NOMA – COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
Following what chef-owner René Redzepi calls a ‘restaurant mid-life crisis’, Noma has dramatically re-taken the top spot in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. The period of angst and creative hiatus he refers to was not prompted by last year’s ‘demotion’ to second spot, but conversely by Noma capturing and retaining the title of The S.Pellegrino World’s Best Restaurant over several years previously.

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These are followed by 10 further courses – a dish of beef tartar and ants among them – before the meal is rounded off with a stunning array of ‘treats’. Redzepi’s food can at times be shocking – visceral even – but diners who are prepared to put themselves in the kitchen’s hands rarely leave disappointed. With flavour to the fore, there are dishes here that slap you in the face and make you feel glad to be alive.Never content to sit still, Redzepi and his crew are shipping the restaurant out to Japan in early 2015 for two months, where they will seek to apply their philosophy to Japanese ingredients. But for now Noma can celebrate its 10th anniversary on top of the world once again.