L’Arpège in Paris Named the Number One Restaurant in Europe Opinionated About Dining Presents First-Ever Culinary Awards

Opinionated About Dining (OAD), the leading source of global restaurant rankings for devout diners, announces the 2016 “Top 100+ European” restaurant ranking with Alain Passard’s visionary restaurant, L’Arpège, reaching the number one spot.

Restaurants hailing from Spain, France, Belgium, Italy and Denmark typically dominate the list, but for the first time, France boasts the number one ranked restaurant. Leading with the most representation is France (48), United Kingdom (28), Italy (27), Spain (24), Belgium (20), Germany (11), Denmark (10), Netherlands (10), Sweden (8), Austria (6), Portugal (3), Norway (1), Greece (1), Czech Republic (1), Finland (1), and Switzerland (1).

This year’s “Top 100+ European” ranking will mark another major milestone in the survey’s history. OAD unveils three distinct awards bestowed upon chefs and restaurants gracing the list, with recipients including:

“Best New Restaurant” – Disfrutar, Barcelona, Spain

“Highest New Entry” – Kadeau Bornholm, Aakirkeby, Denmark

“Special Culinary Achievement” – Rene Redzepi’s Noma, Copenhagen, Denmark

Restaurants opened on or later than January 1, 2015, were eligible for the best new restaurant award. Nine destinations were in the running, but Disfrutar, one of Barcelona’s most celebrated new restaurants, emerged victorious. OAD founder, Steven Plotnicki, presented recipients with their awards during the “Top 100+ European” barbecue hosted at Nimb Terrasse at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen today, with food prepared by eight guest chefs, including: Rene Redzepi – Noma; Niklas Ekstedt – Restaurant Ekstedt; Tim Raue – Tim Raue and Pierre Marcolini – Pierre Marcolini.

Highlighting new developments on this year’s list, Plotnicki said, “With the creation of the Top 100 Classical & Heritage Restaurants opening up numerous slots on the Top 100+ list, it allowed the OAD reviewers to pay tribute to 60 new additions on the 2016 list.

To view the full “Top 100+ European” list, please click HERE. The top 10, include:

About Opinionated About Dining

OAD is the premier restaurant rating system compiled by an expert membership of highly literate connoisseurs of the culinary arts who travel the world to experience the art of food. By relying on statistical accuracy, transparency, discerning palates and weighted votes of members, the Opinionated About Dining survey provides a more distinctive approach to rating restaurants.

The OAD algorithm generates a ranking system that classifies restaurants based on the reviews of the membership community. Each member influences the results based on the number of restaurants he/she has visited and the current ranking of those restaurants. At the end of each rating year, restaurants are ranked using a combination of data including: the type of reviews they attract (from positive to negative); the level of reviewer who visited (the percentage of experienced and inexperienced reviewers), and whether the number of reviewers who visited that year is trending upward, downward, or holding steady. By using this method, OAD eliminates a dilution of results experienced in other voting systems that are based on surveys, while at the same time offering everyone an opportunity to participate. The resulting list reflects the combined expertise of a community that is dedicated to the dining experience, versus the collective view of the average diner, or the subjective rating by a restaurant critic.

About Steve Plotnicki

Plotnicki’s passion for food has long been an intrinsic part of his life, if not always his career. A native New Yorker, he was a successful guitarist and songwriter before co-founding Profile Records in 1981. In 2003, he launched a discussion forum, which morphed into his “Opinionated About Dining” blog, a project that established him as one of the most prolific early food bloggers. Initially conceived as a way to share information about his dining experiences with other enthusiasts, “Opinionated About Dining” continued to evolve and attract readers. In 2007, Plotnicki developed a formal survey for readers and fellow diners and published a 56-page booklet in 2008 featuring the 100 best restaurants in North America and Europe. Since then, Plotnicki has further refined the survey process authored and published Opinionated About U.S. Restaurants in 2011, and continually publishes the rankings of the top restaurants around the world.