The World’s Best Restaurants With a View

The recent opening of Liana Estates is causing major talk in California’s wine region — and for good reason. The vineyard, which sits on 100 hilly acres in Carneros and overlooks the San Pablo Bay, has one of the world's best restaurants with a view and was founded by the same family behind the award-winning Peju Province Winery in Napa Valley. Check out the roster of culinary classes, outdoor wellness activities (see: yoga in the vineyard) and interactive workshops like oyster-shucking lessons and floral bouquet art. We have our eyes set on the Full Moon Harvest Dinner, a perfect fall evening event, as well as the Carneros Culinary Series, where a local Napa or Sonoma chef will host a meal in the on-site olive grove.

Santorini is no stranger to gorgeous settings, but the cliff-side Lycabettus at Andronis Luxury Suites may top the charts. Reserve the private table on a dramatic rocky outcrop that juts out over the cerulean Aegean Sea. The Mediterranean menu complements the views, with inventive Greek dishes like fresh veggie salad with white truffle vinaigrette and flowers in volcanic soil, plus a rack of lamb with eggplant mousse and lamb-braised croquettes.

Look closely and you’ll find this hidden gem in the cove of a limestone cliff along Phranang Beach. The Grotto at the Rayavadee hotel is the perfect nook to sip sundowners with your toes in the sand while eating tuna tartar with wakame salad and Branzino wrapped in banana leaf. We also love the casual barbecues hosted weekly.

Any meal in the Maldives would be memorable, but the Baros Maldives really outdoes itself. You can choose from special dining locations like a table on a piano-shaped deck above a lagoon, a secluded sandbank or on a Nooma, a traditional wooden sailboat, in the Indian Ocean. Tuck into the fresh catch of the day including sautéed reef fish fillets with wasabi mashed potato, sesame stir-fry veggies and teriyaki sauce, or Maldivian yellowfin tuna curry, cooked in a garlic, coconut, cardamom, ginger sauce with chili, bilimbi and jasmine rice.

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This culinary collective takes the term “farm-to-table” to a whole new level. Chef Jim Denevan — the land artist famous for his epic sand drawings — started the roaming restaurant in 1999, and has been setting its long communal table in rural farms, coastal beaches, urban gardens and mountaintops around the world ever since. This fall, catch him driving his streamline 1953 bus down the east coast, before heading to the southwest and ending the season in California. In the winter, he’ll head to warmer climates in Chile, Argentina, Mexico and more.

On the small island of Kood, just a 90-minute flight from Bangkok, is Soneva Kiri, a jungle and beach retreat with one of the coolest restaurants around. Here, you can dine in a treepod high up in the rainforest with sweeping views of the shoreline. The best part? Waiters will zipline over to serve you.

Get a taste of la dolce vita at this al fresco pop-up in the farms around Richmond, VA. Husband and wife culinary duo Paige Healy and Gregorio Spinzo drew inspiration from their Southern Italian roots to create Dinner in the Field. On warm summer nights, a table is set with twinkling lights, and guests are served wine from nearby vineyards and dishes with garden-fresh produce. The menu is decided the day of, but with past plates like Caromont Farm chevre with local honey as well as pollo arrosto (roasted chicken) with blistered roma tomatoes and caramelized fennel, we know it’ll be delicious.

Pass the OJ, please. At Laguna Miscanti and Miñiques — two high altitude lagoons formed after a volcano erupted nearly a million years ago — tours can arrange for one seriously sick brunch. Where else can you get views like this over your morning spread?

Candlelit dinner is nice and all, but it doesn’t come close to the Field of Light. At Ayers Rock Resort, you can spend an evening in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, where Bruce Munro staged his art installation of 50,000 colored bulbs. Watch the sunset over the red sandstone desert, then enjoy a local Aṉangu performance and music by the didgeridoo, an indigenous wind instrument. The main affair is three courses of Australian favorites like paperbark smoked crocodile frittata and Dukkha seared kangaroo loin on Quandong couscous with native mint yoghurt.

There’s nothing better than eating under the stars, and damn, does Ngorongoro deliver. The lodge is set high on the lip of a volcanic caldera, where wildlife roams the grasslands below. Grab a pair of binoculars and spot wildebeest, lions and black rhino while noshing on Pan-African cuisine like duck with kumquat and chili marmalade.