Globe Eater: The 20 Strongest Gastronomic Experiences of 2025

Over the past year I travelled abroad perhaps less than I “should” have, yet more than I had imagined. Each experience was a landscape of its own. At times it shone through technique; at others through truth. Sometimes it said very little, yet somehow expressed everything. In every case I went with an open heart and the same enduring question: to stand still for a moment before a flavour; to encounter an intention that becomes a narrative; to understand what a place, a cuisine and a team of people has to say when it chooses to give form to matter and time to memory.

Out of nearly eighty visits, I singled out twenty experiences that had something extra: a spark, an emotion, a depth that goes beyond technique and speaks directly to feeling. This is not a ranked list. The order is alphabetical, because each was significant in its own way. And if there is something that unites these twenty restaurants, it is that I sensed a person behind the cooking, someone who had something to say and said it in their own voice. It is a personal imprint of the year, filled with moments I will remember long after. Moments that reminded me that when gastronomy is truthful, it is ultimately a form of human connection. 

ÄNG • Tvååker, Sweden

Hidden among the vineyards of Ästad Vingård, ÄNG is one of the most distinctive restaurants in Sweden. Housed in a contemporary, two-storey glass structure that seems to hover within the landscape of Halland, it blends minimalist architecture with rural tranquillity. Filip Gemzell belongs to a generation of chefs who cook from their roots through a distinctly modern lens. His cuisine has clarity, depth and an effortless elegance, and it is built upon what the region provides, from coastal fishing to small farms and the herbs of the forest.

The scallop with chilli caramel and a sauce of fermented tomato was the dish that defined the evening for me, and one of the highlights of the year: marine, sweet, luminous and ethereal.

Info: Ästad Vingård, Ästad 10, 432 77 Tvååker, Sweden

restaurantang.com

Bozar Restaurant • Brussels, Belgium

In a historic Art Nouveau space in the heart of Brussels, the outstanding chef Karen Torosyan has created one of the most authentic expressions of contemporary Franco-Belgian cuisine. His technical mastery approaches the ritualistic, with signature pâtés en croûte and pithiviers that reveal a refined precision of execution and a deeply emotional dimension. At Bozar I tasted the best and most ethereal millefeuille I have ever eaten, which the chef assembles and presents at the table.

Info: Rue Baron Horta 3, 1000 Bruxelles

Bottiglieria 1881 • Kraków, Poland

Led by the highly talented Przemysław Klima, a chef with a deep sense of technique and personal style, two-star Bottiglieria 1881 has shaped a new gastronomic language for Poland. Klima develops the culinary identity of his country in a way that is both profoundly creative and technically rigorous, placing exceptional Polish products and historical recipes at the centre to build a menu full of intensity, elegance and imagination, always with clean flavours and meticulous detail. The experience is made even more special by the dynamism of his team and by the atmospheric nineteenth-century cellar, which holds remarkable bottles from the Polish and international vineyard.

Info: ul. Bocheńska 5, 31-061 Kraków, Poland

Disfrutar • Barcelona, Spain

Few restaurants in the world radiate as much energy from the moment you sit down. Disfrutar is a system of ideas translated into flavours, textures, movements and rhythm. Eduard Xatruch, Oriol Castro and Mateu Casañas, all with roots in the legendary El Bulli, have built an entire gastronomic universe that is entirely their own. In 2024 the restaurant reached the top of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and received three Michelin stars. The menu operates almost as a performance, with dishes that are conceptual, humorous and full of reversals, marked by quick-witted intelligence, formidable technical precision and an unexpected immediacy.

Estela • ΝΥC, New York

Estela is one of New Yorkers’ most beloved haunts, and there are many reasons for that. Set in a beautiful space in Soho, it feels like a natural extension of the old glamour New York once carried: warm, atmospheric and unpretentious. Ignacio Mattos cooks with directness and a strong sense of personality, producing immediate flavour-driven emotion without excess, and reminding you what fine gastronomy can be when it is expressed with simplicity and confidence. Estela, which has deservedly renewed its Michelin star year after year, serves only à la carte. And if you ask me, I would suggest finding a seat at the bar to slip into the mood more quickly.

