Every year, the announcement of Michelin’s restaurant rankings has diners scrambling to score reservations and in-the-running chefs desperately hoping that their restaurant team nailed the mystery visits.
But what about the outstanding restaurants so far off the Michelin Guide’s roadmap, they don’t get a look in?
Here, seven Michelin-starred chefs, both past and present, call out their favorite restaurants not visited by Michelin’s inspectors.
Their loss is your gain.
Amador’s Wirtshaus**, Vienna, Austria; Alma by Juan Amador*, Singapore
My pick: "Restaurant Simon Taxacher at Relais & Châteaux Hotel Restaurant Spa Rosengarten, Austria"
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Why: "Simon Taxacher is an extraordinary chef. His cuisine is French Mediterranean with regional influences, with lots of creativity, individuality, and courage. A visit in his restaurant is always fun and exciting right up to the very end."
I order: "I never order a menu—I let the chef decide. I love to be surprised."
After being awarded two Michelin stars—firsts for both a Tyrol restaurant and a native Tyrolean—for his Restaurant Rosengarten in 2009, Simon Taxacher expanded on the accolade by opening the 26-room Hotel Restaurant Spa Rosengarten in 2010 in the Kitzbühel Alps with his partner Sandra Kobald as Maître de Maison.
In the cozy, contemporary restaurant, muted beige, charcoal, and earth-toned walls and textured paneling place his colorful dishes—luma pork with wild carrot and matcha tea, red sea mullet with artichoke and tomato—front and center.
Tasting menu from $205; restaurant.rosengarten-taxacher.com
L'Effervescence**, Tokyo
My pick: “Central, Lima, Peru”
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Why: "Peru is such an amazing country with oceans backed by mountains, beyond which there’s the Amazon—the biodiversity and complex terroir is magical. Chef Virgilio and his team's discoveries of products and landscapes through indigenous culture are things you would never find in any other place."
I order: "The tasting menu."
To discover Chef Virgilio Martínez’s food, first you have to find his lauded restaurant Central, tucked away among gated homes along a side street in Lima’s most upscale neighborhood, Miraflores. (Pro tip: Look out for the understated plaque in the sidewalk and the staff member discreetly positioned to welcome you inside.) Within, the light, airy, lofty-ceilinged dining room overlooks the open kitchen, with textured stone and light woods used throughout to give a sense of being in touch with nature; the expansive onsite garden furthers that feeling while also providing a constant source of fresh ingredients plucked as needed for dishes and drinks.
Martínez showcases the diversity of Peru’s ingredients through tasting menus, organized as a 17-course or 11-course vertical interpretation of ecologies at different elevation. Dishes might include the Low Andes Mountains, with veal, quinoa, and airampo, and the High Jungle, with macambo and cassava.
(Martinez’s London restaurant Lima has a Michelin star.)
Tasting menus from $147; centralrestaurante.com.pe
State Bird Provisions* and The Progress*, both San Francisco
My pick: "Raymond's in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada"
Why: "Chef Jeremy Charles along with his entire team—including his amazingly talented wife who designed the restaurant—are not only extremely creative and skilled in their perspective fields, but also possibly the most down-to-earth and hospitable team I have every met."
I order: "The tasting menu, seeing as it's such a trek to get there and everything they make is so unique to the region."
Set within the 1915 Commercial Cable Company building—one of the few classical examples of Newfoundland and Labrador architecture remaining on Water Street—this restaurant from chef (and fly fishing enthusiast) Jeremy Charles and sommelier Jeremy Bonia takes inspiration from the 1937 historical tome The Book of Newfoundland to celebrate wine and local food procured through hunting, fishing, and gathering.
The period dining room, styled by Carvel & Helm, still has its original moldings and 18-foot ceilings hung with vintage-style chandeliers. Sumptuous cream drapes and damask flocked wall coverings frame huge black-framed windows and views of St. John’s Harbor.
Dishes might include lamb tartare and cod with tatsoi, offered by as part of a three-, five-, or seven-course menu accompanied by a list of global and Canadian wines.
Three courses $67; wine pairing, add $40; raymondsrestaurant.com
Daniel**, Café Boulud*, both New York City
My pick: "Relais & Châteaux Toqué!, Quebec, Canada"
Why: "It’s quintessential Quebec, and yet very refined. Toqué! focuses mainly on Eastern Canada and the richness of the coast and land."
