‘El Bulli’, located in the Girona town of Roses, owned by the famous Spanish restaurateur Ferrán Adrià , was crowned best restaurant in the world for the third year running in a gala ceremony organised by the renowned gastronomic magazine ‘Restaurant’ to present the ‘S. Pellegrino’ awards for the 50 best restaurants in the world.

Another two Spanish restaurants are among the top 10. They are the Basque establishments ‘Mugaritz’, in fourth place, and ‘Arzak’, in eighth place.

‘El Bulli’ managed to maintain its number one position owing to Adriá’s inexhaustible creativity, earning him the nickname of “the alchemist” for his culinary experiments at the stove. Second place went to the British restaurant ‘The Fat Duck’, located in Berkshire, west of London, owned by restaurateur Heston Blumenthal, while third place went to the Paris restaurant ‘Pierre Gagnaire’, owned by the chef of the same name.

Four more Spanish restaurants also appear in the publication’s top 50 list, they are: the Catalonian restaurant ‘El Celler de Can Roca’ owned by Joan Roca and his brothers Josep and Jordi, in twenty-sixth place; the Basque restaurant ‘Martín Berasategui’, in twenty-ninth place; the Catalonian restaurant ‘Can Fabes’ owned by Santi Santamaría, in thirty-first place and the Basque restaurant ‘Asador Etxebarri’, in forty-fourth place.

These seven establishments make Spain the third country with the greatest number of high ranking restaurants in the western world, behind France, with ten, and the US, with eight.

Although not among the top 50, the following Spanish restaurants made the ‘top 100’ list : ‘El Poblet’, located in Dènia, Alicante, at number 66; ‘Akelarre’, in San Sebastián at number 74; ‘Sant Pau’ owned by Carme Ruscalleda located in San Pol de Mar at number 75 and ‘ÁBaC’ in Barcelona at number 100.

First published by ‘Restaurant’ magazine in 2002, the S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants is recognised around the world as an indicator of the best places to eat on the globe. It incites passionate debate and sometimes controversy, but the excitement it generates among those who aspire to make the list, and the massive interest it arouses in the restaurant industry as the whole, make it an eagerly anticipated yearly event as well as an international benchmark.

The list is compiled by The Nespresso World’s 50 Best Academy, a group of prominent food writers, critics, publishers and commentators, who each represent a different global region and chair a carefully selected voting panel for that region.