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17 fine-dining restaurants in Korea make Trip.Gourmet's top global list

Published: 05 Nov. 2025, 19:51

KIM JU-YEON
[email protected]

An image shows Korean food in the newly added “Hometown Cuisines″ category on Trip.com. [TRIP.COM]

Seventeen fine-dining restaurants in Korea, including one operated by Anh Sung-jae from Netflix's hit cooking show “Culinary Class Wars” (2024), have been featured in the Trip.com Group’s revamped list of top global restaurants for 2026.

The Trip.com Gourmet Lists 2026 Awards selected over 18,000 of the “the world’s top restaurants” under this year’s theme “New Coordinates for Taste” by compiling user reviews and expert insights, the company said in a press release.

Around 600 fine dining restaurants were spotlighted on the list, including Ahn’s Mosu Seoul and well-known establishments like Mingles and Jungsik Seoul. Korean restaurant La Yeon and The Shilla Seoul hotel’s Chinese restaurant Palsun took home Platinum Fine Dining awards for the second year in a row.

The list was unveiled by the group’s food and travel guide Trip.Gourmet at its annual upgrade announcement and Fine Dining Restaurant Awards Ceremony at The Londoner Macao in Macau, China.

The group also showcased an upgrade to its restaurant rankings list, which reduced the four thematic categories from last year down to three: Fine Dining, Must-Visit Restaurants and Hometown Cuisines.

The new Hometown Cuisines category is personalized by user location to help travelers find regional cuisine in major cities. For instance, Korean users in Shanghai can now locate top-rated Korean restaurants in the city. The update is based on insights showing that nearly half of international travelers actively seek out food from their home country while abroad, Trip.com said.

Other emerging fine-dining culinary trends highlighted by the group included sustainability, fusion cuisine, vegetarian and plant-based dining, contemporary and molecular gastronomy and experiential dining.

“Today’s travelers are no longer just eating their way through destinations, they’re using cuisine as a compass. The list reflects this shift by offering not only rankings but also cultural connection, storytelling and curated discovery,” said Sunny Sun, vice president of Trip.com Group and CEO of Trip.Gourmet.

Food-related searches across the group’s platforms, which includes travel agency Trip.com along with Skyscanner and Ctrip, grew 30 percent year-on-year, according to Trip.com Group data.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]