World’s 12 most exciting new restaurants for 2025
Offering everything from views of the Egyptian pyramids and raspberries foraged in the Himalayan foothills, these eateries are grabbing the attention of gourmet travellers.
New Nordic? Spanish Modernism? Both those groundbreaking gastronomy styles are still sweeping up the stars and sashes, but there are countless new restaurants forging their own unique paths globally, from Ho Chi Minh City to the Himalayas. Here are our picks of the world’s most exciting destination diners.
Le Grand Cafe, Paris
It seems restaurateurs all over the world are opening grand Parisian-style bistros at the moment (Sydney and Melbourne are swimming in dijon and demi-glace). If you can, go straight to the source. Le Grand Cafe Paris, which opened this year inside the glamorous, glass-domed Grand Palais in the 8th arrondissement, is a good place to begin your explorations. It has everything you could want in the way of French gastronomic flourish: white tablecloths, huge walls of mirrors, Belle Epoque embellishments. And while you might find a more traditional pot au feu or cassoulet at one of the capital’s older stalwarts, here you’ll be served food that is deeply French but also resolutely now, such as a heavenly lobster salad freshened with raspberries, or airy veal sweetbreads with lemon and rosemary. Settle in beside a grand marble sculpture, or beneath a camellia tree on the terrace that would make Coco Chanel reach for her sketchbook, and feel as Parisian as a breton shirt or a ballet slipper-toned manicure.
Don’t miss: The ile flottante dessert, a froufrou fluff of meringue and creme anglaise.
Tala, Auckland, New Zealand
If you are in the enviable position of doing a lot of fine dining across the globe, you have probably noticed your palate can slump into a certain numb weariness. Another droll amuse bouche capped with caviar. More tuiles shaped like Michelin stars. Tala, in Auckland, brings joy to the jaded, with chef/owner Henry Onesemo cooking the under-represented – and excellent – food of Samoa. Across a multi-course tasting menu – all seared and sizzled with flame – he introduces diners to the food of his Pasifika childhood, including snacks presented on banana chips, fresh seafood, and playful takes on instant ramen and roadside barbecues. Critically, while the food is fun, it’s never kitsch. Above all, it’s unerringly delicious. This is easily one of the most exciting restaurants in the southern hemisphere today.
Don’t miss: The intriguing and beautifully balanced eggplant and black pepper mocktail.
AngloThai, London
Once derisively dismissed as “fusion”, blending cuisines and influences is now considered modern and exciting (see also: the Indian-Japanese mashup that is Inja in Delhi, and Sydney’s own culture-cartwheeler, Baba’s Place). The heartfelt Anglo-Thai, from husband and wife team John and Desiree Chantarasak, has Thai cuisine at its core, while making use of British ingredients and techniques. That might mean a dessert inspired by sangkaya faktong, a Thai pumpkin custard, treated like an English pudding with its accompaniment of brown-butter honey cake, or a southern-style beef curry served with brioche rather than roti. All of it stays true to the Thai tenets of balance: salty, sweet, sour, spicy and bitter. For some, the lack of purity may feel like sacrilege. For others, it’s a welcome – and scrumptious – reminder that good food doesn’t adhere to boundaries.
Don’t miss: Popping in for lunch; AngloThai does a very reasonable five-course tasting menu for just £65 ($135).
Naar, Himachal Pradesh, India
The idea of trekking into the Himalayan foothills for a restaurant meal might sound like a madcap scene from mock comedy-horror movie The Menu. In fact, Naar is one of the most warm-spirited and delightful openings in India in recent years (and no trekking involved). Guests can reach this remote restaurant, helmed by endlessly likable chef Prateek Sadhu (formerly of Masque in Mumbai) by car or even a UNESCO-protected scenic rail journey. They’ll be greeted by a warm fire in winter, or spectacular sunset views of the world’s most famous peaks in summer, followed by a multi-course exploration of the region’s mountainous cuisine, from northern Kashmir – where Sadhu was born – to Arunachal Pradesh in the east. Sadhu and his team spend almost as much time foraging as they do developing the menu and cooking, so at the right time you might see dishes containing Himalayan golden raspberries, or wild rosehips. And don’t worry, you don’t need to reverse the journey until at least the next day. The restaurant is part of the luxury Amaya resort, so you can retreat to one of its cliffside cabins overnight.
