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Italy has world's third-best restaurant

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Italy has world's third-best restaurant
Massimo Bottura is praised for his ability to “balance the demands of heritage and modernity”. Photo: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP

For the second year running, Massimo Bottura's restaurant Osteria Francescana in Modena, northern Italy, has won third place on a list of the world's 50 best restaurants.

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Modena-based Osteria Francescana has once again clinched a top spot in the annual awards for the world’s 50 best restaurants.

The restaurant lost out only to Renè Redzepi’s Copenhagen-based Noma which reclaimed the number one slot and Spain’s El Celler de Can Roca which came in second.

Last year the four-time Danish winner lost out to the Spanish eatery, breaking its winning streak which it continued between 2010 and 2012.

First opened in 1995, Bottura’s Osteria Francescana was awarded its first Michelin star in 2002, a second four years later, and a third in 2011. Bottura also won the Chef’s Choice award in 2011.

In a review on the website for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, Bottura is praised for his ability to “balance the demands of heritage and modernity” by creating a “restaurant where traditionalists and those seeking something entirely new are both amply catered for.”

According to the website, Bottura’s menu can be split into three categories: traditional, regional dishes that have “little or no edgy elements”, as well as modern classics and newly developed dishes.

“Anyone sampling Osteria Francescana for the first time would be advised to try one in each category to get a true sense of the team’s extraordinary range,” it says on the website.

Highlights on the menu include five ages of Parmesan and foie gras crunch, described as “a take on a Feast ice cream with a hunk of foie gras bound in hazelnuts and filled with balsamic vinegar”, and ‘camouflage’ – “a thin layer of foie gras decorated with powders (hare blood, chestnut and various herbs)”.

Bottura wasn’t the only Italian to clinch a spot in the top 50. Enrico Crippa’s Piazza Duomo di Alba in Cuneo made it into 39th place and the Alajmo brothers’ La Calandre in Padova was ranked 46th.

Organized by the British magazine ‘Restaurant Magazine’ in collaboration with San Pellegrino and Acqua Panna, the awards showcase the 50 best restaurants which are selected by over 900 international jurors.

The world's top ten restaurants according to British magazine Restaurant:

1) Noma - Denmark
2) El Celler de Can Roca - Spain
3) Osteria Francescana - Italy
4) Eleven Madison Park - United States
5) Dinner - United Kingdom
6) Mugaritz - Spain
7) D.O.M. - Brazil
8) Arzak - Spain
9) Alinea - United States
10) The Ledbury - United Kingdom

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