World's Best Restaurants List From 'Elite Traveler' Has Chicago's Alinea On Top

For years, if you were to ask 10 restaurant experts what the best restaurant in the world was, nine out of 10 would have agreed: Ferran Adria's El Bulli, in northeast Spain. There was El Bulli, then there was a large handful of other universally- admired restaurants, no one of which could definitively have been considered second-best. That meant that when El Bulli closed, last summer, a power vacuum opened up in the world in high-end gastronomy.

Many quickly seized on Copenhagen's Noma, helmed by chef Rene Redzepi, as the heir apparent. Restaurant magazine, which publishes the most widely-read listing of this sort, actually been named Noma the world's best while El Bulli was still open. So once El Bulli actually closed, food writers rushed to adorn Redzepi's brow with laurels.

But not everyone is a believer. The Michelin Guide, for example, has refused to induct Noma into the elite company of restaurants with three stars. (It has just two.) And in a brand-new ranking of the world's best restaurants, from Elite Traveler magazine, Noma doesn't even make the top 10. It comes in at a lowly 24th.

The top spot in Elite Traveler list went instead to Chicago's Alinea, which Restaurant magazine calls the best restaurant in America. Alinea's chef Grant Achatz, like Ferran Adria, is known for incorporating lessons from science and industry into his cooking.

Most of the other restaurants near the top of the Elite Traveler rankings are mainstays on these sorts of lists. Number two went to Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck, in Bray, England, while third place went to Thomas Keller's New York restaurant Per Se. The most unusual feature of the full list, available in PDF form here, is a surprising abundance of restaurants in the U.S. and the U.K..

Elite Traveler also seems to favor restaurants that are luxurious in conventional ways. That tendency may explain the relatively poor performance of Noma. Its dining room is spare, even rustic, compared to luxe eateries like Louis XV in Monaco, number eight on the Elite Traveler list. After all, when legendary Los Angeles restaurant critic Jonathan Gold, who is known for his admiration of humble, rough-hewn ethnic restaurants, compared Alinea and Noma for the Wall Street Journal magazine, he wrote that Noma was the better restaurant by a longshot.

You may have to take Gold's word for it for now, even if you can afford to spend thousands dining out. Noma books up months in advance, and Alinea will soon adopt an electronic ticketing system that some say will make getting reservations, already tough, even tougher.

Comments

[MrsStrict]

12:57 PM on 04/03/2012

Alinea was an AMAZING experience! I can still recall the billowing aroma from the lavender pillows underneath a delicious bowl of soup. Such great memories...

[retroharvey65]

04:31 AM on 04/03/2012

I still like the classic Peter Luger's in Brooklyn, New York and The Golden Steer in Las Vegas, Nevada. Also the The Blue Willow Inn restaurant in Social Circle, Georgia and Tavern on the Green in Central Park. Never have I tasted better food and experienced such service. I have yet to try the West Coast for I am told that San Francisco has excellent restaurants, too.

[Micheal Anderson]

02:56 AM on 04/03/2012

What the hell is on that plate? It looks like someone grabbed a handful of yard and threw it on a plate.

[DoggieMom]

01:17 AM on 04/03/2012

Another over-priced, hoi polloi restaurant.

[jlkitts]

11:51 PM on 04/02/2012

wow, check out the video about the chef and the restaurant -
it is the ultimate creativity...
well done sir !

[geohunt1]

10:36 PM on 04/02/2012

Do you have to prove you are a millionaire to get in those places? What happens if you are "short" when it is time to leave? OK, since I asked that, I know I am right in never getting near those places.

[David Jeffers]

09:43 PM on 04/02/2012

Fogo De Chao is number 1 in my book. You will never taste better food...

[jpfmtka]

09:39 PM on 04/02/2012

Congratulations, Alina... although I need to extend my nod to Thomas Keller and his genius.

[mccloudnj]

09:37 PM on 04/02/2012

Having read Chef Grant Achatz's autobiography, I must say that he has apparently worked very hard to make his restaurant a success. HOWEVER, as enthralled as I was with his life story, I do not like his style of cuisine at all. Throughout the book, I did not read ONE description of food he serves that would make me say "yum." I thought some of the combinations he came up with were downright weird. Obviously, I am not an expert in haute cuisine, but I wish him continued success. The descriptions of his battle against oral cancer were also very moving and interesting. The book (for me) was fascinating; his cuisine is not. The book is "Life, on the Line: A Chef's Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat."

[Megandale]

09:34 PM on 04/02/2012

I don't understand all of the negative, bitter and jealous comments on here. Who cares if people want to pay a lot of money to eat at these places? If they have they money, it's theirs to spend. Such jealousy and hatred on this site, sad.

[pepperbrown2]

08:55 PM on 04/02/2012

No the best is in Yorktown Virginia, The Duke of York Cafe's. Good food and lots of it prices are fair and the service is great

[natal plum]

09:16 PM on 04/02/2012

This sounds rather spamish

[wdm1130]

08:09 PM on 04/02/2012

I have to wonder if they know how to make a decent burger.

[Megandale]

09:45 PM on 04/02/2012

Why would you want a burger at a top restaurant? There are a ton of pubs around that have great burgers. Not every restaurant can provide amazing food, like these can.

[wdm1130]

12:02 AM on 04/03/2012

megandale you must be dumber than a box of rocks. If you call a plate half full of leaves a meal don't plan on eating at my home.

[belldn3]

08:08 PM on 04/02/2012

Any soul food joint in the ghetto, best food in the world. Don't know about not getting robbed, but the food is good.

[gogus]

07:13 PM on 04/02/2012

just looked at the top 100 list and have to say that most places look very good and was in 3 of them all very good and one that was not which is ramsey in London
thought the food was just okay

[gogus]

07:04 PM on 04/02/2012

if you travel to Boston check out the north end area on hanover st and look for DAMIANO restaurant but make sure the owner "Damian" is there doing the cooking you will love it