Info: 47 E Houston St, New York City, NY 10012

estelanyc.com

Fifty Seconds • Lisbon, Portugal

One of the year’s most unexpected surprises sits at the top of the emblematic Vasco da Gama Tower, in a restaurant named after the fifty seconds it takes for the lift to carry you to the forty-second floor. The view over the Tagus and the Troia peninsula is striking, yet the real summit reveals itself at the table. Rui Silvestre, a major talent of the new Portuguese scene, cooks with a clear sense of identity. His cuisine is rooted in exceptional local ingredients, employs the techniques of the French school with precision and adds elements from his travels that bring complexity, discreet spice and delicate shades of exoticism to the palate. As for the future, I would not be surprised if a second star were already in sight.

Info: Cais das Naus, Lote 2.21.01, Parque das Nações, 1990-173 Lisboa

FZN by Björn Frantzén • Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Björn Frantzén is the only chef in the world currently operating three Michelin three-star restaurants, and FZN at Atlantis The Palm adds an impressive dimension to his vision. From the first moment, with the chime of the bell and the passage into the lounge with its aperitifs, it becomes clear that what awaits here is much more than a fine dining dinner. Torsten Vildgaard leads the kitchen with culinary precision and creative instinct, and his dishes exhibit structure, clarity and an understated emotional pulse that builds quietly and culminates in powerful intensity. FZN is dinner in motion. It is an exhilarating, rigorously orchestrated and genuinely moving experience, with cooking that balances technical perfection with the spark of inspiration.

Info: Atlantis The Palm, Crescent Rd, The Palm Jumeirah, Dubai

Although this list is not ranked, JAN by Jan Hartwig and Theresa Geisel was, without question, the most powerful experience of 2025. From the first plate to the smallest detail of the service, everything feels designed to communicate something truthful and entirely personal. Jan Hartwig’s cuisine is a monument of technical perfection and at the same time deeply expressive. Firm, purposeful and rooted in Bavarian tradition, it translates the region’s terroir with sensitivity and with a clear, contemporary and relevant gaze. JAN earned three Michelin stars within its first six months of operation, and this year made its debut on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. These are two significant distinctions that speak clearly to its importance.

Kadeau is one of the most deeply personal restaurants of the new Scandinavian scene, with Nicolai Nørregaard bringing the spirit of Bornholm to the centre of Copenhagen. That is where everything began, and in its urban incarnation Kadeau has evolved into a defining chapter of contemporary Nordic cuisine, a place that pretends to be nothing because it manages to be everything: nature, technique, seasonality. The experience is built around two seasons, the Preservation Season and the Growing Season. In winter the kitchen turns towards concentration, fermentations and transformations. In summer freshness takes the lead and the food gains energy, light and immediate emotion. This is how I encountered it again this year, and the evolution was remarkable. Nørregaard’s cuisine now has greater clarity, depth and a strong sense of personality. As a result, Kadeau feels at its finest moment yet, and to my mind looks ready to enter the global league of three-star restaurants and contend for a place in the upper tier of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

Info: Wildersgade 10B, 1408 København

kadeau.dk

Knystaforsen • Rydöbruk, Sweden

Knystaforsen takes its name from the waterfall on the Nissan river that runs beside the building. In Swedish the word describes the forceful sound of water breaking the silence of the forest. It is an image that perfectly captures the rhythm of the place. The restaurant opened in 2020, three years after Nicolai and Eva Tram moved from Copenhagen to Rydöbruk. Fire is the organising principle at Knystaforsen. The chef uses it with natural ease, as if it were an extension of his thinking. Most dishes pass through flame or smoke, yet what matters most is the way fire shapes the spirit of the cuisine. This is cooking that is direct, honest, original, refined and deeply flavourful. Nicolai Tram seems cut from the same material as the landscape around him: waxed shirt in the colour of moss, leather apron, wide-brimmed hat. Eva Tram, by contrast, moves through the space differently. Where Nicolai is absorbed by the kitchen, she sets the rhythm around her. She observes, coordinates and creates the atmosphere that allows guests to relax, all in a manner that is delicate, almost weightless. She also oversees the wine, designing pairings that speak to Nicolai’s dishes and to the surrounding environment.

