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 The restaurant overlooking Madison Square Park was praised
for its sense of fun in blending a creative tasting menu with
gracious hospitality. It rose from third place last year,
overtaking Italy's Osteria Francescana and Spain's El Celler de
Can Roca.
"We get to help people celebrate some of the most important
moments in their lives or give them the grace to forget
something for a moment," said co-owner Will Guidara on receiving
the top gong with Swiss-born chef Daniel Humm.
The restaurant, where Humm's prized dish is celery root cooked
in a pig's bladder, has just extended its lease for another 20
years and will close for three months for an overhaul.
"We're about to embark on a completely new journey," Guidara
told reporters, calling the prize a fitting end to the first
phase of Eleven Madison's journey.
Since the inception of the award in 2002, California's French
Laundry is the only other non-European establishment to claim
the top prize. It won in 2003 and 2004.
The top 10 included two Peruvian restaurants, Central, which
slipped to no.5 from fourth place last year, and Maido which
climbed to no. 8 from 13.
Peru is becoming a dining hot spot as the country has so many
terrains at different altitudes for creative chefs to gather
ingredients, one of the voters for the award, German food writer
Christoph Teuner, told Reuters.
The only Asian restaurant in the top 10 was Bangkok's Gaggan,
where owner-chef Gaggan Anand has created a modern take on his
native Indian cuisine by deconstructing favorites like samosas
and tikka masala.
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Spain continued to dominate the line-up with three restaurants in
the top 10, including Mugaritz, while France had only one in the top
10 - Mirazur in the south-eastern town of Menton.
Rounding out the top 10 was Vienna's Steirereck, housed in a glass
cube, where freshwater mountain fish is cooked at the table in hot
beeswax.
The list was created by William Reed Business Media, and the gongs
are now as coveted as Michelin stars.
Danish restaurant Noma, in the top 10 for nine successive years and
winner of the award four-times, dropped out of the list as chef Rene
Redzepi has closed the restaurant while moving it to a new venue in
Copenhagen.
There are no criteria for putting a restaurant on the list, which is
based on a poll of more than 1,000 chefs, food critics and other
industry insiders spread across 26 regions. Each member gets 10
votes and at least four of those votes have to be for restaurants
outside their region.
(Reporting by Sonali Paul; Additional reporting by Melanie Burton,
editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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