Mingles, Onjium named among world's 50 best restaurants

Two Korean fine-dining restaurants, Mingles and Onjium, have been named among the world's 50 best restaurants.

At the 2026 World's 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony held Wednesday (local time) at the Municipal Theater in Lima, Peru, Mingles placed 17th and Onjium 41st.

The awards are organized by British media company William Reed, with more than 1,000 chefs, food journalists and restaurant industry figures worldwide voting to select the top 50. The ceremony has previously been held in Europe, North America and Asia, but this year's edition marked the first time it was held in South America.

Mingles, run by Chef Kang Min-goo, is a hansik fine-dining restaurant that opened in 2014 and holds the only Michelin three-star rating in South Korea. Kang is credited with broadening the horizons of Korean cuisine by incorporating traditional Korean fermented pastes into the cooking while reinterpreting the cuisine through a modern lens.

Onjium, led by chefs Cho Eun-hee and Park Sung-bae, researches historical Korean cookbooks to reconstruct traditional cuisine, drawing on royal court cooking, aristocratic household recipes and regional dishes from across the country. Rather than confining itself to tradition alone, the restaurant layers a contemporary sensibility onto that foundation, presenting the past, present and future of Korean culinary culture.

Two more Korean restaurants made the extended list of the world's top 100: Itanik Garden by Chef Son Jong-won ranked 72nd, and Mosu by Chef Ahn Sung-jae came in 78th. The top spot overall went to Asador Etxebarri, located in Vizcaya, Spain, while Gaggan in Bangkok, Thailand, placed second.