50 Best Restaurants has just announced its annual ranking of the finest fine dining restaurants in the world, and it looks like London’s dining scene didn’t impress the awards much.
There’s only one London restaurant in the Top 50: . Scraping into the top 50 at number 48, the central London dining room is in the Strand 180 building by Temple and is headed up by executive chef and co-founder Jeremy Chan. Ikoyi offers a £395 tasting menu inspired by global spices and has two Michelin stars.
We visited the restaurant at the start of the year and can confirm that it is excellent. Over the course of almost four hours, our reviewer ate the likes of smoked jollof rice and guinea fowl suya in a caramelised rice shell with a spiced grape gel and freshly grated black truffle.
‘This is finesse at the highest level,’ read our five star review. ‘A slice of bluefin tuna isn’t just a slice of bluefin tuna, but a slice of dry-aged bluefin tuna placed neatly on a freaky little pistachio pudding with pomegranate and chilli broth, pickled kohlrabi, preserved quince and nashi pear. And who needs a standard beef tartare when you can have Chan’s aged beef, smoked celeriac and chanterelle tart, which looks like a handsome Furby and feels like licking the Pembrokeshire coastline.’
This year’s winner of the 50 Best Restaurants was the Basque live-fire restaurant Asador Etxebarri in Atxondo, Spain, which was ranked at number two in last year’s list. The ranking is decided by a panel of 1,100 international restaurant industry experts. In the 51-100 longlist, two more London eateries featured: Kol (at 70) and The Ledbury (83).
The awards – which come from the World’s 50 Best gang, which has a similar ranking for bars – have run since 2002. A London restaurant has never topped the list, though Heston Blumenthal’s the Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire came first in 2005.
ICYMI: This impeccable burger is officially the best in London right now.
Plus: 14 London restaurants were added to the Michelin Guide in October 2026.
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