Most lists of “the best restaurant websites” mix world fine dining with local businesses without explaining what actually makes a website good. We have analysed real websites, looking at their HTML, the weight of their pages and their booking systems. The result: examples split by type of business, with objective criteria and the faults nobody shows.
What makes a restaurant website “one of the best” (evaluation criteria)
The criteria that follow focus on what you see on the screen. How that website attracts customers and turns them into bookings is explained in depth in what makes a restaurant website successful.
Before showing you examples, we need to define what we are evaluating. A restaurant website is not good because it is pretty: it is good because it does a commercial job. In our experience, these are the six criteria that separate a website that sells from one that only takes up space on the internet:
- Real load speed. A home page with hundreds of images and no deferred loading (you will see a real case below) hurts the mobile experience and rankings: it is a measurable technical criterion, not an opinion.
- An integrated booking system. Your own engine, CoverManager, TheFork or a simple button to a form. What does not work is forcing people to phone to book.
- An accessible, up-to-date menu. In HTML, not only in PDF, and if it is a PDF, not an unreadable scan.
- Mobile-first design. More and more customers look for you from a phone: if your website does not look right on 6 inches, it does not exist.
- Local SEO done properly. Address, hours, a tappable phone number, Google Maps and structured data that help Google understand what you are and where you are — we develop this in our local SEO guide for restaurants.
- Real, optimised photography. With an alt attribute, deferred loading and the real product, not stock photos.
With these criteria in hand, on to the examples.
Examples of fine-dining websites
Let us start with what everyone shows: restaurants with Michelin stars. But with a difference: we are also going to point out their technical faults, because having three stars does not mean having a flawless website.
Disfrutar (Barcelona, 3 Michelin stars)
Disfrutar’s website is visually strong, with its own bookings through a group platform and an online shop for gift cards. But it has a striking technical problem: its home page loads 524 images and none of them use loading="lazy", which leaves a page of 511 KB of HTML that hurts speed on a phone. Proof that a world-reference brand can have a website that is technically improvable.
DiverXO (Madrid, 3 Michelin stars)
DiverXO does something unusual in fine dining: it shows the prices of its tasting menus directly on the home page, in euros, a commercial decision many luxury restaurants avoid. Technically, its website has no detected JSON-LD structured data and its 8 images lack an alt attribute: the price transparency is good, the lack of technical optimisation is not.
Arzak (San Sebastián, 3 Michelin stars)
Arzak has a website with real multilingual support (Spanish, Basque, French and English) and an honest brand message: they acknowledge that their website “cannot convey the smell, taste and textures” of their cooking, a humility that is rare in a sector of superlatives. Technically, its home page has only one image, which makes it very light but less appetising.
Examples of neighbourhood restaurant websites / local businesses in Spain
Here is the gap no top list covers: real, mid-sized businesses that do not appear in the international guides. They are the ones that look most like your restaurant.
Almorratxa (Arenys de Mar, Barcelona)
Almorratxa is a restaurant and beach club in the port of Arenys de Mar, and it is a GastroSEO project. We include it not as “the best website in the world”, but as an example of what a real mid-sized business can achieve with a well-planned website: truly bilingual (Catalan and Spanish with hreflang, not a decorative switcher), with Restaurant structured data, its own bookings button and a menu in HTML. Its weak point: it does not show the phone number on the home page. You can see the full Almorratxa entry in our portfolio.
Quimet & Quimet (Barcelona, a tapas bar since 1914)
Quimet & Quimet is a business with an established reputation that wastes almost every digital function. Its website is purely narrative — it tells the story of the venue and its more than 500 wine references — but it has no bookings, no tappable phone number, no Google Maps and no structured data: offline reputation does not translate into a digital presence on its own.
Casa Julián de Tolosa (Tolosa and Madrid, a grill restaurant since 1954)
Casa Julián de Tolosa has a website on Framer with multilingual support, but with a structural fault: each site lives on a different domain or subdomain instead of a single website with a venue switcher, which fragments the SEO and confuses the user. Its home page, besides, has not a single image detected in the raw HTML, which is striking for a grill restaurant whose appeal is the product.
