For The First Time Since 2004, An American Restaurant Was Named The Best In The World

It took 13 years for an American restaurant to reclaim the title as the world's best restaurant.

According to a Bloomberg report, the iconic steakhouse Eleven Madison Park is now the world's best restaurant, according to rankings from The World's 50 Best. A panel of more than 1,000 chefs, food writers and experts from 26 geographical regions crowned the Manhattan-based restaurant with the coveted title.

Thomas Keller's French Laundry restaurant in California was the last American institute to rank as the world's best in 2003 and 2004.

Check out the 2017 edition of The #Worlds50Best Restaurants: https://t.co/eHlhsZTpRu

— The World's 50 Best (@TheWorlds50Best) April 5, 2017

Eleven Madison Park's signature dish is roasted duck, but the menu also includes a seven-course feast, which includes a celery root cooked in a pig's bladder. The restaurant edged out Italy's Osteria Fracescana, which was ranked as number one last year.

The restaurant rankings date back to 2002 when UK-based Restaurant magazine was exploring ways to promote its publication. The first rankings were informal, and winning chefs were surprised to find out there was no awards ceremony.

The list quickly grew and helped put some of the world's best yet relatively unknown restaurants on the radar. For example, 100,000 people tried to reserve a table the day after Copenhagen's Noma restaurant was named the world's best in 2010. In fact, the restaurant had to hire additional staff to turn down reservation requests and the waiting list grew to one year.

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The 5 Biggest Restaurant M&As _________ Image Credit: Eleven Madison Park Lemon Meringue Pie In 2009, By Krista [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons