Ana Roš skips the 50 Best ceremony over visibility

Ana Roš, chef of Hiša Franko in Kobarid, did not travel to Lima for the World's 50 Best Restaurants 2026 ceremony on November 4, saying she would rather spend the time and money on guests, staff and producers.

Roš set out her reasoning in a post on October 21, reported by German trade outlet Tageskarte on October 28. Her case: success within the 50 Best ranking increasingly tracks how visible a restaurant is inside the awards circuit, not only how it cooks.

She pointed to the international dinners, press trips and campaigns that now surround the list every year, and the time and budget restaurants pour into them. If visibility becomes the real currency, she warned, marketing skill starts to matter as much as what leaves the kitchen.

If visibility becomes the real currency, marketing skill starts to matter as much as what leaves the kitchen.

Roš was careful to separate the critique from the people. She said she was not judging the chefs, restaurants or journalists still taking part, many of them friends, and that she would celebrate their results from a distance.

A ranking built on visibility

The timing sharpens the point. Lima hosted the ceremony for the first time, with Basque restaurant Asador Etxebarri taking the top spot from Peru's Maido, last year's winner. Reaching that stage now routinely means chefs touring guest-chef dinners and industry events well before voting closes.

50 Best has pushed back on the broader “pay to play” charge before. The organisation says any restaurant can qualify and that “best” is defined restaurant by restaurant through its roughly 1,100 anonymous voters, a mix of chefs, food writers and well-travelled diners who each nominate up to ten restaurants, with at least a quarter of the panel rotating annually. It has also added awards for sustainability, sommeliers, pastry chefs and, this year, a Champions of Change prize aimed at community-level impact rather than dining-room spectacle.

A chef with history on the list

Roš was named the World's Best Female Chef by 50 Best in 2017, and Hiša Franko became the first restaurant in Slovenia to hold three Michelin stars in 2023. She framed her 2026 absence against fonder memories of the list's early years, when, she said, it was a smaller, livelier community that brought guests from across the world into a narrow valley in Slovenia and left her with friendships that have lasted.

Her restaurant kept its spot on this year's extended list regardless. What changes, on her account, is how much of the work now happens off the plate. Smaller national prizes draw a fraction of that attention: Spain's own chef-of-the-year award, awarded weeks earlier, came with no ceremony in Lima.