INTRODUCTION: TABLES
Our team of roving epicures visited 32 countries—from Chile to the Czech Republic, Thailand to Tunisia—to track down the world's most exciting new restaurants. Hundreds of meals later, 105 made the cut. And with tasting menus, tapas, and texture-bending molecular gastronomy, there's something for every palate.

HE YEAR'S TOP NEW HOTELS
We bedded down in 38 countries on 6 continents searching for the crème de la crème of the world's most promising new properties. What we discovered is the global triumph of thrilling authenticity over the dulling, dutiful comforts of the cookie cutter. Read on to find out which of these 116 properties burn the brightest.

Four Seasons opened its second North American ski resort at a quiet remove from the central chairlift and frat-party hubbub in Village Square. A ski concierge does everything but unfurl a magic carpet to get you to the slopes, but the property delivers more than downhill thrills. The butter-yellow chalet-style complex has 273 rooms, suites, and town houses, all of which have fireplaces and balconies that add yet more space to the rooms' already Canada-sized dimensions (the smallest is 520 square feet). Even the corridors seem wide enough for migrations of local moose and elk. Chef Jason McLeod—who earned his stripes, if not a Purple Heart, under London celebrity chef and enfant terrible Marco Pierre White—has returned to his native British Columbia to helm the hotel's Fifty-Two 80 Bistro, named for the Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort's mile-long vertical drop, the continent's longest. The full-service spa occupies the entire ground floor of one wing.