The world’s top 50 restaurants

Yesterday, San Pellegrino unveiled its ranking of the top 50 restaurants in the world. The big question was whether Noma would appear at the top of the list for a fifth year, but it fell to El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain, which was named the best restaurant for 2015. Noma – the best restaurant for four out of the past five years – dropped to number three this year, with Italy’s Osteria Francescana sitting just above it at number two. The restaurant in in the number five slot, New York’s Eleven Madison Park, was the top-ranking North American restaurant on the list. The top-ranked Australian restaurant at number 32 was Attica, Ben Shewry’s restaurant in Melbourne.  And Dinner by Heston Blumenthal took top honors for the UK at number seven.

Some big names fell out of the top 50 this year, most notably Daniel Boulud‘s flagship restaurant Daniel in NYC, which dropped all the way to 80. David Kinch’s Manresa in Los Gatos, California, and Daniel Patterson’s Coi in San Francisco also moved out of the top tier. Daniel Boulud will have to console himself over his drop in rank with winning the Diners Club Lifetime Achievement Award.

The top 50 restaurants are spread across the globe and have widely varying cuisines, but many of them do have one thing in common: cookbooks that are indexed on EYB. And if there were an award for publishing house with the most cookbooks from top restaurants, it would go to Phaidon, which features books from four of the top 10 restaurants: D.O.M. by Alex Atala, Mugaritz by Andoni Luiz Aduriz, Noma by Rene Redzepi, and Osteria Francescana by Massimo Bottura (all of which are indexed). Other current and former top 50 cookbooks from the Phaidon stable indexed on EYB include Fäviken by Magnus Nilsson, Peru: the Cookbook by Gastón Acurio (watch for a special promotion for Peru later this month), and Coi by Daniel Patterson.

If you want to learn more about these top restaurants and their chefs through these cookbooks, we have wonderful news for you: Phaidon is offering EYB Members a whopping 40% off all chef and cookery books from now until June 30.  Visit the Phaidon website for more details (and to fill your shopping cart.)

It’s quite possible that we may see a few new cookbooks emerge from first-time entrants to the top 50 list. San Pellegrino has also ranked restaurants 51-100, and the EYB Library contains many books from those restaurants. The list below provides links to cookbooks in the EYB Library associated with the top 50 restaurants. Most of the cookbooks are indexed and several offer a few teaser recipes online to pique your interest. The numbers in parenthesis are the 2014 rankings for the restaurant.

1 (2)       El Celler de Can Roca / Joan and Jordi Roca, Girona, Spain
2 (3)       Osteria Francescana / Massimo Bottura, Modena, Italy
3 (1)       Noma / Rene Redzepi Copenhagen, Denmark
4            Central Restaurante, Lima, Peru (no cookbook)
5 (4)       Eleven Madison Park / Daniel Humm, New York City, USA
6 (6)       Mugaritz / Andoni Luis Aduriz, San Sebastián, Spain
7 (5)       Dinner by Heston Blumenthal / Ashley Palmer Watts, London, UK
8            Narisawa, Tokyo, Japan (no cookbook)
9 (7)       D.O.M. / Alex Atala. São Paolo, Brazil
10          Gaggan, Bangkok, Thailand (no cookbook)

12 (25)  L’Arpége / Alain Passard, Paris, France
14 (14)  Astrid y Gaston / Gastón Acurio, Lima, Peru
17  (8)   Arzak / Juan Mari Arzak, San Sebastián, Spain
18 (21)  Le Bernadin / Eric Ripert, New York City, USA
22 (13)  Nahm / David Thompson, Bangkok, Thailand
25 (19)  Fäviken / Magnus Nilsson, Järpen, Sweden
26  (9)   Alinea / Grant Achatz, Chicago, USA
31 (23)  Restaurant Frantzén  / Björn Frantzén, Stockholm, Sweden
32 (32)  Attica / Ben Shewry, Melbourne, Australia
36 (38)  L’Astrance / Pascal Barbot, Paris, France
40 (30)  Per Se / Thomas Keller, New York City, USA
45         Relae / Christian Puglisi, Copenhagen, Denmark
49         Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athenee / Paris, France
50 (41)  The French Laundry / Thomas Keller, Yountville, USA