The 13 Greatest Eating places in America, Based on Michelin
Galdones Photography
Michelin is a famously opaque organization, with its anonymous inspectors spanning the globe to rate restaurants. The tire company turned culinary bible doesn’t really let the world in on its process, and for the establishments that do reach its highest levels of three stars, the guide simply says these temples of gastronomy possess “exceptional cuisine worth a special journey.” But even with that limited definition of a three-starred restaurant, you can picture one in your mind: high levels of service, beautiful dining rooms, and tasting menus with creative flourishes. And when restaurants do reach that level of three stars, they become the destinations for special journeys, with people traveling the world to eat at one of the roughly 140 top-rated restaurants by Michelin.
After a few pandemic years that made the guide pause on demotions, Michelin is back to shaking things up again and the ranks of American three-starred restaurants have shifted since 2022 through closures and promotions. Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare split with its legendary chef César Ramirez, closed for a few months to regroup with new chefs, and in the process Michelin stripped them of all three stars. Quince paused to remodel for the better part of 2023 but retained its stars and returned to San Francisco with a fresh new look and à la carte options to accompany its tasting menu. But in the biggest move of the past year for the three-star ranks in America was that Chicago was no longer home to just one of Michelin’s highest-rated restaurants. John Shields and Karen Urie Shields’s Smyth joined Alinea as Windy City three-stars. The team behind former three-star Grace is back with Ever and holding at two—perhaps they’ll make it a trio of top-rated restaurants in Chicago soon and join the ranks of the 13 Michelin three-starred restaurants in America.
-
Addison, San Diego
Image Credit: Addison Restaurant 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 nine-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.
-
Alinea, Chicago
Image Credit: Alinea Ever since Michelin first came to the Windy City for its 2011 edition, chef Grant Achatz’s temple of molecular gastronomy has held three stars. Drawing on flavors from around the world—one course may be a chicken thigh with Mexican spices, while a rare Japanese fish may be another—Alinea’s modernist cuisine is strongly influenced from the time he spent at Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli. The restaurant is a showcase of advanced technique where food is dehydrated, subjected to liquid nitrogen, and you may even be fed an edible balloon. For nearly two decades, Achatz has kept pushing the envelope with theatrical presentations and exceptional food.
-
Atelier Crenn, San Francisco
Image Credit: Courtesy Jordan Wise 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 finally awarded Atelier Crenn a third in 2018. 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-starred restaurant in America. Not only that, her restaurant Bar Crenn—an ode to classic French gastronomy—picked up a star in its first year of eligibility. 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 said she would serve lab-grown chicken and in July 2023, she followed through by serving Upside Foods’ poultry.
-
Benu, San Francisco
Image Credit: courtesy Benu Among his peers, chef Corey Lee is highly revered. “The first time I ate Corey’s food was at the French Laundry when he was chef de cuisine,” Crenn says. “I could taste the talent behind the food. What I love about Benu is he celebrates where he’s from—Korea—and he communicates that in a very special way.” Praised for his technical ability and refinement of dishes, Lee’s Benu earned its third star in the 2015 guide. Lee has merged flavors from Korea, China, and Japan with techniques he honed as the French Laundry’s chef de cuisine for four years. The result is a lauded tasting menu that will feature dishes such as an oyster with pork belly and kimchi or smoked quail, lilies, and fermented pepper.
-
Eleven Madison Park, New York City
Image Credit: Evan Sung Despite being closed until after the 2021 New York guide was released, Eleven Madison Park, the former No. 1 restaurant at the World’s 50 Best, retained its three Michelin stars. In May of 2020, Daniel Humm worried about whether he’d ever reopen EMP, and when he finally decided it was time, the restaurant that reemerged in June 2022 was markedly different than the one that came before. EMP has gone mostly vegan, with Humm saying at the time of the announcement that the “current food system is simply not sustainable.” When the guide had the opportunity to sample EMP’s vegan fare, it deemed it still worthy of three stars in the latest New York edition.
-
The French Laundry, Yountville, Calif.
Image Credit: Courtesy Michael Grimm 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 features 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.
-
Inn at Little Washington, Washington, Va.
Image Credit: courtesy Inn at Little Washington It took three years for Michelin to deem a D.C.-area restaurant worthy of three stars, and it’s not a surprise that when it finally happened Patrick O’Connell’s Inn would be on the receiving end. Nestled near the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in a town of less than 200 people, he opened in a former garage, building it into a temple of gastronomy over the last four decades. The self-taught chef pioneered American farm-to-table cooking while leaning on modern French technique that the Gallic food guide especially loves.
-
Le Bernardin, New York City
Image Credit: Daniel Krieger Eric Ripert helms one of the finest seafood restaurants in America. Le Bernardin originally opened in 1986, an import from Paris, and was a hit immediately upon arriving on our shores. Ripert took over the kitchen in 1994, continuing the approach of exceptional seafood, simply prepared. When we named the “30 Most Influential Restaurants of the Last 30 Years” Le Bernadin was among the honorees, with chef Adrienne Cheatham summing up its legacy by saying, “This restaurant dedicated itself to exploring the bounty of the sea and to challenge and change the way diners were used to not only cooking and consuming, but also purchasing seafood.”
-
Masa, New York City
Image Credit: Takayama Management One of the most expensive tasting menus in America, chef Masa Takayama serves up an omakase sushi experience at his eponymous restaurant in New York’s Time Warner Center on the corner of Central Park. The omakase menu is $750 per person, while the chef’s counter experience is $950. The Japanese-born chef moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970s and eventually opened Ginza Sushi-ko, which helped establish the city’s love for sushi. In 2004, with encouragement from Thomas Keller, he moved to New York to create Masa. Fish from Japan is flown in directly to him to ensure the highest-quality product for his customers. In the 2009 guide, it became the first Japanese restaurant in America to earn three stars, and it remains the only one with three in the U.S.
-
Per Se, New York City
Image Credit: Deborah Jones As Thomas Keller prepared to bring his Francophile cooking to New York after much success with the French Laundry out in Napa, he was asked how his new restaurant would compare to the one that had established him as an iconic American chef. He’d respond, “It’s not the French Laundry, per se.” The name stuck. Like the French Laundry, Per Se serves a nine-course menu, replete with his take on modern French.
-
Quince, San Francisco
Image Credit: Øivind Haug 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 remodel and along with its tasting menu now offers à la carte options.
-
SingleThread, Healdsburg, Calif.
Image Credit: John Troxell 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.
-
Smyth, Chicago
Image Credit: John Shields After ascending to two stars in 2017, John Shields and Karen Urie Shields’s Smyth finally notched its third star in 2023. Set in a beautiful dining room that almost feels like you’re in someone’s home, the ingredient-driven restaurant has Nordic and Japanese influences. When it received Michelin’s top rating, the guide’s director Gwendal Poullennec deemed it “an elite restaurant,” and inspectors made note of dishes including a gently smoked quail egg topped with caviar and served with barley caramel, and Wagyu accompanied by a truffle-flavored doughnut with marrow glaze.
Authors
-
Jeremy Repanich
Source: Robb Report
