Barcelona's Disfrutar Named the Best Restaurant in the World
Spain Sits at the Top of the Culinary World
Spain has long been considered one of the great food nations on earth — but the announcement made in Las Vegas on June 5, 2024 confirmed it in the most emphatic terms possible. Disfrutar, the Barcelona restaurant run by three chefs who cut their teeth under Ferran Adrià at the legendary elBulli, has been crowned the World's Best Restaurant 2024 by the World's 50 Best Restaurants Academy.
It is not just the top spot that tells the story. Spain now holds four of the world's top five restaurant positions — a concentration of culinary excellence without parallel anywhere on the planet. For anyone living in or visiting Spain, the message is clear: you are in the right place.
What Is Disfrutar?
Disfrutar — the name means "enjoy" in Spanish — is the creation of three chefs: Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch, and Mateu Casañas. All three worked together at elBulli, the Catalan restaurant that was widely regarded as the most influential in the world before it closed in 2011, and the DNA of that experience runs through everything Disfrutar does.
The restaurant is characterised by what the World's 50 Best describes as "modern techniques and beautiful ingredients, resulting in an experience that subverts traditional fine dining in a completely surprising way." The tasting menu showcases a distinctly Mediterranean identity — the flavours of the sea, the market, the seasons — but filtered through an avant-garde sensibility that constantly challenges expectations.
This is not food that simply tastes good. It is food designed to surprise, to provoke, to make you reconsider what a dish can be. Dishes arrive in forms you do not expect, using techniques that were pioneered at elBulli and have since become the vocabulary of the world's most ambitious restaurants. Eating at Disfrutar is, by all accounts, genuinely unlike anything else.
How the Award Is Decided
The World's Best Restaurant title is determined by votes from 1,080 international restaurant industry experts and gourmets, organised into 27 regional groups of 40 members each, drawn from across the global food world. Voters include chefs, restaurateurs, food critics, and seasoned culinary travellers — people who eat, professionally and obsessively, at the finest restaurants on earth.
Disfrutar also claimed the Best Restaurant in Europe title alongside its global crown — the first time a Spanish restaurant has held both simultaneously.
Spain's Remarkable Top Five
The full picture of Spanish excellence in the 2024 rankings is extraordinary:
| World Ranking | Restaurant | Location |
|---|---|---|
| No. 1 | Disfrutar | Barcelona |
| No. 2 | Asador Etxebarri | Basque Country |
| No. 4 | DiverXO | Madrid |
| No. 15 | Quique Dacosta | Dénia, Alicante |
| No. 28 | Elkano | Getaria, Basque Country |
Asador Etxebarri — No. 2, Basque Country
Victor Arguinzoniz's extraordinary restaurant in the small Basque village of Axpe has for years been considered one of the world's most singular dining experiences. Everything is cooked over fire — but fire handled with a precision and artistry that elevates grilling to high cuisine. The contrast with Disfrutar's techno-avant-garde approach could hardly be more complete, yet both sit at the absolute pinnacle of world gastronomy.
DiverXO — No. 4, Madrid
Dabiz Muñoz's three-Michelin-star restaurant in Madrid is arguably the most discussed restaurant in Spain — a chaotic, exhilarating, rule-breaking experience that has made Muñoz one of the most talked-about chefs on the planet. DiverXO holds three Michelin stars and regularly appears at the very top of global restaurant rankings.
Quique Dacosta — No. 15, Dénia, Alicante
For residents of the Costa Blanca, the presence of Quique Dacosta at number 15 in the world is a point of particular pride. Dacosta's eponymous restaurant in Dénia — a coastal town less than an hour's drive north of Alicante — holds three Michelin stars and has been a fixture at the top of global rankings for years. His cuisine is rooted in the ingredients of the Mediterranean coast and the rice-growing traditions of the Valencia region, expressed through a creative vision that is entirely his own.
Elkano — No. 28, Getaria, Basque Country
Elkano, in the small fishing village of Getaria on the Basque coast, is celebrated above all for its turbot — a whole fish grilled over charcoal with a simplicity that conceals extraordinary technical mastery. It is the kind of restaurant that reminds you why the best cooking in the world is often the cooking that most perfectly expresses its place.
The elBulli Legacy
To understand Disfrutar's achievement fully, it helps to understand its roots. Ferran Adrià's elBulli — which held the top spot in the World's 50 Best for an unprecedented five years and was closed by Adrià at its peak in 2011 — is widely credited with transforming fine dining globally. The techniques pioneered at elBulli, the culture of research and creativity it fostered, and the chefs it trained have spread across the world's greatest restaurants.
Disfrutar is perhaps the purest continuation of that tradition. Its three founders spent years in elBulli's kitchen developing the techniques and philosophy that now define their own restaurant. In crowning Disfrutar the world's best, the Academy is in some sense completing a circle — recognising that the spirit of elBulli lives on, in Barcelona, at the very top of world gastronomy.
Visiting Disfrutar
Disfrutar is located in the Eixample district of Barcelona, and reservations — as you would expect for the world's best restaurant — are extremely difficult to obtain. The restaurant operates a tasting menu format, and bookings open months in advance and fill almost immediately.
For those planning a visit to Barcelona, or for residents of Spain making a special occasion trip to the city, it is worth checking the restaurant's website regularly for cancellations and last-minute availability. The experience, by all accounts, is worth the effort.
Spain: The World's Great Food Nation
The 2024 World's 50 Best rankings are a reminder — as if one were needed — that Spain occupies a unique position in global gastronomy. From the avant-garde laboratories of Barcelona to the wood-fired grills of the Basque Country, from the rice fields and fishing ports of the Valencia coast to the creative chaos of Madrid, Spanish cuisine in the 21st century is the most exciting, most diverse, and most internationally celebrated in the world.
For anyone lucky enough to live here, that is something to celebrate — and, whenever possible, to eat.
The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2024 rankings were announced on June 5, 2024, in Las Vegas. Rankings are determined annually by the World's 50 Best Restaurants Academy. For reservations at Disfrutar, visit the restaurant's official website.