The 10 3-Michelin-Star Restaurants in California in 2026

California‘s Michelin winning streak continues apace in 2026. After the Guide stood pat in 2024, not elevating any restaurants to the three-star level, 2025 saw a pair of outstanding L.A. dining destinations ascend to the little red guide’s highest echelons. This year, another duo was elevated. A few years back Val Cantu’s Californios became the first Mexican restaurant to notch two stars, and in the latest guide it became the first Mexican restaurant in the world to earn three. Meanwhile, a little to the north in Sonoma, Brian Limoges’s Enclos rocketed to three stars after debuting with two stars last year. With no restaurants losing their third star, the total number of restaurants in the Golden State given top marks by Michelin is now 10, which exceeds the rest of America combined. Here are the restaurants in California deemed “worthy of a special journey.”

Addison, San Diego

On a hill overlooking the Fairmont Grand Del Mar’s gold course is where Addison has sat since 2006, led by chef William Bradley, who made the restaurant a local fine-dining destination. When Michelin expanded to cover all of California in 2019, Addison received one star for its outstandingly executed French-influenced fare, but chef William Bradley had higher ambitions. So he and his team set to remake the menu and find a voice more distinctly their own, focusing on the produce, flavors and culture surrounding them. Calling it “California Gastronomy” the now 10-course tasting menu includes dishes such as the Thai coconut soup tom kha gai and Regiis Ova caviar perched atop creamy koshihikari rice with a smoked sabayon and sesame seeds. Michelin noticed, elevating Addison to two stars in the 2021 California guide before handing the restaurant its third in December 2022. It has held onto its three-star ranking ever since and just reopened after a remodel in the spring of 2026.

Atelier Crenn, San Francisco

Since opening in 2011, chef Dominique Crenn has put out a soulful, artistic take on modern French fare. After sitting at two stars for years, Michelin has finally awarded Atelier Crenn a third. The guide wrote that “The current menu displays a wonderful balance of grace, artistry, technical ability and taste.” With the honor, Crenn became the first woman to run a Michelin three-star restaurant in America. In 2019 she announced that she would take the meat off of all her menus—seafood would remain—because of Crenn’s concern about the environmental impact of animal agriculture. However, she has shown interest in serving lab-grown meat, which she briefly did at her more casual Bar Crenn, offering Upside Foods’ cultivated chicken until taking it off her menu in early 2024.

Benu, San Francisco

Corey Lee worked for Thomas Keller at the French Laundry for nearly a decade, rising up the ranks to chef de cuisine and winning a James Beard Award for Emerging Chef. Since opening Benu in 2010, he has only furthered his legend as a technically brilliant chef. At Benu, Lee has merged flavors from Korea, China, and Japan for his tasting menu, creating dishes like oyster with pork belly; a thousand-year-old egg with potage, ginger, and cabbage; and kimchi or smoked quail, lilies, and fermented pepper. For his efforts, Lee’s Benu became the first restaurant in San Francisco (along with Saison the same year) to be awarded three stars by Michelin, and he won another James Beard Award for Best Chef: Pacific.

Californios, San Francisco

Chef Val Cantú, a Texas native who’d worked in kitchens from Uchi in Austin, Texas, to Sons & Daughters in San Francisco, had noticed the lack of Mexican fine dining and set out to change that. He spent time at Pujol and returned to San Francisco to host pop-ups starting in 2013. In 2015, the brick-and-mortar Californios was born in the City by the Bay, earning a Michelin star in its first year. A few years later, it became the first Mexican restaurant in America to earn a second Michelin star. In 2020, Cantú moved his restaurant to a larger space in San Francisco and reopened in 2021 to serve his 10-course menu.

Enclos, Sonoma

Built inside an old Victorian home from the 1800s at Stone Edge Farm Vineyards and Winery, Enclos only opened in December 2025. It was long before the restaurant led by Brian Limoges caught the attention o the Gallic guide. Serving contemporary Californian cuisine, inspired by ingredients from Stone Edge Farm and seafood from the nearby Pacific, Enclos made a splashy debut with two stars in 2025. And then this year, roughly 18 months after opening, Limoges and team won a third star.

