When you ask a lot of people what their least favourite thing is about going on holiday to a foreign country, they’ll tell you they hate the food. It’s no surprise then that most resorts that expect even a small amount of English tourists stock up on exactly the same foods we could enjoy on our local high street. However, there’s a large group of holidays makers to whom sampling the local delights is a huge part of the holiday itself, and there are several countries that stand as being high class or otherwise interesting food destinations.

The world’s best restaurant, according to a recent poll of international chefs and critics is the famous El Belli restaurant in Spain – people have been known to go on holiday to the area just to visit the restaurant which is only open from April to October. Every one of the 8,000 bookings in the year is taken in a single day the previous October and the restaurant typically gets around 2 million requests, so you might not find it quite as accessible as the local KFC.

Unsurprisingly Spain, Italy and France dominate the list, but what if you want to sample something a little from exotic? The adventurous can try out some truly amazing food in China, everything from the slightly strange like Oyster sauce to the truly terrifying like fish floatation bladder, owl soup, rats and jellyfish. And that’s without even mentioning the common favourites of monkey brains and a various assortment of other animals private parts and organs.

If that all seems a little exotic to you, the 2nd best restaurant in the world is located in Bray-on-Thames in the UK and six of the top 100 are all located around the United Kingdom, so you don’t always have to travel the world to get some great food.