PARIS, France – Maido, a restaurant in Lima founded by famed chef Mitsuharu “Micha” Tsumura, was on Thursday named the best eatery in the world for 2025 by the influential but controversial World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.
Restaurants from three continents occupy the podium of the listing, which was launched by a British press group to compete with France’s Michelin red guides.
Asador Etxebarri, which offers Basque cooking at Atxondo, Spain, was second and Quintonil in Mexico City was third.
The top French restaurant was in eighth place: chef Bruno Verjus’s Table in Paris.
Maxime Frederic, at the helm of the Cheval Blanc Paris pastry shop and head pastry chef at Plenitude, was named Best Pastry Chef.
The 50 Best award has been presented since 2002 by media group William Reed, based on reviews by a thousand “independent experts” such as chefs, specialist journalists and restaurant owners.
The list has been contested above all by French chefs, who accuse it of being clubby and opaque, but it is generally considered to be ahead of the Michelin guide in identifying the latest food trends.
Its detractors — French, but also Japanese and American – launched The List in 2015, a ranking of 1,000 restaurants across the world which uses an algorithm to aggregate and analyze data from more than 400 international sources. — Agence France-Presse