The World's 50 Best Restaurants land in Lima on 4 November

The World's 50 Best Restaurants will be announced in Lima on Wednesday 4 November, the first time the ceremony has been staged anywhere in South America.

The organisers named Abu Dhabi as host in February and changed the destination to Lima in July. No reason for the switch has been published. PromPeru, the country's trade and tourism commission, is the partner behind the move.

The week runs to a familiar shape. #50BestTalks takes place on 3 November, Signature Sessions put visiting chefs into local kitchens through the days before, and the awards themselves are read out on the evening of the 4th, streamed live on YouTube.

Peru spent twenty years arguing Lima belonged at this table. Now the table travels.

Why the World's 50 Best Restaurants chose Lima

Because the list already lives there. Maido was named the world's best restaurant in 2025 and Central took the title in 2023; Kjolle, Merito and Mayta are all in the top 50. No other city on the current list has that density outside Europe.

The Champions of Change, Art of Hospitality and One To Watch awards are announced before the night, as usual. The Best Female Chef Award and the Icon Award are kept for the ceremony, along with the 51-100 list that is read out first and now matters more to bookings than the bottom half of the top 50.

What a host city actually buys

A tourism board pays, a country gets three days of chefs, cameras and long-haul flight bookings, and the list gets a room. It is the same arrangement that puts public money behind restaurant guides in Texas, only louder and with a bigger audience.

The regional lists have already been read out this year. North America's 50 Best 2026 has been published, and Asia's 50 Best kept Bangkok as the continent's leading city for a second year running, with nine restaurants inside the top 50. Lima closes the sequence.

Peru has spent two decades building the case that Lima belongs at this table, through Central, Maido and a generation of cooks who stayed. On 4 November the argument gets made at home, in front of the people who have been making it. Whether the top spot stays in the city is a separate question, and the only one anybody in the room will be counting.