The latest list of the best restaurants in the world is out and only one Australian restaurant has made it into the top 50.

Sitting at 26th, Sydney's Quay was the only Australian restaurant to make the cut after top 50 stalwart Tetsuya's dropped to 58, and the up-and-coming Attica just missed out at 53.

Denmark's Noma once more took the top spot, followed closely by a pair of Spanish restaurants; El Celler de Can Roca and Mugaritz, with Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck dropping to fifth, and the closing molecular gastronomy temple E Bulli excluded from the list.

Australians can also take heart from the performance of London's The Ledbury, run by Australian Brett Graham, which is the highest new entry at number 34.

Larissa Dubecki, chief restaurant reviewer for The Age, says the "tyranny of distance" works against Australian restaurants vying to make the list.

"Lists like this, which attempt to grade restaurants around the world on a scale of 1 to 100, you've got to take with a grain of salt," she said.

"There's a lot of fashion that goes into these things and Australia also fights the battle in terms of the tyranny of distance.

"We're so far away from the action, of course it's going to be a very Eurocentric list."

Ms Dubecki, who was on the panel for the contest, says while many of the top Australian restaurants are embracing trends that have been picked up by the judges, the challenge of luring reviewers to Australia continues to dampen our chances of success.

"It is so difficult to get judges to visit Australia, so it's not really a surprise we're such a minnow in this big pool," she said.

Local focus

Ms Dubecki says Noma's position at the top shows provenance is edging molecular gastronomy out as the key trend.

"It's hard to really nail it down to one particular trend, but obviously [foraging] that's Noma's thing and they're number one, so it's easy to draw that conclusion that it's really attracting the judges who are jaded with foie gras and truffles," she said.

"They're more excited by some very site-specific Danish ingredients and I guess that is part of a worldwide thing."

Chef and food identity Ben O'Donoghue agrees, saying foraging is the latest trend in haute cuisine.

"I think what is the hot ticket at the moment is foraging, using traditional local foods. Hence at Noma, they don't cook with anything they can't pick or forage themselves, it's all local," he said.

And O'Donoghue thinks Australia has some catching up to do with the rest of the world when it comes the use of local ingredients.

"I think that's probably where Australia isn't up with the game, although now in Australia you'll see that's what Ben Shrewy in Attica does, he's out there foraging for things," he said.

"And I think that comes from the immaturity of our food culture.

"There's not a great understanding of Australian Indigenous ingredients and some are just difficult to deal with, I've tasted some and they don't appeal to my palate.

"For a lot of chefs that are still entrenched in that European background, matching Australian Indigenous flavours with European techniques is a bit of a challenge."

But he is upbeat about Australia's performance in the list.

"I think it's a fairly accurate representation. You've got to consider the fact we're talking about the top 100 restaurants in the world and I think we've got four in there," he said.

"There's a lot of restaurants out there that are doing fantastic food around the world."

O'Donoghue says while rankings like these are nice reward for hard work, he doubts the accolades are what drive any of the top chefs to push themselves.

"It's fantastic for those people who are putting in the hard yards to be acknowledged, but these guys are going to do it whether they're in the top 50 or not," he said.

"I think for all of these guys the most prestigious award would be the Chef's Choice Award, won by the guy from Italy, Massimo Bottura from Osteria Francescana."