Spanning Europe, Scandinavia and Asia, the world’s top 5 restaurants of 2019 offer individual, unique and unforgettable gastronomy. We have recommended how you can fly there by private jet, along with the nearest private airports.
Some of these would make ideal day trips if you’re celebrating a special occasion, or just want a day’s getaway. Others further afield can be incorporated into a holiday or added on to a business trip, as we are seeing with the trend for ‘bleisure’ travel - travellers extending their business trips to make the most of their trip and experience the destination. If you’re a foodie, these truly are culinary experiences worth flying by private jet for.
Mirazur – Menton, France
Celebrating 10 years in the World's Top 50 Restaurants ranking by rising to No. 1, Mirazur offers unique Mediterranean cuisine inspired by the sea, the mountains and the restaurant's own gardens, as well as unrivalled views of the French Riviera. Under the direction of Mauro Colagreco, one of the many highlights from their tasting menu includes salt-crusted beetroot with caviar cream, eggs with smoked eel and hazelnuts.
Noma – Copenhagen, Denmark
René Redzepi's visionary approach celebrates terroir with ingredient-focused, minimalist plates. Having closed his original Noma restaurant and moving his new restaurant to Refshalevej Island, the first service took place in February 2018. The restaurant offers three menus per year, each roughly 20 courses, and each focused on the best ingredients available during the given season. The ideology, however, is consistent all year round: native ingredients explored through the lens of myriad cooking techniques that join to become far more than the sum of their constituent parts.
Asador Etxebarri – Axpe, Spain
Chef Victor Arguinzoniz achieves explosives flavours from seemingly simple ingredients using an open hearth. The food urges each ingredient to show its true potential and includes goat's milk churned into ethereal butter, green peas amplified in their own juice and beef dry aged for so many days that it bites with umami. Distinguishing this restaurant from many other world-class restaurants, its simple and unpretentious – a stone-adorned second floor room that sits above a basic bar that doubles as the village pub.
Gaggan – Bangkok, Thailand
Ranking 4 years in a row as Asia's top restaurants, chef Gaggan Anand continues to serve up a menu of 25 courses of rapid-fire small bites, many of which are eaten with the hands. The menu has evolved from purely modern Indian to a more global cuisine, including Mexican-inspired taco bites and Japanese-Indian nigiri sushi alongside signatures such as Lick It Up, where diners are encouraged to lick a flavoursome curry straight from the plate.
Geranium – Copenhagen, Denmark
Nature and technology are at the heart of Rasmus Kofoed's progressive, 17 course tasting menu, consisting of organic and wild Scandinavian ingredients. Presenting artful, detailed plates, fragile near-translucent leaves are made from a Jerusalem artichoke purée and what look to be razor clams are actually dough painted with squid ink. Set in the unexpected locale of a national soccer stadium, the wine list is 2,500 bottles long, spanning from classic selections to natural-leaning juice and has won numerous accolades.