Le Bernardin tops vaunted ‘List’ as NYC restaurants gear up for critical holiday season
December will be a make-or-break month for many Midtown restaurants hobbled by slow lunch business, but they’re not sweating it at Le Bernardin.
The West 50th Street seafood palace, where Michelin recently reaffirmed a precious three-star rating, was just named the world’s No. 1 restaurant for 2023 by La Liste, the increasingly influential rankings based in Paris. The findings are based on analysis of thousands of guidebooks, media stories and online reviews worldwide, while Michelin relies on anonymous inspector visits.
Eric Ripert, Le Bernardin’s chef and co-owner with Maguy Le Coze, celebrated the second time Le Bernardin has been so honored (it was also No. 1 on La Liste in 2019) as “excellent news for us. La Liste, which is only seven years old, is starting to impose itself,” and is widely followed by visitors to the Big Apple from Asian countries including Japan and Korea.
Le Bernardin hardly needs another boost. It shares the no. 1 billing with Guy Savoy in France and Frantzen in Sweden.


“We have never been so busy,” Ripert said — at lunch as well as at dinner.
But although tables are hard to come by before the end of the year, the one-two punch of Michelin and La Liste “are much more important to us in January