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Michelin stars are coming to the Coastside.
The California 2024 Michelin Guide Ceremony will be held Aug. 5 at The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, where nearly 400 invite-only guests from across the state will learn which distinctions they’ve won from the illustrious Michelin Guide.
“The chefs who are invited, they are over the moon when they get that call, because that group is only invited if there’s an award to be had,” said John Hutar, president and CEO of The San Francisco Peninsula, the host of this year’s event. “For the first-time invitees, I can’t imagine the emotion that goes through that. You poured your heart, your soul, your life, your finances into this venture, and it’s just a matter of finding out which star level you’ve achieved.”
This is the first year the California Michelin Guide Ceremony will be held along the Peninsula, with last year’s event taking place in Oakland and prior events held in Los Angeles and Huntington Beach. The San Francisco Peninsula showed the Michelin team six possible venues before Michelin settled on The Ritz-Carlton, Hutar said.
“The Michelin event gives us a platform to really broadcast to the world how special this region is,” Hutar said.
The 2023 Michelin Guide listed 20 restaurants from San Mateo County (including five that had one star, one with a Bib Gourmand ranking and 14 Michelin Recommended) and 22 from Santa Clara County (including three restaurants with one star, five with Bib Gourmand rankings and 14 Michelin Recommended). Out of all the cities in both counties, Palo Alto had the most Michelin awards last year with one One Michelin Star restaurant (Protégé), one Bib Gourmand restaurant (iTalico) and six Michelin Recommended restaurants (Bird Dog, Ettan, Evvia, Tamarine, Vina Enoteca and Zola).
Michelin stars are the highest accolade, with three stars being the maximum a restaurant can receive. There were six three-starred restaurants statewide last year, three of which are in San Francisco. Michelin Bib Gourmand is a ranking that began in 1955 and is given to restaurants with exceptional food at moderate prices (where a three-course meal costs under $40). Michelin Recommended is still an honor, but it’s not at the level of a star or the Bib Gourmand ranking.
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