Are you making your bucket list for 2026? Dining out in one of my top 5 bucket list restaurants in the world should make it to your journal.
The most unforgettable dining experience worth booking a flight for. Sometimes a meal goes beyond the food being served, it becomes all about the experience, the aesthetic, where the atmosphere and ambience is just as exciting as the menu itself. Espescially when it’s being served in the dark or 5 meters under the ocean.
1 Grotto Palazzese – Puglia
The Grotta Palazzese restaurant is internationally renowned, as evidenced by the many reviews on the most important magazines and blogs around the world. It has an outdoor lounge, set in a unique place in the world. In fact, the terrace that welcomes guests has been created within a natural cave. It is aethestically beautiful and definitely instagram worthy and the food also deserves a mention. It is a setting capable of making the experience truly unforgettable, to be cherished over time in the memories of those who experience it.
2. Iris – Norwary
The menu at Iris reads like a story. A story about the challenges and threats to the global food system, but also with ideas and suggestions for future innovations, that can help bring us closer to solving them. The set menu revolves around the ocean and the mountains around us. Iris is located inside the floating art installation Salmon Eye in the Hardanger fjord in Western Norway. The only way to get here is to board one of their electric boats from the town of Rosendal. At Iris you have the opportunity to dine with an unparalleled view of the fjord. It is truely a dining experience like no other.
3. Ithaa Undersea – Maldives
Five meters beneath the Indian Ocean, Ithaa dissolves the boundary between dining and dreaming. Schools of reef fish drift past curved acrylic walls as flavors unfold on your palate, each course a conversation between the kitchen’s artistry and the sea’s living theater. A meal not just eaten, but felt. A unique experience worth the air miles.
4. Artic Bath Restaurant – Sweden
Nestled in the heart of Norrbotten, Arctic Bath offers a culinary journey, designed for true gourmands. Drawing inspiration from the world’s finest restaurants. At Arctic Bath, every meal is a sensory experience. Step into our floating restaurant on the Lule River and embark on a gastronomic adventure that rivals the world’s best dining destinations, with a distinct Arctic touch. And if you’re lucky enough you might get to see the Northern Lights lighting up the sky !!! What could be better.
5. Giraffes Manor – Kenya
Experience the incredible and unique breakfast with giraffes at Giraffe Manor. Get up close and personal with these wild beautiful animals. Waking up to breakfast with a giraffe must be one of the most incredible and unique experiences anyone can have. This activity is reserved exclusively for overnight guests of Giraffe Manor and is one not to be missed. Loping across the manor lawns and peering in through the large windows with their elegant necks, encountering our endangered Rothschild’s giraffes at such close quarters gives a real appreciation of just how beautiful and soulful these creatures are. Watch out for their inquisitive tongues, which can grow up to twenty inches long, as they investigate what’s on offer; luckily, it’s nutritious dried grass pellets that they’re after, not your pancakes!
