We just love our lists, don’t we? The only thing we like better than lists is awards. So for the culinary world, the release os the World’s 50 Best Restaurants is a little like getting both in one. And for those high on the fumes of a list that contains 50 restaurants there’s an extra hit in store: 50 more!

The list is the work of a group of 900 members of something called simply The Academy. It’s organized by Restaurant magazine and sponsored by S. Pellegrino and Acqua Panna. The members — food critics, chefs, restaurateurs and what the organization’s website describes as “highly regarded ‘foodies'” — are divided among 26 global regions.

Once again, the top restaurant in the world is Noma of Copenhagen. Eleven Madison Park, New York, was the highest ranked U.S. restaurant, followed by Chicago’s Alinea. Other domestic restaurants include Le Bernadin (21), Per Se (30), Daniel (40), the French Laundry (44) and Coi (49).

Here’s a link to theworlds50best website where you can see the entire list.

Timing of the list’s announcement is interesting, one week in advance of the James Beard Awards on Monday, May 5. What’s more interesting, at least to me, is that no restaurants in New Orleans made either the top 50 or the top 100 restaurants. As you’ll recall, New Orleans dominates the Southern region of the Beard awards. Indeed, in the last four years alone, of the 20 finalists for best chef award, 15 have been from New Orleans restaurants.

How many of the world’s top restaurants have you been to?

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