Thai chef Dej Kewkacha has been honoured with the Best Pastry Chef Award 2026, sponsored by Sosa, at The 50 Best Restaurants ceremony held last night at the Teatro Municipal in Lima.
For us, it is the most anticipated moment of the evening. As Official Ingredients Partner of the ranking, we sponsor the award that recognises talent and excellence in the field of desserts and pastry within the restaurant world. And rarely has that recognition pointed so clearly to where the craft is heading.
A self-taught chef who has changed dessert in Asia
Kewkacha is a central figure on the Asian pastry scene and, notably, self-taught: he built his craft outside the classrooms of a pastry school, through experimentation.
His contribution is twofold. On one hand, he has redefined the dessert experience by bringing it into the fine-dining omakase format, with exclusively sweet menus that evolve with the seasons. On the other, he has achieved something that often remains a mere statement of intent: elevating local flavors — in his case, the crossover between the Thai pantry and Japanese precision — to the level of international fine dining.
This work had already earned him the title of Asia’s Best Pastry Chef 2025, making him the first Thai chef to receive it. The recognition in Lima now places him on the global circuit.
The award’s recent list of winners alone maps out the increasingly global landscape of restaurant pastry: Maxime Frédéric (2025), Nina Métayer (2024), Pía Salazar (2023), René Frank (2022), Will Goldfarb (2021). And before them, names such as Cédric Grolet, Jessica Préalpato, Dominique Ansel, Pierre Hermé, Albert Adrià, and Jordi Roca.
It is probably the least predictable list in contemporary pastry. And it is exactly the kind of talent we’re interested in supporting: those who research, formulate, and pursue flavor above inherited formulas.
Asador Etxebarri, the world’s best restaurant
The big news of the night came from the Basque Country. Asador Etxebarri, in Atxondo, has been named The World’s Best Restaurant 2026, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna, succeeding Maido (Lima), which now moves into the Best of the Best hall of fame.
Ranked No. 2 on the 2025 list, the restaurant led by chef and owner Víctor Arguinzoniz has perfected the art of Basque wood-fire cooking. In the village of Axpe, in a deliberately simple setting, his team presents a 14-course tasting menu in which grill mastery transforms top-quality produce into dishes of extreme elegance. It is a victory that celebrates something essential: technique in service of the ingredient, not the other way around.
Next in the ranking are Gaggan (No. 2), in Bangkok, and Alchemist (No. 3), in Copenhagen.
The 2026 edition brought together restaurants from 28 territories across six continents, with 14 cities making their ranking debut, 11 new entries to the Top 50 list and five re-entries. Among the newcomers were Tuju (São Paulo), Meet the Bund (Shanghai), Al Gatto Verde (Modena), Masque (Mumbai), Le Coquillage (Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes), Ru Yuan (Hangzhou), Nuema (Quito), Onjium (Seoul), Bozar (Brussels), Naar (Kasauli), and Saint Peter (Sydney).
The night also included the SevenRooms Icon Award for Ferran Adrià, recognized for his commitment to culinary research and education through the elBulli Foundation.
How the voting works
The list is compiled from the votes of The 50 Best Restaurants Academy, made up of more than 1,100 international industry experts, with a 50/50 gender split and at least 25% of its members renewed each year. The Academy is divided into 28 regions worldwide, a structure that is debated and reassessed annually to represent the global scene as fairly as possible. The consultancy Deloitte acts as an independent adjudication partner to ensure the integrity of the process.
Why we’re here
Sponsoring the pastry award of the most influential list in fine dining is not, for us, a visibility exercise. It is consistent with where we come from.
This company was born out of restaurant kitchens and the questions professionals have brought to us over decades. Supporting, year after year, those who are redefining dessert — from Paris to Quito, and now from Bangkok — is the most direct way we have of continuing to learn and of testing our ingredients at the most demanding level there is.
Congratulations, Chef Kewkacha. And congratulations, Etxebarri.
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