Chefs, restaurateurs, and hospitality workers from across California gathered at Eve in San Diego on the evening of June 24 for the unveiling of the 2026 Michelin Guide California. At the ceremony, restaurants across the state were recognized with Michelin star designations in one of the hospitality industry\u2019s biggest nights.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s ceremony comes on the heels of an exciting 2025, where two Los Angeles restaurants \u2014 Aitor Zabala\u2019s resurrected Somni and Michael Cimarusti\u2019s Providence \u2014 received three stars for the first time in the city\u2019s history. Other additions included omakase restaurant Mori Nozomi; Santa Barbara\u2019s Silvers Omakase; and Little Tokyo Korean tasting counter, Restaurant Ki, which became the city\u2019s first Michelin-starred Korean restaurant. Ki\u2019s chef, Ki Kim, received the Michelin Young Chef Award.<\/p>\n
Since the 2025 ceremony, Michelin has released a handful of updates to its California guide, putting more restaurants in contention for stars or Bib Gourmand recognition, the latter of which spotlights \u201cgood quality, good value cooking.\u201d The Bib Gourmand designation tends to highlight more affordable restaurants \u2014 at these restaurants, diners can expect two courses and a glass of wine or dessert for about $50 before tax and tip. The newcomers to the guide include Corridor 109, a Melrose Hill seafood tasting menu from chef Brian Baik; Lugya\u2019h, a tlayuda counter within Maydan Market from the team behind Poncho\u2019s Tlayudas; Montecito\u2019s Little Mountain from chef Diego Moya; and Lielle, a California tasting menu restaurant from Marcus Swedish chef Marcus Jernmark.<\/p>\n
At the 2026 ceremony, Anna Sonenshein and Niki Vahle of Little Fish Melrose Hill (and fried fish sandwich fame) took home the Michelin Young Chef Award. The new one-star restaurants in Los Angeles and on the Central Coast are Dave Beran\u2019s Santa Monica tasting menu restaurant, Seline; Edomae-style omakase restaurant, Miura; Sawtelle strip mall omakase restaurant Kojima; Brian Baik\u2019s Melrose Hill seafood tasting menu counter, Corridor 109; Swedish chef Marcus Jernmark\u2019s California restaurant, Lielle. Jon Yao\u2019s Taiwanese-inflected restaurant, Kato, was Los Angeles\u2019s only new two-starred restaurant. A handful of restaurants lost their single star this year, including 715, Camphor, and Morihiro.<\/p>\n
Although Michelin previously announced that it would phase out its green stars, which recognized restaurants for sustainability, a new slate of green stars made a surprise appearance at the 2026 ceremony. Monte\u2019s in Santa Barbara and Six Test Kitchen in Paso Robles were recognized with a green star.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chefs, restaurateurs, and hospitality workers from across California gathered at Eve in San Diego on the evening of June 24 for the unveiling of the 2026 Michelin Guide California. At the ceremony, restaurants across the state were recognized with Michelin star designations in one of the hospitality industry\u2019s biggest nights. This year\u2019s ceremony comes on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[58,55,56,53,102,57,1077],"class_list":["post-11799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-cuisine","tag-california-dining","tag-california-food","tag-california-restaurants","tag-california-wine","tag-la-restaurant-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117276302630579581","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}