I order: "Usually sea urchins, and seafood—it depends on the time of the year. I was there in February and had some amazing salmon and cod, which is always fantastic because they’re so close to Nova Scotia."
Toqué!’s sign, a stylized sun, sets the tone for what diners can expect at this Quartier International mainstay of the Quebec dining scene—seasonal menus that champion local producers and ingredients change daily according to what’s fresh from the market. In the dining room, a window sculpture resembles birds perched on fence posts in anticipation of a meal; smooth, Bordeaux-toned chairs and plush velvet banquettes provide comfortable seating for the diners who flock here to enjoy Normand Laprise’s cooking.
Dishes might include lamb shank with bell pepper purée, cherry bomb pepper and chanterelle mushrooms, or line-caught bluefin tuna served with turnip, sweet cicely, onions, grapes, and lemon balm mousse.
Mains from $36; seven-course tasting menu $107; restaurant-toque.com
Quince***, San Francisco
My pick: "Vetri Cucina, Philadelphia"
Why: "It's without a doubt the consummate Italian restaurant and reminds me of some of my first trips to Italy. Everything is made by hand; the chef has a passion for Italian food unrivaled by other chefs."
I order: "The set menu and great service immediately puts you at ease. I love the sweet onion crepe with parmesan and white truffle fondue, and his ravioli."
Set within an historic townhouse in central Philadelphia, a visit to Vetri feels like being welcomed to a dinner party at the home of a wealthy, well-traveled Italian relative. Chef Marc Vetri’s influence extends beyond the kitchen into the 32-seat, wooden-beamed dining room, where he’s chosen every detail, from the Murano glass chandeliers to the Richard Ginori porcelain tableware.
Once seated, you’re welcomed with a seasonal spritz or glass of Prosecco and snacks; while you settle in, your waiter will discuss the Italy-focused tasting menu with you—Vetri Cucina’s sole offering—so Chef Vetri can tailor it to your preferences.
$155 per person; vetricucina.com
Falsled Kro, Millinge, Denmark
My Pick: "Obauer, Werfen, Austria"
Why: "It’s an Austrian kitchen using local ingredients, influenced by spices from Asia. What I really like is that they use every part of the animals: kidney, liver, brain… They also run a butcher’s shop in their small town of 300 people."
I order: "Whatever Karl and Rudy recommend. They used to have a star and I wish they could get it back."
Set on a street of multihued chocolate-box-worthy houses an hour’s drive south of Salzburg, Obauer oozes Austrian mountain town charm. Wood archways and exposed stonework give the dining room an elevated, ski chalet feel. Many tables overlook Alpine gardens, also used for dining in the warmer months.
Brothers Karl and Rudolf are known for their wholesome, seasonal cooking, and olfactory dishes such as local Werfel lamb with parsley pesto and lamb salami—accompanied by selections by Master Sommelier Alexander Koblinger—are further enhanced by the cool, pine-scented air wafting down from Honchoing Mountain.
À la carte lunch and dinner menu from $19; dinner tasting menu from two courses for $59 up to six courses for $160; obauer.com
Zeniya**, Kanazawa, Japan
My pick: "Kakusho, Takayama, Japan"
Why: "This 200-year-old restaurant in the mountains serves Shojin cuisine—traditional cuisine eaten by monks who don’t eat meat and fish. Because of its location, they can serve fresh vegetables found in the wild. You could say a meal here is not only a way to enjoy food, but the seasons."
I order: "The tasting menu, always. This is the best way to enjoy Kakusho."
Because the original occupant of this early 1800s two-story timber-frame house was a high-ranking doctor who served the gundai (regional administrator) and therefore had samurai status, it was built in the samurai style, distinguished from merchant houses by its lengthy recessed entranceway. (During the Edo period, the Samurai caste was made up of aristocratic bureaucrats rather than warriors.) When Gundai chef Kakusho, also samurai, bought the house in the 1830s, he ran it as an eatery; 200 years and 12 generations later it’s one of the few samurai houses left in the city and one of the oldest restaurants in Gifu prefecture.
Surrounded by gnarled, lichen-covered trees, the compound includes the main house, a tea house, and smaller cottages, where kaiseki multi-course meals, including dishes such as walnut tofu and homemade soba noodles, are served in private rooms with views of Kakusho’s expansive, peaceful gardens.
Shojin tenshin lunch $57; Shojin kaiseki lunch and kaiseki dinner $103; kakusyo.com
