Wednesday Wishlist: Michelin Star Restaurants (2017 Edition)

Welcome to the 8th annual Wednesday Wishlist post where the topic is getting restaurants in San Jose worthy of Michelin starts. The Michelin guide is the most renowned rubric in the world for measuring culinary success. This is where I typically say something like: "I'm optimistic it will only be a matter of time until our food scene gets the recognition it deserves." Well guess what--not this year! San Jose finally has a restaurant with a Michelin Star, and the honor goes to Adega in Little Portugal. I could not think of a more worthy restaurant to be San Jose's first recipient of a star.

Michelin has three different star categories:

• One Star - A very good restaurant in its category with cuisine prepared to a consistently high standard. A good place to stop on your journey.
• Two Stars - Excellent cuisine, skillfully and carefully crafted dishes of outstanding quality. Worth a detour.
• Three Stars - Exceptional cuisine with distinctive dishes and superlative ingredients. Worth a special journey.

There are also restaurants in the Michelin guide that do not get a star, but are considered "Michelin Recommended." This is already a significant honor that a very small percentage of restaurants achieve. Within this category San Jose scored a total of 12 restaurants.

I created a Google doc listing all of the star recipients for 2017, along with tabs for all previous years and some general statistics. Below is an image capture from the doc. This year there were a total of 54 restaurants that were awarded Michelin stars, which is up 4 from last year and an all-time high for the Bay Area. 61% of the restaurants are locating in SF, 19% in Wine Country, 19% in Silicon Valley (split evenly between the South Bay and the Peninsula), and 2% in the East Bay. This is the first year in which Silicon Valley tied with Wine Country when it comes to star distribution--thanks to Adega in San Jose and Madera in Menlo Park (which was added back this year). There are 7 new restaurants on the list for 2017 and only three from 2016 did not make the cut: All Spice, Ame, and Kusakabe (all located in SF).


San Jose Michelin Starred Restaurants:

• East San Jose
• Adega (* 1 STAR *)

San Jose Michelin Recommended Restaurants:

• Downtown
• Vung Tau
• Back A Yard
• Swaad
• The Alameda
• Zona Rosa
• Midtown
• Walia
• Din Tai Fung (New)
• North San Jose
• Smoking Pig BBQ
• South San Jose
• Bun Bo Hue An Nam
• Thien Long
• Lau Hai San
• Willow Glen
• The Table
• Camden
• Zeni

In addition to Adega, Din Thai Fung (Chinese) is the latest newcomer to San Jose's "Michelin Recommended" list for San Jose. We did lose two that were recommended last year, Fratello and Rangoli. Overall, this is far and away San Jose's strongest showing in the Michelin guide to date. I'm hoping the trend continues and Adega inspires other San Jose restaurants to shoot for the moon! 

Source: Michelin Guide