The World’s 50 Best Restaurants Is Launching a North America-Specific List
A new list featuring the United States, Canada, and parts of the Caribbean will be dropping later this year
50 Best, the organization behind the yearly list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, announced today that it’s debuting a new list focusing exclusively on North America, including the United States, Canada, and parts of the Caribbean.
This new list, which is sponsored by S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna, marks the first time the organization has focused on North American restaurants alone. The move makes sense: Specific restaurant lists exist for Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, and in 2022, 50 Best broke North America’s Best Bars into its own list, supplementing the existing list of the World’s Best bars. The organization clarifies that Mexico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic will remain under the purview of the list of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants, which has existed since 2013.
As 50 Best explains in the press release, 300 restaurant industry experts — who make up the North America’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy — will vote on the list. Restaurants do not have to pay for entry nor meet any specific criteria to be considered. This voting body is split into sub-regions, each with their own chair, to ensure that the entire continent is properly represented.
Created by William Reed Media, the World’s 50 Best List was created in 2002, and like most, the organization has made steps toward diversifying over the past few years, with changes to the makeup of its voting body and increased attention to continents other than Europe. But still, it generally features high-end, destination-centric tasting menu restaurants, like Barcelona’s Disfrutar, which took the top spot last year. A rule change in 2019 decreed that a restaurant would be retired from the list after reaching the No. 1 spot, forcing turnover at the top — but that rule is not in place on the current regional lists, meaning repeat winners (and many familiar names in the top 10, year after year) feels likely.
As of this writing, the highest ranking North American restaurant on the World’s Best list is Atomix in New York City, at number six. The only other North American restaurant in the top 50 of 2024 is Single Thread in Healdsburg, California; Cosme (NYC), Le Bernardin (NYC), and the Smyth (Chicago) appeared on the list’s “back half.” No Canadian or Caribbean restaurants are in the 2024 top 50.
How the first North American list will break down remains to be seen: The first selection will be announced during a live awards ceremony late this year, though the date and location haven’t yet been announced.
