Group of friends at dinner at a luxury resort. bbernard, ShutterstockTripadvisor has expanded its 2026 Travelers’ Choice Awards: Best of the Best Restaurants to recognise a broader range of culinary experiences, reflecting the growing role of food in how travellers discover and experience destinations. The travel platform announced the winners on 15 September, introducing four new categories alongside its established restaurant rankings: Food Tours, Cooking Classes, Wine & Beer Tours and Viral Right Now.
The move takes the awards beyond traditional restaurant dining to include experiences that allow travellers to engage more directly with local food cultures — from learning to make pasta in Rome to exploring markets in Reykjavik and touring vineyards around Cape Town.
According to Tripadvisor, the awards are based on first-hand reviews and opinions submitted by its global community of millions of diners over the past year. Winners rank among the top 1% of listings on the platform.
The expansion comes as culinary experiences become increasingly intertwined with destination discovery, with travellers looking for activities that offer more than simply a meal.
“Food is at the heart of how we experience a destination,” said Laurel Greatrix, chief communications officer at Tripadvisor Group. “From cooking classes with locals to incredible food tours and restaurants, these are the kinds of experiences that can become a highlight of a trip — or even a reason to take one,” she said.
From restaurants to experiences
Tripadvisor's traditional restaurant categories continue to recognise Fine Dining, Casual Dining, Date Night, Hidden Gems and Vegan & Vegetarian venues.
Buenos Aires-based Fogón Asado was named the world's No. 1 Fine Dining restaurant, recognised for its intimate and interactive open-fire asado tasting experience.
In the US, Ristorante Paoletti in Highlands, North Carolina, took the top Fine Dining position, with Tripadvisor highlighting its elevated Northern Italian cuisine and wine cellar.
Parisian restaurant Pizzeria Arrivederci claimed the top global position for Casual Dining, while Hook & Barrel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, ranked No. 1 in the US and No. 7 worldwide. Tripadvisor highlighted the restaurant's sustainable seafood and hospitality.
In addition, the newly introduced experiential categories offer a broader perspective on how travellers engage with local food culture.
For Food Tours, Reykjavik Food Walk in Iceland took the global No. 1 position, offering travellers tastings of local specialities.
In the US, the Chef Guided Food Tour of Pike Place Market in Seattle ranked first nationally.
The Cooking Classes category similarly puts participation at the centre of the culinary journey.
The Rome Pasta and Tiramisu Class was named the world's top cooking class, offering travellers the opportunity to learn how to prepare classic Italian dishes.
The awards also recognise wine tourism, with the Cape Town Wine Tour covering Paarl, Franschhoek and Stellenbosch taking the global No. 1 position in the Wine & Beer Tours category.
Michigan's five-hour Traverse City Wine Tour ranked first in the US.
Social media creates the next food attractions
The introduction of Viral Right Now is perhaps the clearest sign that social media is influencing where travellers choose to eat. The new category recognises food and restaurant experiences that have captured attention across social media, with London's Bombay-style restaurant Dishoom and Ho Chi Minh City's Banh Mi Huynh Hoa among the culinary sensations highlighted.
The category reflects the increasingly powerful connection between social media and travel decision-making. Restaurants can now become attractions in their own right when dishes, interiors or dining experiences gain enough visibility online to encourage travellers to add them to their itineraries. For destinations, this creates another pathway through which food can generate visitor interest.
A restaurant discovered on social media can lead travellers into a particular neighbourhood, while a food tour can introduce visitors to local markets, producers and smaller businesses that may sit outside conventional sightseeing routes.
Culinary travel becomes more immersive
The expansion of Tripadvisor's awards points to a broader evolution in culinary tourism. Rather than treating food as a supporting element of a holiday, travellers are increasingly able to build entire itineraries around what and where they want to eat — and around the experiences that allow them to understand local cuisine. That can mean following a food trail through a city, learning a regional recipe from a local chef, visiting vineyards or seeking out restaurants that have become social-media phenomena. For tourism destinations, these experiences can also help distribute visitor activity beyond major attractions.
A food tour can take visitors into local neighbourhoods. A wine tour can encourage travel into surrounding regions. A cooking class can connect visitors with local culinary traditions and communities.
The result is a form of tourism in which the meal is no longer necessarily the end point of the experience.
It can be the starting point.
