Tripadvisor has broadened its 2026 Travelers' Choice Awards: Best of the Best Restaurants to encompass a wider spectrum of culinary experiences, underscoring the increasing importance of food in travel. The platform unveiled the winners on 15 September, adding four new categories to its traditional restaurant rankings: Food Tours, Cooking Classes, Wine & Beer Tours, and Viral Right Now.
This expansion moves beyond conventional restaurant dining to include immersive activities that let travelers engage directly with local food cultures—whether it's mastering pasta-making in Rome, exploring Reykjavik's markets, or touring vineyards near Cape Town. According to Tripadvisor, the awards are derived from first-hand reviews and opinions submitted by its global community of millions of diners over the past year, with winners ranking among the top 1% of listings on the platform.
Food as a Travel Driver
The move comes as culinary experiences become increasingly intertwined with destination discovery, with travelers seeking activities that offer more than just 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.”
This trend aligns with broader industry observations. As noted in our recent analysis of culinary travel trends, diners are increasingly prioritizing experiences over lodging, a shift that is reshaping how destinations market themselves.
Restaurant Categories Still Strong
Tripadvisor's traditional restaurant categories continue to recognize 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, celebrated 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 global top spot for Casual Dining, while Hook & Barrel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, ranked No. 1 in the US and No. 7 worldwide, recognized for its sustainable seafood and hospitality.
New Experiential Categories
The newly introduced experiential categories offer a broader perspective on how travelers engage with local food culture. For Food Tours, Reykjavik Food Walk in Iceland took the global No. 1 position, offering tastings of local specialties. In the US, the Chef Guided Food Tour of Pike Place Market in Seattle ranked first nationally.
The Cooking Classes category puts participation at the center of the culinary journey. The Rome Pasta and Tiramisu Class was named the world's top cooking class, giving travelers the chance to learn classic Italian dishes. The awards also recognize wine tourism, with the Cape Town Wine Tour covering Paarl, Franschhoek, and Stellenbosch taking the global No. 1 in the Wine & Beer Tours category, while Michigan's five-hour Traverse City Wine Tour ranked first in the US.
Social Media's Influence
The introduction of Viral Right Now is perhaps the clearest sign that social media is shaping where travelers choose to eat. This new category recognizes food and restaurant experiences that have captured attention across social platforms, with London's Bombay-style restaurant Dishoom and Ho Chi Minh City's Banh Mi Huynh Hoa among the highlighted sensations.
The category reflects the powerful connection between social media and travel decision-making. Restaurants can become attractions in their own right when dishes, interiors, or dining experiences gain enough online visibility to encourage travelers to add them to their itineraries. For destinations, this creates another pathway for food to generate visitor interest. A restaurant discovered on social media can lead travelers into a particular neighborhood, while a food tour can introduce visitors to local markets, producers, and smaller businesses that may sit outside conventional sightseeing routes.
Immersive Culinary Travel
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, travelers are increasingly building entire itineraries around what and where they want to eat—and around 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 help distribute visitor activity beyond major attractions. A food tour can take visitors into local neighborhoods; 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.
