🍽️ Michelin Guide: a journey through star restaurants
You can get to know another country not only through sightseeing tours, but also through national dishes and local culinary traditions. And this can be done better through establishments that have earned worldwide recognition through hard work and unique cuisine. We have selected several restaurants from the Michelin guide that deserve the highest award. They are worth paying attention to.
A little history
The French company Michelin is known throughout the world as one of the largest manufacturers of car tires. Back in 1900, its founder Andre Michelin decided to publish a guide for motorists. It indicated gas stations, cafes, workshops, hotels and other places that might be useful along the way.
Over the years, the collection was improved, and after some time, restaurants appeared in it, where prices for food in a particular establishment were noted using stars. Later, stars turned into ratings. And now this is a prestigious award that every decent restaurant or chef strives for.
There are two types of collection: green and red. Green contains important information for tourists: the country's attractions and vacation spots. But the red one talks about the best restaurants that have received a star award. It is here that gourmet tourists can glean useful information during their gastronomic tour.
Star rating in simple words
So, if you come across a restaurant with one star during your travel, then know that this is a good establishment with delicious food and excellent service.
Two stars is the best establishment in its category with unique dishes that you will not try anywhere else.
Three stars are awarded to exceptional and expensive restaurants with a famous chef and signature dishes. In such places, a table is booked several months in advance, and eating is more like going to the theater. You should plan your vacation around visiting these establishments.
Unfortunately, the guidebook does not answer the main question: which restaurant is considered the best. At the moment, the collection contains 140 establishments with three stars. New ones appear around the world every year. We will highlight only those that, in our opinion, deserve special attention.
Masa, New York, USA
The Japanese restaurant Masa has not only three Michelin stars, but also four stars according to the New York Times rating, as well as five stars according to the Forbes magazine rating. Recognized as the best Japanese cuisine establishment in the world.
The restaurant seats only 26, and tables are booked months in advance. The restaurant's chef, Masa Takayama, meets each visitor personally, inquires about his preferences, and after the meal asks for his opinion on the food. There is no menu as such. It is customary to order “omakase”, which in Japanese means “rely on your opinion,” that is, the opinion of the restaurant.
Masa himself recommends dressing in comfortable clothes to enjoy your meal comfortably, since lunch or dinner will last three hours. The food will be gradually brought out to you with short breaks.
Culinary masterpieces are prepared from the freshest ingredients. According to the chef, they should excite visitors not only with their taste and smell, but also with the way they are served. A trip to such a restaurant will not be cheap. The cost of an “omakase” per person is somewhere around $750, excluding alcohol, which, by the way, is not cheap at all.
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The Table Kevin Fehling, Hamburg, Germany
Michelin stars are awarded not only to restaurants, but also to chefs who, through their talent and hard work, take cooking to the next level. This also applies to Kevin Fehling. The owner of three Michelin stars opened his own restaurant called “The Table” in 2015, and the very next year the establishment itself received the highest award.
The restaurant's signature feature is a long, winding table with 20 seats, shaped like a snake. The meal lasts several hours, during which more and more new dishes are brought to the cooks in a single dance under the watchful eye of the master .
In his “works,” or it’s hard to call his dishes anything else, the chef combines culinary classics with exotic products. There are only seven signature dishes on the menu, but they are prepared from more than 100 ingredients. Just read the names: duck fillet with raspberry-rice sauce or pasta cookies with pineapple flavor. The check for lunch is fixed – 275 €.
St. Hubertus, San Cassiano, Italy
This seemingly inappropriate restaurant is located in a small Italian village surrounded by the Dolomites. A well-coordinated team of chefs led by Norbert Niederkofler daily create culinary masterpieces that can convey to visitors the spirit of the Alpine mountains.
The concept of the restaurant is simple: “Cook up the mountain.” The bottom line is that all the ingredients used in the preparation can be found locally. Even the menu itself indicates the distance in kilometers that this or that ingredient has traveled before reaching the table. Typically these are single digit numbers.
In addition, main dishes are seasonal. According to the chef, nature provides a person with the nutrients that he needs at a specific period: in the summer it is berries, in the spring – herbs, in the fall – mushrooms, and in the winter – beets. Each dish contains no more than three ingredients.
The restaurant was also awarded an additional “green” star. It has been issued since 2019 for compliance with healthy eating standards and reducing the amount of waste when preparing food. By the way, Norbert is trying to reduce them to zero. For example, trout tartare with red caviar is served with sauce made from the bones of the same fish and chips made from its skin. The restaurant has only two menus: seasonal and previous years – each for 170 € without drinks. An amazing and personalized culinary experience is guaranteed.
Geranium, Copenhagen, Denmark
In the world of fine dining, there are many awards and nominations that help distinguish good food from truly excellent food. Although the Michelin star rating gives an idea of a particular establishment, it does not divide restaurants into winners and losers. But the annual ranking of the top 50 restaurants in the world can reveal the winner. In 2022, it became the Geranium restaurant.
Chef Rasmus Kofoed does not eat meat, so the entire menu consists only of local seafood and vegetables from biodynamic farms in Denmark and Canada. Reservations must be made three months in advance, and despite the vegetarian bias of the menu, the check is quite large – $322. But if you decide that it is expensive, then think about drinks that are served separately. Wine will cost from $200 to $1800.
The chef's menu is known for presenting familiar ingredients in surprising ways. One of the signature dishes is shellfish tartare in edible shells. Moreover, the mollusk’s “house” is not a shell at all, but something like a cracker made of wheat flour, colored with algae and charcoal. It's unexpected twists like these that make dining at Geranium so exciting. What you see on the plate may lead you to make some assumptions, but one bite and you'll be transported to a completely different place.
Restaurant DiverXO, Madrid, Spain
This place is unlike any fine dining restaurant. Just imagine the decorative elements: chrome ants, hundreds of butterflies, skulls with mohawks and piglets with wings on every table. The establishment's website looks about the same – it seems to challenge society and stereotypes.
The restaurant's chef, David Minoz, at the age of 34, received the highest Michelin award and was awarded a number of other world awards. And this is no coincidence, because David seems to paint his dishes on canvas. Each serving is a work of art that you want to admire before eating.
Each of the 12 tasting dishes continues the previous one, forming an overall composition. The chef loves to experiment with herbs and seasonings, so they can be found even where they should not be found. This restaurant strives to surprise visitors and, as a rule, achieves success in this.
The average bill for dinner, including drinks, will be 365 €.