In 2025 I returned to Lasarte to experience Il Milione at close range, a distinctive and very premium gastronomic journey inside Martín Berasategui’s three-star restaurant in Barcelona. The name comes from Marco Polo’s book and the sense of travel is genuinely present at every moment. Paolo Casagrande and his team have designed a route-like menu that links the timeless landmarks of Lasarte’s cuisine with new creations conceived specifically for this format. The experience unfolds in a private space with direct views of the kitchen, and with subtle shifts of light, sound and aroma that work on a subconscious level, sharpening attention on what truly matters: flavour. By far one of the most powerful experiences of the year.

Massimiliano Alajmo is the youngest chef ever to have earned three Michelin stars and, decades later, remains one of the most charismatic and restless creators of our time. His multifaceted and daring cuisine operates as an alchemy of memory and technique. Each dish unfolds as an introspective experience, whether it is a new creation or one of his contemporary “classics” such as the emblematic saffron and liquorice risotto, an astonishing and multi-layered composition that transforms two ingredients into a signature dish of modern Italian cuisine.

Info: Via Liguria 1, 35030 Rubano (PD), Italy

Mont Bar was one of the major surprises of 2025, a fact that was ultimately confirmed when, at the most recent Michelin Guide ceremony for Spain, it was elevated to two stars. Set in a space with the aura of a modern bistrot and a relaxed, almost everyday atmosphere, Mont Bar gives no hint of the technically formidable and creative cooking taking place in its open kitchen. Fran Agudo has built a gastronomic universe with a clear personal identity, bold ideas and remarkable consistency of execution. His cooking has both nerve and finesse, with dishes that develop around Catalonia’s seasonal produce, served without a single superfluous gesture.

In the heart of Piedmont, Piazza Duomo has long been a benchmark of contemporary Italian gastronomy and one of the great restaurants of our time. Enrico Crippa, one of the most reflective chefs of his generation, has built here an entire world that reveals its greatness through a technically exacting and artistic cuisine that is deeply connected to the land of Piedmont. Leaves, flowers, herbs and vegetables all come from his personal garden and shape a dialect that is pure and full of meaning. The emblematic Insalata 21…31…41… is the pinnacle of this philosophy: a totemic salad composed of more than 120 botanical elements, selected and placed with the care of a poet of nature.

When Andreas Caminada chose to settle in Fürstenau, the smallest town in the world, and to house his cooking in a thirteenth-century medieval castle, he did more than create a restaurant. He opened a new and significant path for his country’s gastronomy, turning Schloss Schauenstein into a living, pulsating ecosystem that gave Swiss cuisine the voice it deserved and transformed it into a language with global reach. Caminada’s cuisine is luminous, highly structured and full of emotion. It is rooted in products from the surrounding region, translated through his own aesthetic language: restrained, expressive, of peerless technique and high precision. Alongside him, Marcel Skibba, co-owner and head chef, embodies the continuity of that vision with rare calm, leadership and a deep connection to place. If you make the journey to Fürstenau, I would strongly suggest booking a table at OZ, Caminada’s vegetarian restaurant located directly opposite Schloss Schauenstein. It is full of surprises.

Info: Schlossgass 77, 7414 Fürstenau, Switzerland

At Smoked Room the fire has already died down by the time dinner begins. What remains is its imprint: intensity, transformation and memory. Dani García created this space after making a decision that questioned the very form of fine dining: to close his three-star restaurant at the height of its success and start again from the beginning, more freely and on his own, less classifiable gastronomic terms. At the centre of the experience stands Massimiliano delle Vedove, a chef wholly devoted to this exhilarating fire omakase, with dishes of high technical precision that support Smoked Room’s narrative in full. Alongside him, Luis Baselga, named Spain’s Best Sommelier this year by the Michelin Guide, builds an enthralling dialogue with each plate through his accuracy, clarity of thought and rare sensitivity.

