Winner: Ōre

Ōre unfolds in a minimalist room of wood and natural tones, serving 30-plus bite-sized courses built around Thai produce with select imports. The menu shifts daily, there’s no fixed lineup, moving with what arrives and what feels right. Vegetables lead, with proteins used sparingly: sardine, uni, squid, caviar, duck. Dishes might include som jeet with ankimo and madan, sake kasu–pickled watermelon, or mussel marinated in smoked black tea and stuffed with uni and roasted buckwheat. Even dessert pushes boundaries, from caviar with sea lettuce to tua nao and blackened durian with mee krob. Fermentation, aging, and extraction add depth, while contrasting temperatures and textures create drama. It’s ingredient-focused and quietly theatrical, less about geography, more about synthesis and experience.

Gaggan 

Through innovative Indian foundations recreated with international techniques, Gaggan Restaurant defines borderless cuisine. Using fermentation, dehydration, and molecular processes, well-known Indian flavors are transformed into new textures, such as crisps or foams. Courses frequently use unconventional formats to contrast sweetness, acidity, and umami, reinterpreting references to street cuisine within the context of fine dining. The masala structure and spice sequencing give the food a distinct Indian backbone despite its resistance to classification. Gaggan’s distinction lies in transformation: honoring subcontinental flavor logic while employing contemporary global technique to reimagine its delivery. 

Resonance

Chef Shunsuke Shimomura, a native of Tokyo, is the head chef at Restaurant Resonance, and his “Boundless Cuisine” concept combines traditional French technique, Japanese precision, and Nordic restraint into structured multi-course seasonal tasting menus. Layered subtlety is revealed in the fried anago topped with roe; amberjack sashimi elevated by seaweed and blueberries; kuruma ebi with silky egg sauce; and firefly squid with burrata and creamy crab-asparagus soup. Textural drama is delivered by a remarkable spring roll filled with crab, cinnamon, and pickled ginger. Measured sauces are enhanced by fermentation, and subtle complexity is created by contrasts between raw and roasted, crisp and emulsion.