The French Laundry, Yountville

Around since the early 1900s, the French Laundry was transformed by Thomas Keller into a leader of American fine dining after taking it over in 1994. Rooted in his love of French food and technique, the nine-course menu over the years has featured dishes like a cauliflower velouté with toasted marcona almonds, john dory with creamed black trumpet mushrooms, squab with sunchokes, and venison with caramelized Brussels sprouts. “The French Laundry showed the importance of nostalgia in food,” says James Syhabout, chef of two-starred Commis in Oakland. “It traces what triggers you to take you to that same place when you first had a dish and it made you so happy. That’s all that matters sometimes about food.” One of the greatest testaments to the French Laundry’s influence has been the sheer number of alumni who have opened acclaimed restaurants of their own, from Grant Achatz’s Alinea to Corey Lee’s Benu to Rene Redzepi’s Noma. Like his idol Paul Bocuse, Keller has created a proving ground for exceptional chefs in addition to an outstanding restaurant to dine at.

Providence, Los Angeles

The seafood-focused Providence has been a stalwart of L.A. fine dining since it opened in 2005, with chef Michael Cimarusti becoming one of the deans of the city’s restaurant scene, serving California ingredients and line-caught seafood with a strong background in French technique. His restaurant has been a proving ground for talented chefs (alums are spread across the industry including one of them now running one of America’s best pizzerias) and a beacon of sustainability in fine dining (hence Michelin bestowing the restaurant with a Green Star as well). When Michelin first evaluated restaurants in L.A. in the late ’00s Providence earned two stars each year before the gastronomic guide decided to leave town. The restaurant regained its pair of stars when the guide expanded to cover all of California in 2019 and that’s where it had remained ever since. That is, until June 2025, when Providence, along with Somni, became the first restaurants in L.A. history to achieve three stars.

Quince, San Francisco

Chef Michael Tusk has combined his love of Northern Italian cuisine with his surrounds in Northern California to evolve classics like tortellini into modern American fare. Opened in 2003, Quince earned its third Michelin star in the 2017 guide. As with fellow pillars of contemporary California cuisine in the Bay Area, Quince is devoted to sourcing the best product. Tusk has created a partnership with Fresh Run Farm—an early adopter of organic farming—to grow heirloom fruits, vegetables and flowers exclusively for the chef. In 2011, after six straight nominations, Tusk won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Pacific, for his work at Quince and his rustic Italian restaurant Cotogna. In 2023, the restaurant underwent a stunning remodel and along with its tasting menu now offers à la carte options. With the restaurant coming back strong, it has maintained its three stars.

SingleThread, Healdsburg

Husband and wife duo Kyle and Katina Connaughton wanted to open more than just a restaurant when they debuted SingleThread in Sonoma in 2016. From the inn above the restaurant to the farm to the 11-course tasting menu, the two create an immersive and comprehensive experience. The Japanese-inflected food is informed by Kyle’s time as a chef around the globe. Among many stints, he worked at the famed chef Michel Bras’s restaurant in Hokkaido, Japan, made pastries at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago in Beverly Hills, and led the research kitchen at Heston Blumenthal’s temple of molecular gastronomy, the Fat Duck. He has brought that wealth of experience to a renowned dining destination.

Somni, West Hollywood

Somni reached the highest levels of gastronomy at breakneck speed, debuting in the Michelin Guide with three stars less than a year after opening. But Aitor Zabala’s journey was much longer than that. The original Somni, located in the SLS Beverly Hills Hotel and part of José Andrés’s ThinkFoodGroup, opened last decade, but the pandemic claimed the 10-seat tasting counter. Spanish-born and El Bulli-trained Zabala stayed in his adopted home of Los Angeles and kept developing dishes in his meticulously organized food lab in the city while he waited to find the right space. He finally did in West Hollywood, and set himself to rebuild his restaurant that means “dream” in Catalan. At Somni, amid the parade of courses, there’s beautiful plating and masterful technique: In one dish, a healthy quenelle of caviar is perched upon an impossibly light dashi meringue shaped like a fish. But Zabala’s wizardry never overshadows deliciousness, a balance exemplified by the outstanding shiso tempura topped with beef tartare and covered in borage flowers. He’s expertly combined Spanish modernism and the ingredients and influences of Los Angeles.