the world: here’s the full list if you’re meaning to drop by. Singapore steakhouse Burnt Ends clocks in at #93 and Asian fine dining restaurant Labyrinth places at #97.