Spain’s Best Restaurant Loses World Crown
April 27th, 2010
The El Bulli restaurant, situated just outside of Barcelona and run by 3 star Michelin chef Ferran Adrià, has lost its crown as the world’s best restaurant. This is according to the influential, and widely recognised, San Pellegrino Award, which held its ninth edition in London yesterday and honours the 50 best restaurants in the world.
The Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants award ranks the world’s most influential restaurants and, each year, chefs and food critics around the world contribute to the ranking that marks trends in global cuisine.
Ferran Adria lost his Pellegrino number one spot for the first time in four years and now drops down to second place in the list, replaced by the Danish restaurant Noma. Noma’s chef, 32-year-old Rene Redzepi, formerly worked at El Bulli and his restaurant has gradually been working its way up the rankings.
While Adria has headed the ranking of the best chefs in the world since 2006, he was widely expected to lose the top spot after recently announcing that he would close El Bulli for two years, so it can become a foundation for promising chefs.
Adrià said that “it is much more important that there are four Spanish restaurants in the Top 10 than El Bulli no longer being the first.” The other Spanish restaurants in the top 10 were Andoni Luis Aduriz, with Mugaritz, and Josep and Jordi Roca, with El Celler de Can Roca Joan, who swapped last year’s positions to finish fifth and fourth place respectively. While Juan Mari Arzak was placed in ninth.
