Where There's Smoke: Asador Etxebarri Is The World's Best Restaurant 2026

I have just come home from Spain, and I am still thinking about the food. Not one plate in particular, although there were several I could describe in unreasonable detail. What stays with me is the way Spain eats: late, together and without hurry, as though the table were the most important appointment of the day. It usually is.

But the food was not the real surprise. The people were.

I had expected volume. Southern Europe, I assumed, would arrive at full voice, the way Italy and Greece so wonderfully do. Spain was different. Calm, almost. Passionate, absolutely, but with a passion that never needed to raise its voice. Nobody was performing. If there is ego here, and there is, it lives somewhere else entirely: in family, in the long lunch, in a grandmother's recipe defended to the very last, in the quiet pride of putting something very good in front of someone and watching them taste it.

That, I think, is what makes what they do so special. The technique is extraordinary. The heart is the point.

So when the news arrived from Lima this week that Asador Etxebarri had been named The World's Best Restaurant 2026, I was delighted. Surprised? Not for a second.

Revealed on stage at Teatro Municipal de Lima on 4 November, The 50 Best Restaurants 2026 honours kitchens across 28 territories and six continents. At the very top sits a stone farmhouse in Axpe, a village of almost absurd tranquillity in the hills of Atxondo, in the Basque Country.

Chef-owner Victor Arguinzoniz has spent his life perfecting a single idea: that fire, handled with enough patience and precision, can do almost anything. He makes his own charcoal. He designed his own grills. And across a 14-course tasting menu, he and his team let exceptional ingredients take centre stage, turning simple produce into something close to transcendent through nothing more than smoke, heat and judgement.

Ranked No.2 last year, Etxebarri succeeds 2025 winner Maido in Lima, which now joins the Best of the Best hall of fame. It also takes the title of The Best Restaurant in Europe.

There is no theatre here. No foam, no fuss, no flourish for the sake of it. Which is exactly why it feels so Spanish to me. The confidence is in the restraint.

Here is the beautiful part for anyone planning a honeymoon. Etxebarri sits a little over an hour inland from San Sebastián, the city that seduced us so completely this summer, and which we wrote about in San Sebastián: Spain's Michelin Beauty.

Base yourselves by La Concha. Spend your evenings drifting between pintxo bars in the Parte Vieja. Then, for one day, drive west along the coast to the fishing village of Getaria, where Elkano (No.33) has been grilling whole turbot over coals for generations, before heading inland, through green valleys, for lunch in Axpe.

Two of the world's 50 best restaurants, an hour apart, both cooking over fire. Very few honeymoons begin with a better argument.

A word to the wise: Etxebarri seats very few, and the world now knows its name. Book as far ahead as humanly possible, then plan the rest of the trip around it.

Etxebarri is not travelling alone. Spain places four restaurants on this year's list, and each tells a different story about the country.

In Madrid, Diverxo (No.9) is the glorious opposite of Axpe: Dabiz Muñoz's maximalist, rule-breaking, utterly unforgettable kitchen. In Barcelona, Enigma (No.29) belongs to Albert Adrià, and his is a dining room that feels like stepping inside a beautiful riddle.

And in a moment that felt rather perfect, his brother Ferran Adrià, the visionary behind the legendary El Bulli, received the SevenRooms Icon Award for his work in culinary research and education through the El Bulli Foundation. Of course it was a family affair. In Spain, it usually is.

No.2 Gaggan, Bangkok

Gaggan Anand's progressive Indian kitchen remains the most joyful, irreverent room on the list. Dinner here is part tasting menu, part rock concert.

No.3 Alchemist, Copenhagen

Rasmus Munk's immersive, planetarium-domed dining experience is less a meal than a performance in several acts, and very much the point.

No.4 Quintonil, Mexico City

Jorge Vallejo cooks Mexico with tenderness and real intelligence, celebrating the produce of the country's growers in dishes that feel at once refined and deeply rooted.

No.5 Wing, Hong Kong

Vicky Cheng's elegant, exacting take on Chinese fine dining rounds out the top five, one of two Hong Kong restaurants in the top six alongside The Chairman (No.6). We fell for Wing a while ago: read our story.

Tuju, São Paulo (No.16)

Ivan Ralston's Tuju arrives as the highest new entry, and takes home the Art of Hospitality Award for good measure. One of 11 debuts on the list this year.

Kadeau, Copenhagen (No.8)

Up 33 places on last year, Kadeau brings the wild larder of Bornholm to the city with a warmth that makes New Nordic feel like home cooking.

Al Gatto Verde, Modena (No.24)

At Massimo Bottura's Casa Maria Luigia, Jessica Rosval cooks over wood fire, and she is recognised as much for what happens beyond the kitchen. Roots, the social enterprise restaurant she co-founded, trains migrant women for professional careers in food. Talent and heart, again.

Saint Peter, Sydney (No.50)

And closer to home, Josh Niland's Saint Peter makes its debut and claims the title of The Best Restaurant in Oceania. His whole-fish philosophy, using every part of the catch, has changed how a generation thinks about seafood. Australia, take a bow.

Elsewhere, Atomix in New York (No.11) is The Best Restaurant in North America, and its chef Junghyun 'JP' Park received the Estrella Damm Chefs' Choice Award, voted for by his peers. Trèsind Studio in Dubai (No.28) takes the Middle East, La Colombe in Cape Town (No.35) takes Africa, and Naar in Kasauli (No.49), which changes its menu to follow the six seasons of the Himalaya, wins the Sustainable Restaurant Award.

Lists like this are, by nature, about excellence. Technique, innovation, ambition. All of it is here in abundance.

But I keep coming back to a farmhouse in the hills, and a man who has spent decades quietly tending a fire. To the long lunches, the families gathered around one table, the calm, unshowy pride I found everywhere I went in Spain.

The best restaurant in the world is not the loudest one. It never was.

It is the one cooked with the most heart.