Le Bernardin, a 32-year-old mainstay of Midtown Manhattan, has been named the best restaurant in the world by La Liste, a ratings organization based in Paris. The seafood restaurant shares that honor with Restaurant Guy Savoy, in Paris, the group said in an announcement on Thursday. It ranked 1,000 establishments.
Though Le Bernardin was named No. 1 in the United States on last year’s list, Eric Ripert, the restaurant’s chef and partner, said he had had no expectations of rising to the top of the global ranking.
“I’m happy to be rewarded,” he said. “And I’m very pleased that a French organization has recognized an American restaurant, that the United States is at the top.” (Le Bernardin was actually born in Paris, opened in 1972 by Gilbert and Maguy Le Coze, who created the New York restaurant in 1986.)
La Liste was started in 2015 by an independent French group and is supported by corporate sponsors. Unlike other rating groups, it feeds computers, not reviewers — collecting ratings and reviews from more than 600 entities, including guidebooks, newspapers, magazines and websites like Yelp and OpenTable. It even considers diners’ comments. Then it uses an algorithm to come up with a score for each restaurant.
“These things are always controversial, but in a way everyone, even Pete Wells, has a voice in these results,” Mr. Ripert said, referring to the New York Times restaurant critic, who gave Le Bernardin four stars, The Times’s highest rating, when it was last reviewed, in 2012.
The countries with the most restaurants on this year’s list are Japan, with 149, and China, with 143. France has 116, and the United States, 91.
Several restaurants that have been highly rated by other organizations in recent years are in the top 10 on La Liste: Eleven Madison Park, in New York, is in third place, in a tie with four other restaurants including the French Laundry, in the Napa Valley; El Celler de Can Roca, in Girona, Spain, is one of several restaurants in sixth place; Osteria Francescana, in Modena, Italy, is in eighth place.
Because of ties, there are 50 restaurants in the top 10. They include Jean-Georges, in New York; Blue Hill at Stone Barns, in Westchester County; the Inn at Little Washington, in Virginia; and the Restaurant at Meadowood in California.
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Florence Fabricant is a food and wine writer. She writes the weekly Front Burner and Off the Menu columns, as well as the Pairings column, which appears alongside the monthly wine reviews. She has also written 12 cookbooks.
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