The World’s 50 Best 2023 awards ceremony in Valencia, Spain, also named Central in Lima the best restaurant in the world
In a resounding success, Singapore’s Odette was named the top restaurant in Asia at the World’s 50 Best 2023 awards ceremony in Valencia, Spain on Tuesday night. The honour was conferred alongside a No. 14 spot on the prestigious list, jumping up from No. 36 in 2022.
Chef-owner Julien Royer, who is also the chef-owner of Claudine in Singapore, also received the Estrella Damm Chef’s Choice Award, the only peer-voted prize in the World’s 50 Best programme honouring a chef who has made a “positive contribution to the global culinary scene over the past year”. “It's no wonder Julien Royer is respected by his peers, but the fact that fellow cooks voted him as winner of the Estrella Damm Chefs’ Choice Award 2023 for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants is evidence they also value him as a dynamic personality and key member of the global chef community,” the World’s 50 Best announced in an Instagram post shortly after the award was announced.
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“I’m so happy,” Royer told Tatler after the ceremony. “Besides the ranking, the [Estralla Damm Chef’s Choice] award is the most meaningful for me. Being chosen by the peers and chefs that you truly admire and respect is huge!”
The awards cemented Odette’s status as the premier destination dining spot in Singapore and Asia. Named after Royer’s grandmother, reviewers with World’s 50 Best were impressed with Royer’s “modern French dishes”, cooked “in the most refined way but with an Asian twist”. “Odette, aptly located at Singapore’s historic National Gallery, offers a true fine-dining experience—impeccable service, exquisite wines and dishes prepared with utmost dexterity—but without any stuffiness,” the World’s 50 Best mentioned. One of the few restaurants to boast three Michelin stars, it has consistently claimed the award for Singapore’s best restaurant at the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants from 2018 to 2023, with a spot at No. 1 from 2019 to 2020.
When asked what we can expect from Odette moving forward, Royer replied that the restaurant will “never sleeep, never rest on our laurels”, and “keep pushing”, and will keep “striving to refine the dining experience” by asking themselves what they can do better today “as a team”. But for now, a simple celebration with the Odette team when he gets back to Singapore is in order.
The top spot on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2023 went to Central in Lima, Peru, helmed by Virgilio Martinez, Pia Leon, and Malena Martinez, for their “innovative tasting menu reflecting the nation’s incredible biodiversity”, “from 20m below the sea to 4,100m up in the Andes.” At No. 2 was Disfrutar in Barcelona, Spain (which was also crowned best restaurant in Europe) and Diverxo in Madrid, Spain.
Read more: Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2023: The restaurants which made it into this prestigious list
