Bigger doesn't always mean better, and these tiny restaurants definitely prove that point. From a petite eatery wedged into an alleyway to the most intimate one-table joint serving only two diners at a time, these spots are small in size but pack a mighty punch when it comes to food. Here, we take a look at some of the world's most terrific tiny restaurants.

Click or scroll through our gallery to discover the best tiny restaurants around the world, counting down to the smallest one of all.

Our ranking is based on restaurant size, genuine user reviews, awards and accolades, and the first-hand experience of our team. It's also regularly checked and updated.

El Papagayo can host as many as 36 diners. However, it's still just 8ft (2.5m) wide and 105ft (32m) long, with a concrete wall on one side and exposed brick on the other. It's basically wedged into an alley between two buildings. The restaurant focuses on Mediterranean fare with Argentinian flair, and the compact kitchen sends out spectacular dishes cooked on a charcoal grill and in wood-fired ovens. It's consistently rated among Córdoba's best restaurants.

Robbie and Sophie McCauley opened Homestead Cottage in 2023 – and in 2024, the restaurant received its first Michelin star. The welcoming 35-seater eatery is housed inside a 200-year-old Irish cottage, and reviewers say it's more like a cosy pub than a stuffy Michelin-star dining experience. Still, the locally sourced, seasonal food is exceptional, making a trip to the out-of-the-way location well worth it.

The Cooperstown Diner likes to boast that it's so tiny, it only has half an address: 136 1/2 Main St. It's certainly only big enough to accommodate 26 seats (at a push), but the diner compensates for this by serving massive portions of food. The most popular item on the menu is the jumbo half-pound burger, although those with an appetite might also consider one of the spot's foot-long hot dogs.

A relatively large group of 24 can indulge themselves at Alexandre Mazzia’s Restaurant AM, nestled unobtrusively on a residential street. The table everybody wants is the two-seater spot at the bar where you can see the magic happening in the kitchen. And it really is magic: Restaurant AM holds three Michelin stars for its exquisite cuisine and exceptional service.

Market by day, restaurant by night, Talula's Table can squeeze in a maximum of 20 guests around its two tables. The Farm Table hosts between eight and 12 diners, while the Nook Table is aimed at groups of between four and eight. The only way to dine is to enjoy Talula's seasonal eight-course taster menu, complete with cheese, coffee and dessert. You can choose to bring your own drink or go for a pairing.

Upstairs Pancake House takes cosy dining to the next level. The four-table restaurant is crammed into the first floor of a traditional Dutch rowhouse in Amsterdam. Head up a steep, narrow staircase, and you'll find the most peculiar room decorated with a hundred hanging teapots and old paintings of Amsterdam. The food here is just as cosy as the interior – think sweet pancakes with apple, cinnamon and sugar, or savoury ones topped with chicken ragout. Only 18 diners can enjoy their pancakes at a time.

In 2014, Chef Raita Noda opened a tiny eight-seater restaurant called Raita Noda Chef’s Kitchen in Sydney's Surry Hills. However, the joint closed ten years later. In 2025, Noda launched the relatively gigantic restaurant R by Raita Noda – with 15 seats available. The concept is similar, with diners sitting around a bar to enjoy elevated Japanese cuisine while observing the restaurant's master chefs at work.

Restormel Kitchen in Cornwall is small, but its food is perfectly formed. The restaurant's mission is to deliver a relaxed dining experience featuring the very best of the area's produce, so you can expect tasty seafood to crop up among the seasonal offerings. The best part is that the cosy eatery is nestled inside a 400-year-old townhouse. Restormel Kitchen seats up to 14 people in its restaurant, or a group of 10 or 11 can share one big table.

The concept of Evelyn's table all comes down to the numbers: 12 seats, five courses, three chefs. Head chef Seamus Sam earned his stripes working in Michelin-star restaurants before moving to this intimate counter experience on Rupert Street, and he was rewarded with a star of his own in 2023. The restaurant offers two sittings every evening and a lunch service on Saturdays.

Set up in an old chicken shack, Mr. Pollo is a restaurant like no other. With space for only about 12 diners, the spot is run by two chefs, serving a four-course tasting menu. And while the space might be small, with the kitchen and dining room crammed together, the food is outstanding, especially the chicken-stuffed arepas. These crispy South American flatbreads are a regular fixture on the menu, which also includes dishes like peach salad, seared tuna and big scoops of ice cream for dessert.

Part restaurant, part visual experience, this restaurant entertains only a dozen guests per night. Part of Ibiza's Hard Rock Hotel, Sublimotion combines trippy projections with an exquisite 20-course dinner. Guests are transported to underwater worlds, deep space or even the circus while enjoying chef Paco Roncero's dishes, which have included deconstructed shrimp scampi and a vegetable garden with edible soil. The three-hour dinner experience normally gets booked out several months in advance.

Everything about Kebab Queen is designed to tweak what people traditionally think of as fine dining. The most obvious difference between this joint and any other fine dining institution is that there are no plates – and minimal cutlery. Kebab Queen takes traditional Turkish dishes, such as the world-renowned kebab, and elevates them using the considerable knowledge and experience of the behind-the-scenes team. Ten diners at a time get to enjoy this one-of-a-kind culinary experience.