Don’t miss: Scouring the dining room for Sadhu’s collection of panda figurines – it’s his favourite animal.
Bridges, New York
The hottest restaurateur in Manhattan right now is … an Australian? No it’s not Andy Lee, of Hamish and Andy fame, who recently opened a proper Aussie pub, Old Mates, in the Financial District (though that’s getting plenty of buzz too). It’s ex-Melburnian Sam Lawrence who’s heading the kitchen at Bridges, one of the hardest tables to book anywhere in the city. Formerly of SoHo hotspot Estela, Lawrence brings his just-that-little-bit-subversive approach to European cooking to this Chinatown newcomer in a way that feels both upscale and relaxed at the same time. The dishes have a playfulness that will probably be familiar to Australian diners, who tend to enjoy European classics pushed a bit further than their usual stiff confines. So that means the tight menu could include a salad of beetroot with pomelo and caviar, or vin jaune served not as an accent to meat or fish, but as a gelato. It’s all housed inside a beautiful room in shades of creme brulee and caramel; a cocoon of cool luxury.
Don’t miss: The cult comte tart that may be served with chanterelles, truffles or peas, depending on the season.
Paz, Faroe Islands
Poul Andrias Ziska is one of the most exciting and experimental chefs. For years he has dreamed up foraged feasts at his former restaurant, Koks, which moved locations between the tiny, windswept islands of the Faroes and a diminutive village in Greenland. Comparatively, his new venture, Paz, is in the big smoke, opening this year in the Faroes capital of Torshavn. The location may be a fraction more accessible but the commitment to Faroese food culture, and its unique cold-climate ingredients, remains unchanged. That means a multi-course tasting menu with an emphasis on coldwater seafood, native berries and livestock, particularly lamb (sheep outnumber people on the islands).
Don’t miss: The raest kjot, or fermented lamb, with rutabaga and lingonberry, served alongside cured and aged lamb leg.
Anan Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Thailand has been hogging a good portion of Asia’s gastronomic spotlight in recent years, with Bangkok’s Gaggan topping Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list for 2024, and Le Du, in the same city, taking top spot the year before. But right next door in Vietnam, a quieter but no less exciting culinary revolution is under way. Anan Saigon (Anan means “eat, eat!”) holds one of the country’s seven Michelin stars, but it is making such big waves in the food community that more could be on the way. Chef Peter Cuong Franklin likes to say he “elevates” Vietnamese street food, though you could argue the country’s fresh, herbaceous and chargrilled snack culture is refined enough in its own right. The two multi-course tasting menus focus on reinterpretations of classic Vietnamese dishes such as banh mi and bun cha, while exploring the different regional dishes of the country from north to south.
Don’t miss: Pot au Pho, Franklin’s noodle bar on the same premises, which explores the flavours and components of Vietnam’s iconic soup across a 10-course tasting experience.
Khufu’s, Cairo, Egypt
Until the day comes when they build a restaurant on the moon, so diners can eyeball the entirety of planet Earth while eating their entrees, Khufu’s in Cairo may hold the distinction of the restaurant with the world’s most breathtaking setting. With unobstructed views of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the indoor/outdoor restaurant has been designed in the same sandy shades as the monument and the surrounding desert, giving you the sense that you are embedded deep within the landscape. Executive chef Mostafa Seif creates what is known as “new Egyptian cuisine”, which means lighter, fresher reinterpretations of traditional dishes such as the crisp carb-bomb that is Egypt’s national dish – koshari – or sea bass served with mefatela, a local wheat porridge. Khufu this year was tipped as the “one to watch” on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, though who could really watch anything else when the pyramid’s silhouette is blazing beneath a crimson sunset.