Info: Hyatt Regency Hesperia, Paseo de la Castellana 57, Madrid

smokedroomrestaurants.com

Table - Bruno Verjus • Paris, France

Bruno Verjus is, without exaggeration, one of the most influential chefs and restaurateurs of our time. Entrepreneur, writer, self-taught cook and profound thinker of flavour, he has built with Table an idiosyncratic universe that goes beyond the bounds of restaurants, operating instead as a contemporary philosophy of what cooking, ingredient, freshness and ultimately gastronomy mean in 2025. His cuisine moves with precision and clarity, in complete harmony with seasonality and with the essence of each product. What makes Table unique, however, is the way the “simple” becomes deep and the “little” becomes revelation. Verjus’s flavours disarm you with their light because they compel you to look at the world of taste differently, more essentially and more inwardly. The outstanding sommelier Agnese Morandi handles the wine list with complete command, and she is someone you can trust without hesitation.

Info: 3 Rue de Prague, 75012 Paris, France

table.paris

Tohru in der Schreiberei • Munich, Germany

Schreiberei, the building that houses the restaurant, is the oldest in Munich’s historic centre. It is a space with a long history, once used as a printing house and workshop. The word “Schreiberei” itself means “office” or “printing house” in German, a place that stands as a living monument to the city’s industrial past. Tohru Nakamura was born in Munich in 1983 to a Japanese father and a German mother. He grew up between two cultures and two ways of thinking, and between two culinary schools: the Japanese, with its meticulousness, precision and respect for ingredients, and the European, with the gravity, structure and discipline of the German school, which has absorbed French cuisine to a significant degree. Yet Nakamura’s cuisine is not simply a mosaic of influences or a polished “fusion.” He has absorbed the fundamental elements of both worlds and transformed them into his own personal gastronomic language.

If this list were ranked, Tohru would sit at the very top.

Info: Burgstraße 5, 80331 München, Germany

schreiberei

VYN • Simrishamn, Sweden

When Daniel Berlin stepped away in 2020 to care for his family after a tragic loss, many said that Sweden’s culinary scene would carry an absence until he returned. He did so three years later, choosing a hill in Skåne with views towards the Baltic and building something deeply personal there: a rare ecosystem of high gastronomy that soon became one of the most significant restaurants in Europe. At VYN, Berlin offers one of the most essential expressions of fine dining, the kind that is difficult to describe without experiencing it. It is a world in which cooking has rediscovered its reason for being. Each dish feels like a small note, an act of tenderness delivered with total technical control and with a quiet, almost literary intensity. The team moves with absolute focus, as if guided by a shared conviction: that cooking can be a form of gentleness, that precision does not exclude warmth, and that beauty requires time, space and intention in order to emerge. Berlin works with fire with a precision that borders on the poetic, touching the food just enough to leave its soul intact. His use of the animal is complete, seasonality is absolute and textures are deeply considered. Within a matter of months VYN earned two Michelin stars, entered the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list and became a reference point for the new Scandinavian scene.

Info: Höga vägen 72, 272 92 Simrishamn

Wielem Hiele • Oudenburg, Belgium

Willem Hiele is a singular kind of chef; he resembles no one else. He has followed an entirely personal and, in some ways, solitary path in cooking, taking the risks that come with choosing to be autonomous, unclassifiable and free, and at the same time restlessly creative. “It is not easy to follow nature, but if you do it once and feel the rewards it gives back, there is no return. Respect it and it will respect you. Ignore it and it will ignore you.” In the case of the Flemish chef, Willem Hiele, these are not just words. And here begins a journey which, if you allow it to carry you, takes you somewhere more internal. His eponymous restaurant sits on an eight-hectare estate a few kilometres from Ostend, in a beautiful building from 1971 designed by the Belgian artist and architect Jacques Moeschal, in the rural landscape of Grote Keignaert. There are also eight charming rooms for an overnight stay at reasonable prices. Wherever you look, you see nature of incomparable beauty. Within the quiet of this ecosystem, Hiele has gathered everything he needs to cook a personal and deeply emotional cuisine that embraces the sea in an utterly captivating way.

Info: Kapittelstraat 71, 8460 Oudenburg, Belgium

willemhiele.be