Tuju Wins 2026 Art of Hospitality Award
The Brazilian restaurant is being recognized for an approach to fine dining that puts personal connection, anticipation and thoughtful service at the centre of the experience.
There’s more to a memorable restaurant experience than what arrives on the plate.
São Paulo restaurant Tuju, led by chef-owner Ivan Ralston, has been named the recipient of the Art of Hospitality Award 2026 as part of The 50 Best Restaurants awards.
The award recognizes the restaurant where members of The 50 Best Restaurants Academy say they experienced their single best hospitality experience during the 18-month voting period.
For Tuju, hospitality is deliberately intimate.
Rather than leaning into the formality sometimes associated with fine dining, Ralston and Hospitality and Research Director Katherina Cordás have built the restaurant around a distinctly Brazilian sense of warmth, generosity and personal connection.
Ralston originally opened Tuju in 2014 after working in leading European restaurants. Following the pandemic, he chose not simply to reopen the original concept, but to reinvent it.
Tuju now operates from a purpose-built three-storey home in São Paulo’s Jardim Paulistano neighbourhood. Instead of increasing the number of guests the restaurant could serve, the team made the unusual decision to reduce capacity to roughly one-third of that at its previous location.
The idea was to give staff more time with each guest and create a dining experience that could respond to individual preferences rather than follow a rigid service formula.
Hospitality before you have to ask
One of Tuju’s most interesting service details is something diners may never even notice.
The restaurant keeps a discreet cabinet stocked with items guests might unexpectedly need during dinner, including reading glasses and drawing materials for children.
The objects aren’t displayed or routinely offered. Instead, staff are trained to notice when they might be useful.
It’s a small detail, but one that illustrates the restaurant’s larger philosophy: good hospitality isn’t necessarily about grand gestures. Sometimes it’s simply about noticing what someone needs before they have to ask.
That approach extends to the food.
Rather than structuring tasting menus around conventional seasons, Tuju develops menus inspired by climatic themes including rain, humidity, wind and drought. Ingredients are sourced largely from small-scale regional producers and from relationships developed through years of research.
The beverage program follows a similarly flexible approach.
Head Sommelier Thiago Frencl and Thiago Menezes oversee a cellar containing more than 5,000 wine selections from Brazilian and international producers.
Instead of automatically pairing a different wine with every dish, the team adjusts recommendations according to each guest’s mood and preferences. Seasonal cocktails and non-alcoholic pairings are also part of the program.
Ralston describes hospitality as the part of a restaurant experience that moves beyond the purely commercial.
“The next revolution in gastronomy will not happen in the kitchens, but in the dining room.”
A growing international profile
The hospitality award adds to Tuju’s growing international recognition.
The restaurant entered The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 51–100 extended list at No. 70 in 2025 and previously received the Art of Hospitality Award at Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants 2024.
Tuju’s latest recognition is the second special award announced ahead of The 50 Best Restaurants 2026 ceremony, taking place in Lima, Peru, on November 4, 2026.
The surrounding program will include collaborative dinners, The 50 Best Talks industry forum, a Chefs’ Feast and the annual restaurant countdown.
But Tuju’s award also highlights something increasingly relevant to restaurants well beyond São Paulo: in a dining world filled with ambitious tasting menus, luxury ingredients and technically complex cooking, the thing guests remember most may still be how they were made to feel.
