Michelin’s bevy of stars for Bay Area
The congratulatory tweets are already multiplying, the Champagne hangovers foretold. The Michelin Guide has released its annual list of star-worthy restaurants in the Bay Area, and it includes a few notable promotions.
Quince, Michael and Lindsay Tusk’s restaurant in San Francisco’s Jackson Square, has finally earned its third star — the highest award the guide issues — after renovating its dining room several times. The restaurant, which offers a tasting menu for $220, joins the French Laundry, the Restaurant at Meadowood, Benu, Manresa and Saison in the elite club. Quince also becomes the only Italian-inflected Michelin three-star restaurant in America. The promotion gives the Bay Area six threestar restaurants, on par with New York City; there are slightly more than 100 three-stars worldwide, Michelin reports.
Michelin has also bumped up Lazy Bear from one star to two. The fact that David Barzelay’s Mission restaurant has stars at all is notable, and not because it uses a ticketing system and seats diners at communal tables. Just three years ago, it was an underground restaurant.
The restaurants that have earned their first stars this year are a diverse crop, including Adega, a Portuguese restaurant in San Jose: Mister Jiu’s, Brandon Jew’s California-Cantonese restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown; the sushi-focused Ju-ni and Hashiri in San Francisco; and the eclectically Californian pair of Mosu and the Progress, both in the Fillmore.
Michelin’s announcement comes a week after the French company announced its 2017 list of Bib Gourmand restaurants, which recognize lower-priced (and more often than not, non-European) restaurants.
Stars, once gained, have proved difficult to shake off. As the ranks of starred restaurants in the Bay Area have swelled from 27 to 55 since Michelin published its first Bay Area guide in 2006, no three-stars have been demoted. Star-watchers will notice that Coi, in North Beach, has retained both of its stars, even after chefowner Daniel Patterson stepped down at the end of 2015 and named Matthew Kirkley to his place.
The only active restaurant to lose one star from last year is San Francisco’s Kusakabe, perhaps because the one-star list is so heavy on sushi restaurants. Among the fooderati, eyebrows may raise at the snubbing of popular Bay Area restaurants such as In Situ, Cala, Petit Crenn and Camino.
Regionally, San Francisco continues to dominate the list of restaurants that Michelin deems destination-worthy, followed by Wine Country. The Peninsula and South Bay gained a few one-stars this year, including Madera, which had lost its star last year. The East Bay is almost criminally underrepresented: Only one restaurant, Commis in Oakland, has stars of any number.