A 10-seat counter awaits diners at sleek Le Comptoir in Los Angeles. Michelin-starred chef Gary Menes prepares an exquisite eight-course tasting menu that focuses on vegetables, using seasonal ingredients sourced from the restaurant's kitchen garden. And while it might be a fine dining restaurant, the chef insists on no white tablecloths or multiple sets of silverware – dining here is an intimate, up-close-and-personal affair.

A Roanoke landmark since the 1930s, this compact 10-seater diner attracts plenty of people with its burgers, hot dogs and egg sandwiches. This is despite the long lines of hungry people that often form due to the Texas Tavern's modest size. The diner even pokes fun at itself with the help of a sign that says it seats '1,000 people... 10 at a time'. Some people visit so often that they know how to request their food using the lingo used by the short-order cooks.

There’s only one table at Mesa 1 in Mexico – and one sitting per evening. The restaurant is located within the exclusive W Punta de Mita resort, and up to 10 people can book a customisable seven-course tasting menu. Those lucky enough to bag the exclusive table will enjoy a magical dinner under the stars. Situated at the centre of a lake, the table can only be accessed via stepping stones that disappear in the water, leaving the impression that the platform is floating.

At a secret location in China's biggest city, you'll find this concept restaurant serving just 10 guests a night. Ultraviolet in Shanghai combines its 20-course tasting menu with an impressive light show and projections, transporting diners between worlds and promising to tell a story across its dishes. The immersive and multi-sensory meal by chef Paul Pairet has been awarded three Michelin stars.

A tiny and exclusive restaurant-within-a-restaurant, é by José Andrés is like a fine-dining version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In fact, they say you'll only be admitted if you're in possession of a 'golden ticket'. The nine-seat chef's table, serving avant-garde Spanish cuisine, is even located behind a secret door. Two nightly sittings are available – that is, if you can get a booking in the first place.

Quite literally hidden behind a secret door in a taco joint, Hiden serves up a high-end omakase menu, meaning diners get whatever the chef is cooking. With space for just eight, the intimate restaurant flies in fresh fish from Japan twice a week, and diners can watch as their meal is prepared right in front of their eyes.

Chef Chris Restapo is the man behind this small-but-mighty eight-seater restaurant in Brixton, which serves some of London's best omakase. All diners pay one price (£150 in 2025) and eat the 18-course menu together – and the offering changes constantly, depending on what the restaurant can source each week. Reservations aren't easy to come by, but they're always worth the effort.

Once a storage space, this Japanese restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City is notable not only for its food, but also its setting. The spot's ground floor features a traditional izakaya counter, where guests sit and watch the chefs prepare food. However, the first-floor dining space is no bigger than 39.8 square feet (3.7sqm). The room (pictured) features a single table facing a glass façade looking directly onto the street. There are bigger private function rooms available to book, but it's this snug dining space that makes it one of the littlest on our list.

Tipped as one of London's hardest restaurant bookings to get, tiny Sushi Tetsu's seven seats hide behind an unassuming door along a passageway in central London. Easily among London's smallest restaurants, this sushi bar has no website and no Facebook page – and, typically, bookings can only be made over the phone. But the effort is worth it, with happy diners raving about the food and the experience.

Though it's arguably more a fast food joint than a restaurant, this Pennsylvania icon cannot be ignored. Aptly named, The Squeeze-In serves some of the best hot dogs in the state, in such a tiny place that diners literally have to squeeze in. Once you do manage to get a seat, there's a generous selection of dogs, from Cubanos and Reubens to the joint's signature Squeeze Dog (with relish, onion, sweet and hot chilli, sauerkraut and baked beans). Normally, only five customers at a time are allowed in, but takeout is available, too.

This restaurant claims to be the smallest in the world... but so do quite a few others! Pegelhäuschen is in a reconstructed water gauge house right above the river Elbe in Hamburg. Offering a private dinner setting for two to four people, the restaurant serves a four-course set menu, including drinks, with wonderful views of the river. The restaurant is part of a historic hotel – Zollenspieker Fährhaus – with three other restaurants.

As its name ('just for two') suggests, this restaurant only has one table for two people. It's housed in a 19th-century building, and guests arrive via a candlelit driveway before sipping an apéritif in the garden. The cuisine is Italian and season dependent, and the dinner takes place in an uber-romantic dining room right by a fireplace. Such an exclusive affair isn't easy on the wallet, though. Guests can customise the menu, the music and even the flowers.

You'd be forgiven for thinking Indo Java is just an Indonesian grocery store on a busy street in Queens. But come here on a Tuesday, and you might be among the lucky people to bag the only table for two at its storied Warung Selasa pop-up. The bright yellow table and black metal folding chairs are squeezed in between a freezer and a wall of instant noodles, and only one dish is available on the day. The tiny pop-up restaurant has earned high praise from The New York Times.

Floor space at this unusual spot – dubbed the world's smallest restaurant – might be minuscule, but those lucky to book it are treated to traditional and timeless Finnish fare. The menu could include dishes such as grilled local fish or hunter's bread (fried bread with a mushroom sauce topping). The charming lakeside restaurant is in Iisalmi, Finland, and it's an extension of a neighbouring restaurant, Olutmestari. Kuappi, meaning 'closet', has just enough space for a table for two and one staff member.

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Last updated by Luke Paton.