Examples of fast-food / burger / fast-casual websites
Chains have resources an independent business does not, but they also make mistakes you can avoid.
Goiko (a national gourmet-burger chain)
Goiko has a WordPress website with real multilingual support, structured data and access to bookings and delivery from the front page. But of its 42 images, only 3 have an alt attribute and none use deferred loading: a repeated pattern, the big chains invest in functionality but neglect the technical optimisation of images.
Grosso Napoletano (a Neapolitan pizza chain)
Grosso Napoletano is technically more complete: structured data with an explicit Restaurant type, bookings via CoverManager, delivery via Glovo and its own loyalty programme. Its weak point: it does not show a phone number or an address on the home page, and it points people to a venue finder, which is logical for a chain but not for a single restaurant.
Examples of multi-space groups and healthy chains
El Nacional Barcelona (a multi-space food venue)
El Nacional Barcelona is a particular case: four restaurants and four bars under one roof. Its WordPress website with WPML and Elementor offers Spanish, Catalan and English, detailed hours (12 h to 1 h, every day) and an online shop, but of its 24 images only 3 have an alt attribute: the pattern repeats.
Flax & Kale (Barcelona and Madrid, healthy/flexitarian)
Flax & Kale is valuable for two reasons: its integration of bookings with TheFork and delivery with Glovo and Uber Eats, all detectable in the HTML, and a real technical fault that serves as a warning — its domain with “www” returns a DNS error and it only works without “www”, a redirect error that affects SEO and the user experience. Despite operating in two cities, it does not show an address or hours on the home page either.
Comparison table: the distinctive element each example contributes
| Website | Sector | Strong element | What to copy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Almorratxa | Restaurant + beach club | Truly bilingual with hreflang, own bookings, Restaurant schema | The complete technical structure for a local business |
| Disfrutar | Fine dining | Own bookings, online shop | Autonomy in bookings without depending on third parties |
| DiverXO | Fine dining | Prices visible on the home page | Price transparency, even in luxury |
| Arzak | Fine dining | Real multilingual support, an honest brand message | Authenticity in the communication |
| Quimet & Quimet | Tapas bar | A strong brand narrative | What NOT to do in digital functionality |
| Casa Julián | Multi-site grill restaurant | Multilingual support | The mistake of splitting sites across different domains |
| Goiko | Burger restaurant | Dedicated bookings and delivery routes | Clarity in conversion |
| Grosso Napoletano | Pizzeria | Restaurant schema, CoverManager, loyalty | The integration of bookings and delivery |
| El Nacional | Multi-space | Detailed hours, online shop | Complete operational information |
| Flax & Kale | Healthy | TheFork and delivery integration | The www redirect fault as a warning |
Common mistakes on poorly rated restaurant websites
After analysing these websites, the mistakes that repeat most are:
- Images with no alt and no lazy loading. We have seen it on three-Michelin-star websites and on national chains: the most common mistake and the easiest to fix.
- No tappable phone number on the home page. Several examples on this list have no visible
tel:link. On a phone, that is lost bookings. - No structured data. Some fine-dining websites have no Restaurant JSON-LD, so Google cannot show rich information in the results.
- A menu as a scanned PDF. A classic that is still alive: if it cannot be read on a phone, it does not exist.
- Domains with no www redirect. Flax & Kale shows that even established brands make this mistake.
- Fragmented architecture across several sites. Casa Julián de Tolosa: each venue on a different domain dilutes local SEO.
What a restaurant website must include, no exceptions
If you want the long version by size of business, it is in what a restaurant website needs.
If after seeing these examples you are wondering what your website needs, this is the minimum checklist:
- Visible, tappable contact details: a phone number with a
tel:link, the address, the hours and a link to Google Maps. - A booking system: your own or a third party’s, but integrated into the website, not on an external link that gets lost.
- A menu in HTML (or a readable, up-to-date PDF as a complement).
- Structured data of type Restaurant with address, coordinates and hours.
- Optimised images with an alt attribute and deferred loading.
- A mobile-first design that loads quickly on mobile connections.
