World's best restaurant announced

Get dialing for your reservation now: Noma in Copenhagen has been named the world's best restaurant at a ceremony revealing the planet's top 50 dining venues.

To raucous cheers, high fives, hugs and kisses, team Noma took to the stage in a packed London venue in jubilant scenes that wouldn't be out of place at the World Cup in Brazil later this year.

Noma's top honor in the prestigious San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurant Awards -- viewed as the Oscars of fine dining -- was the fourth win for minimalist Danish pioneer of foraged menus.

The award was presented late Monday at a ceremony in central London attended by some of the world's leading chefs.

"It's too (expletive deleted) crazy!" said Noma's head chef, Rene Redzepi, picking up the award. "Thank you for believing in us.

"In the last year (after the restaurant was awarded second place) my staff and I looked into each others' eyes and said 'let's just really really work hard.' We made a plan and said 'let's make this the best year we've ever had.'"

"But to have this is a whole surprise, none of us expected it."

The list, now in its 12th year, is dominated by European venues, but there were prizes for restaurants from around the world, including Asia's first top 20 entry.

The biggest climber was Lima, Peru, restaurant Central, which jumped from No. 50 last year to No. 15 this year.

The highest debut entry was Gaggan from Bangkok, which came in at No. 17.


/CNN/