Tickets: Barcelona

Tickets may have been open a few years now, but it still feels like the future of top-end gastronomic dining. A sense of fun pervades every facet of this cinema-themed operation, from the door staff’s eccentric uniforms to the ice-cream cart’s bell that signals the end of the savoury phase of the meal. The chefs behind this Barcelona-based big leaguer are Albert Adrià, who also picks up The World’s Best Pastry Chef award this year, and his talented cohort Fran Agudo.

Albert worked alongside older brother Ferran at El Bulli for 16 years, first in the pastry section and latterly fronting the restaurant’s development kitchen in the Catalan capital. The Roses restaurant, which closed in 2011, was only able to serve 7,000 people a year. Tickets was conceived to be more accessible and – by this list’s standards, at least – is a high volume operation with the capacity to serve up to 230 people a day.

The restaurant’s various kitchens masterfully blend Catalonia’s distinctive cuisine with culinary ideas from all over the world. Dishes are always high-impact. The kitchen, run day-to-day by Agudo, uses edgy techniques to deliver huge hits of flavour in dishes such as raff tomato with bufala straciatella and basil air, or cured aged cow with malta bread and smoked cheese. Enigma, Adrià’s sixth and perhaps last restaurant, opens next year just down the road.