- Real languages if your audience needs them, with hreflang set up properly, not only a visual switcher.
How much a website like this costs
The full ranges, with a breakdown by item, are in how much a restaurant website costs.
It depends on where you start: a Wix or Squarespace template is the cheapest way in, but it limits customisation, technical SEO and scalability. A bespoke website with WordPress or Astro, with integrated bookings and speed optimisation, costs more but returns more in the medium term. At GastroSEO, our web design for restaurants service starts from 890 € with delivery in 2-4 weeks: a template is not the same as a website designed to turn visits into bookings. How to choose between staying on Wix, staying on WordPress or a new website is in Wix or WordPress for a restaurant.
Conclusion
The best restaurant websites are not the prettiest ones or the ones belonging to the most awarded restaurants: they are the ones that do a clear commercial job, load quickly, show the menu, let people book and tell Google what they are and where they are. We have seen three-Michelin-star websites with basic technical faults and local-business websites with an impeccable structure.
If you are thinking of creating or redesigning your restaurant’s website, do not blindly copy what a three-star restaurant does: copy what works for your type of business and your budget. And if you want us to do it with you, with no obligation, here is our web design for restaurants service.
Frequently asked questions
Which are the best restaurant websites?
There is no single answer: it depends on the type of business. In this article we have analysed real websites split by category: fine dining (Disfrutar, DiverXO, Arzak), local business (Almorratxa, Quimet & Quimet), chains (Goiko, Grosso Napoletano) and multi-space groups and healthy chains (El Nacional, Flax & Kale). The best ones meet objective criteria: load speed, integrated bookings, an accessible menu, local SEO and mobile-first.
What are examples of restaurant websites and what are they useful as a reference for?
They are real websites you can use as a reference to get ideas or to spot good practice and mistakes: how other businesses handle online booking, the menu, multilingual support or the Google Maps integration. We include examples with their strengths and their technical faults, so you do not copy blindly.
Which are the best cooking or food websites in general?
If we are talking about restaurant websites, the examples cited most often tend to be the fine-dining ones: Disfrutar, El Celler de Can Roca, DiverXO or Arzak. But if we are talking about food websites in general (recipes, content, criticism), the range is much wider. In this article we focus on restaurant websites as businesses, not on cooking blogs.
What must a restaurant website include, no exceptions, to rank among the best?
At a minimum: visible, tappable contact details (phone, address, hours, a link to Google Maps), an integrated booking system, a menu in HTML or a readable PDF, Restaurant structured data, optimised images with alt and lazy loading, a mobile-first design and an acceptable load speed. If any of these points fails, the website is not doing its commercial job.
How much does it cost to build a website like these examples?
It depends on the platform and the level of customisation. A Wix or Squarespace template is the most economical way in, but it limits technical SEO. A bespoke website starts from 890 € at GastroSEO, as a one-off payment and with delivery in 2-4 weeks; the plan with integrated bookings and a blog starts at 1.490 €. The difference is in the conversion, not only in the design.
Is it useful to copy the design of a fine-dining restaurant for a small business?
Not always. A fine-dining restaurant has an audience, a budget and goals that differ from those of a neighbourhood bar or a burger restaurant, and copying its look can take you away from your real customer. What you can copy are the good technical practices: integrated bookings, an accessible menu, structured data and speed. The design should adapt to your business, not the other way round.
What platform do the best restaurant websites use?
In our sample, most use WordPress (Arzak, La Tasquería, Goiko, Grosso Napoletano, Flax & Kale), some use builders such as Framer (Casa Julián de Tolosa) and others use a bespoke CMS (DiverXO) or Astro (Almorratxa). There is no winning platform: what matters is that it allows good technical SEO, speed and the flexibility to integrate bookings and a menu.
How do I know if my restaurant’s website is competitive against these examples?
Score yourself quickly: does it load quickly on a phone? A tappable phone number and Google Maps? Booking without calling? A menu that is readable on a phone? Structured data? Images with alt and lazy loading? If you answer “no” to more than two, your website is below the examples analysed. You can start by reviewing your Google Business Profile listing and your local SEO.
