The top spot in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list has often been predictable, so Thursday night’s awards ceremony in Turin, Italy, offered a refreshing surprise. With each year’s No. 1 restaurant retired from contention, it’s been customary for the No. 2 restaurant on the list to claim the top prize in the following year.
So after Barcelona’s Disfrutar was named No. 1 in 2024, the smart money this year was on 2024’s runner-up Asador Etxebarri, chef Victor Arguinzoniz’s 35-year-old live-fire wonderland in Axpe, Spain. But this year’s list, selected by an academy of 1,120 voters, had a different kind of old flame in mind.
Maido, a beloved Lima, Peru restaurant that opened in 2009, ascended from No. 5 to the top spot as World’s 50 Best celebrated Mitsuharu Tsumura’s Nikkei cuisine: Maido highlights recognized by voters include squid ramen with Amazonian chorizo and a char siu dish known as The Triple that weaves together avocado, eggs and tomato. (Fans of Nikkei cuisine might also want to know that there’s a new documentary about pioneering chef Nobu Matsuhisa that will have a national theatrical rollout and also be available on demand in July.)
Asador Etxebarri took the No. 2 spot, with Mexico City’s Quintonil, Madrid’s DiverXO and Copenhagen’s Alchemist rounding out the top five.
“I think gastronomy, food [and] hospitality can do amazing things,” Tsumura said as he accepted his award at Turin’s Auditorium Giovanni Agnelli. “They can make dreams come true. They can solve most of the problems that we think cannot be solved.”
He looked out at the crowd as he continued.
“The community, everybody that’s here in the auditorium from all over the world—in this moment, when we have some differences, I really actually believe that the gastronomic industry right now is an example of how we can get together,” Tsumura said. “We talk a lot about sustainability and environment, but we rarely talk about human sustainability. And I think that we should be an example for the world of what can be done and how we can bring things together with the power of food.”
Maido, of course, is about blending cultures while putting in the time and hard work to be the best. A similarly minded destination, Atomix, was the only United States restaurant to make the World’s 50 Best list this year. (The previously announced 51 to 100 extended list included Healdsburg, California’s SingleThread, New York’s Le Bernardin, San Francisco’s Atelier Crenn and New York newcomer César.)
Atomix fell from No. 6 to No. 12, but it was still a triumphant whirlwind week for Atomix power couple JP and Ellia Park, who have taken genre-bending Korean cuisine to the pinnacle of fine dining in New York. On Monday, the Parks were in Chicago, where they won the 2025 James Beard Award for Outstanding Hospitality and stayed out late celebrating at the after-party. Then they flew out on Tuesday and arrived in Turin Wednesday morning.
Ever humble, the Parks told Observer that they were genuinely surprised about the Beard victory for a nationwide category that Atomix hadn’t been nominated for in previous years. (Disclosure: The writer of this piece was part of the 2025 James Beard Awards voting body.)
“We never thought we were going to be winning it the first year,” JP said on Thursday before the World’s 50 Best ceremony. “This award is about our team and how Ellia’s amazing.”
The Parks also know that they and other prominent United States chefs will have something new to look forward to not long from now, when the 50 Best organization unveils its first North America’s 50 Best Restaurants list at a ceremony at Wynn Las Vegas on September 25. The hope is that this new list properly celebrates the breadth of top-tier dining in the United States.
This year’s James Beard Awards, for example, recognized a diverse group of talent, including Semma’s Vijay Kumar and Kato’s Jon Yao. Semma is a Michelin-starred Indian restaurant in New York. Kato is a Michelin-starred Taiwanese restaurant in Los Angeles. Both of these restaurants, like Atomix, are about celebrating heritage while writing a new narrative.
“I think that fine dining these days is really about the people,” Ellia said. “Back in the day, it was a little more chandelier. It’s more personal now.”