World's 50 Best Restaurants 2026 arrives in Lima
The ceremony lands in Peru for the first time on Wednesday, after organisers moved it from its original host city, Abu Dhabi.
The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2026 ranking is revealed in Lima on Wednesday, the first time the 24-year-old awards have been held in Peru.
The ceremony was originally announced for Abu Dhabi. Organisers switched the host city earlier this year, pointing to Lima's standing as, in their words, a growing creative force in global dining, built on the city's cultural heritage and its concentration of ambitious kitchens, several of which already feature on Amuse's own rundown of Lima's best tables.
The programme runs across several days. The 50 Best Talks, a series of industry panels, take place on 3 November. Ticketed Signature Sessions follow at restaurants around the city, pairing visiting chefs with local kitchens, though the full chef line-up has not yet been published.
Lima is a growing creative force in the global dining community, built on deep cultural heritage.
Maido, named The World's Best Restaurant in 2025, will not defend its position. Under 50 Best rules, the reigning champion moves into the Best of the Best group and drops out of future voting, the same mechanism that pushed Frantzén out of this year's main ranking after it topped an earlier list.
How the Lima ceremony works
The main event on Wednesday reveals the 1-50 ranking in full. Several awards are handed out alongside it, including Best Female Chef and the Icon Award, along with the Champions of Change, Art of Hospitality and One To Watch prizes. The ceremony streams live on the 50 Best YouTube channel.
The 51-100 extended list, along with the Champions of Change and Art of Hospitality honourees, is published ahead of the main ceremony rather than on the night itself, a format 50 Best has used in recent years to spread coverage across the week.
Deloitte again serves as the ranking's independent adjudication partner, auditing the voting process carried out by the organisation's regional academies of chefs, restaurateurs and critics. S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna sponsor the event, as they have for most of its history.
Why Lima, why now
Lima has placed multiple restaurants in the top 50 in recent years, and Peruvian cooking's run through the world's dining press has been long and well documented, from ceviche's spread onto foreign menus to the country's produce-driven tasting menus. Hosting the ceremony puts that reputation on its home ground rather than importing the industry to a new market, as the Abu Dhabi plan would have done.
The switch leaves Abu Dhabi's bid for a future edition unresolved. 50 Best has moved its host city before, and organisers have given no indication of where the 2027 ceremony will be held.