Don’t miss: The generous weekend breakfast menu, which features abundant Egyptian platters of falafel, eggs, ful medames and dips.
Restaurant Pearl Morissette, Niagara Valley, Canada
Like Australians, Canadians can suffer from “cuisine confusion”; few locals can precisely define their national cuisine. But similar to the output of their Commonwealth cousins at the opposite end of the globe, Canadian cooking is led by one ethos above all else: wonderful, pristine ingredients. This winery, regenerative farm, bakehouse and restaurant, an hour’s drive from Toronto, and splashed with wildflowers or snow depending on the season, approaches those ingredients better than most. Eight years after opening, the restaurant clocked the top spot on the annual Canada’s 100 Best list in 2025, which has sparked new interest in its singular approach to produce-led cooking. Highlights of the menu include trout sourced from the Great Lakes, sturgeon caviar from New Brunswick, and herbs, fruits and vegetables grown in the property’s own groves and orchards.
Don’t miss: Matching your meal with wine from the vineyard, particularly the team’s acclaimed chardonnay and cabernet franc.
Arami, La Paz, Bolivia
The great gastronomic rise of South America continues with the opening of Arami in the Bolivian capital in late 2024. Led by Palestinian/Bolivian chef Marsia Taha Mohamed, formerly of La Paz’s multi-award winning Gustu restaurant, the venue aims to expand the diversity of Bolivian Amazonian and Andean cuisine, ingredients and heritage. Arami means “a little piece of sky” in the Indigenous Guarani language, and this light-filled, foliage-cocooned restaurant feels celestial from the moment you step through the doors.
Don’t miss: Any dish that involves paiche, the giant prehistoric fish of the Amazon, which has been prized by Indigenous communities for millennia.
Gerbou, Dubai
“We need more Emirati restaurants,” cries global gourmand Claudia deBrito in a recent video about the Dubai restaurant scene. Admittedly, she has skin in the game; as a Dubai resident and chair of World’s 50 Best Restaurants Middle East and North Africa, she is wildly excited about seeing the traditional food of her region given the spotlight it deserves, particularly in the sea of flashy, celebrity chef-led fine diners for which Dubai is famed. Gerbou, which opened in February, may be the answer to her pleas. Gerbou means “welcome to our humble abode” in Arabic, and guests are indeed welcomed – from breakfast through to dinner – with dishes such as fish mathrooba (a spiced porridge) and chicken salona, a classic Gulf stew.
Don’t miss: Bringing the little ones. Children are more than welcome here, and there’s even a dedicated kids’ menu designed for developing palates.
Casa Marcial, Asturias, Spain
When you think of Spanish restaurants spangled in Michelin stars, most minds go to the big city, boundary-pushing bad boys such as Madrid’s DiverXO or Barcelona’s Disfrutar. The country’s newest three-star is a far cry from either of those. At Casa Marcial, in a remote, mountainous region of Asturias in the north of the country, Nacho Mazano and his sisters, Esther and Sandra, don’t only present meaningful dishes that have been refined through generations of their family’s cooking, they do so inside the very home where they were born. In awarding the restaurant its third Michelin star for 2025 – the only restaurant in the country to receive the honour in this year’s guide – inspectors described its offering as one of “passion, respect, love and hospitality”. Are you likely to eat something squeezed on to your plate with a pipette like you would at DiverXO, or resembling a dead leaf’s skeleton like you might find at Disfrutar? Absolutely not. But what you will be served is a refined example of Spanish terroir, tasting of the ocean, the forests and the mountains.
Don’t miss: Turning up in spring, if you’re able, to sample Spanish teardrop peas. Fresh, bursting and sweet, they are one of the most delicious vegetables ever.
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