SAN DIEGO \u2014 California\u2019s annual\u00a0Michelin Guide ceremony can be fraught with anxiety for chefs and restaurateurs. After all, it\u2019s the night when they discover whether their restaurants gain, maintain or, in the worst-case scenario, lose a Michelin star, one of the culinary industry\u2019s most coveted honors. But at Wednesday night\u2019s event in San Diego, there was nary a hint of competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Instead, the overwhelming feeling was one of community.<\/p>\n
At an opening cocktail reception on the curved covered terrace at Eve, an indoor-outdoor waterfront event venue, the vibes were immaculate. Sun poured onto the covered terrace and bounced off the bay below. Attendees dressed to the nines milled around, enjoying passed bites like Thai spring rolls and glasses of sparkling wine. Some of the best-known chefs from all over California hugged and talked shop, having spent years cooking, collaborating and dining together in the rarified world that is California fine dining. Many stopped at a signature Michelin red step-and-repeat to snap a\u00a0pic with the puffy, permanently jolly Michelin Man, who made the rounds for photo ops.<\/p>\n
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The team behind Kato in Los Angeles poses with the Michelin Man at the Michelin ceremony in San Diego on June 24, 2206.<\/p>\n
Steve Lucero\/BFA.com<\/p>\n
It was an especially proud evening for the San\u00a0Diegans in attendance, like chef Elijah Arizmendi of newly minted one-star Lucien in La Jolla, Eric Bost of one-star Lilo and Jeune et Jolie in Carlsbad, and William Bradley of Addison by William Bradley, which, until last year, held the distinction of being Southern California\u2019s only three-star Michelin restaurant.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a huge validation for everybody who\u2019s been working their asses off for so long,\u201d said San Diego Magazine co-owner and writer Troy Johnson. \u201cFor years, we\u2019ve been written off as the flaccid mozzarella stick of California cuisine, whereas LA and San Francisco have been taken seriously. We\u2019ve seen [the San Diego culinary scene] grow up, and now the rest of the world is noticing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the crowd filtered into a ballroom and the star ceremony commenced, one of the biggest stories of the night was Kato, the Los Angeles Taiwanese tasting menu restaurant fresh off a win for Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program at last week\u2019s\u00a0James Beard Awards in Chicago. The decade-old restaurant, which started as a tiny strip mall spot that wasn\u2019t even allowed to serve alcohol, has racked up a walk-in full of accolades in the past few years, from being named the top restaurant on the Los Angeles Times\u2019 101 Best Restaurants list for two years running in 2023 and 2024 to chef Jon Yao\u2019s James Beard Award win for Best Chef: California in 2025.<\/p>\n
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The dining room at Kato in Los Angeles, which earned a second Michelin star on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Colleen O’Brien<\/p>\n
A dish from\u00a0Seline in Santa Monica, which earned its first Michelin star on June 25, 2026.<\/p>\n
Pete Lee<\/p>\n
After the one-star restaurants were announced and it became obvious that Kato was going to receive its second star, chef\u00a0Aitor Zabala of three-star Spanish tasting menu restaurant Somni ran over to hug Yao. Once onstage, Yao thanked the producers and artisans who support Kato and then said, \u201cIt takes a lot of people, a lot of diligent work and persistence to make our guests happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cKato is celebrating 10 years literally this week. Many people think this is all happening relatively quickly, but Jon has put in 10 years of his life into building Kato,\u201d co-owner Ryan Bailey told\u00a0SFGATE. \u201cIt\u2019s really great to bring these awards back to not only our team but Los Angeles as a whole. Our community is getting better and stronger, but we\u2019re always trying to represent our city in the best way we possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also coming off a James Beard Award high was longtime fine dining vet Dave Beran, who took home Outstanding Chef: California last week and whose highly personal Santa Monica tasting menu restaurant Seline nabbed its first star at Wednesday night\u2019s ceremony.<\/p>\n
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Dave Beran of Seline in Santa Monica receives the restaurant\u2019s first Michelin star in San Diego on June 24, 2026.<\/p>\n
Steve Lucero\/BFA.com<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a good week and a half,\u201d\u00a0Beran said with a laugh. \u201cNone of it was expected. Sometimes you look around at the team and think, we need a win, not for ego or morale, but more for the team to understand what they\u2019re doing matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The rest of the glitch-free ceremony yielded various highlights, including the addition of eight new restaurants \u2014 five in Southern California, three in Northern California \u2014 to Michelin\u2019s one-star rankings. Others, like Savannah Riedler of Carlsbad\u2019s Lilo, received long applause breaks for their recognition. A San Diego area native, Riedler (who has also worked in Los Angeles at Republique and in San Francisco at Saison) won Michelin\u2019s stand-alone sommelier award. Onstage, Riedler joked that she was so blindsided by the award, she almost felt like she was blacking out.<\/p>\n
Like any good ceremony, the night built into a tremble of excitement with the announcement of the three-star restaurants, Michelin\u2019s highest honor. The crowd broke out into loud cheers (and a few gasps) when\u00a0Sonoma\u2019s Enclos earned its third star, and the room erupted when San Francisco\u2019s Californios made history by becoming the first Mexican restaurant in the world to hold the three-star distinction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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A caviar\u00a0dish from Californios, which is the first\u00a0Mexican restaurant to earn three Michelin stars.<\/p>\n
Casey Lee<\/p>\n
The exterior of Enclos in Sonoma, which earned a third Michelin star on June 24, 2026.<\/p>\n
Adahlia Cole<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is for Mexican people. This is for all Latin people in the world,\u201d said chef Val\u00a0M. Cant\u00fa\u00a0onstage. \u201cWe have so much to be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Even longtime restaurant vets like Michael Tusk of Quince \u2014 which retained its three stars \u2014 felt the sense of inclusivity. With 10 three-star restaurants, California has more than any other state in the country by far. (Tusk also just celebrated a win for Outstanding Chef at the James Beard Awards earlier this month.)<\/p>\n
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\u201cI support all chefs, no matter what. It\u2019s not about stars, but it\u2019s a nice community for all of us,\u201d Tusk commented at a cocktail reception following the ceremony. \u201cSeeing Brian [Limoges of Enclos] onstage, who used to work for us, and Val [Cant\u00fa] is a great guy \u2026 I\u2019m just super happy for them. I just want to provide as much support as possible and be inclusive with everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Val M. Cant\u00fa\u00a0of Californios in San Francisco receives the restaurant\u2019s third Michelin star in San Diego on June 24, 2026.<\/p>\n
Steve Lucero\/BFA.com<\/p>\n
For many of the chefs and restaurant owners, the night continued at an after-party at the maximalist hotel Lafayette. There, at the 1920s-inspired downstairs bar Lou Lou\u2019s, a roaming saxophone player in sunglasses serenades guests, some of whom took to the dance floor. Others sipped on passed espresso martinis and took caviar bumps. It was a jubilant night filled with the best of the best in California cooking, all letting loose after a year that has been so hard for so many.<\/p>\n
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As always, California\u2019s giant restaurant scene is best viewed from space, where it\u2019s possible to see the street food, the fine dining spots, the\u00a0historic hangouts and the casual neighborhood restaurants equally. But for one night, everyone dancing at the Lafayette knew that Michelin, that French tire company-turned-culinary arbiter, was the center of their universe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SAN DIEGO \u2014 California\u2019s annual\u00a0Michelin Guide ceremony can be fraught with anxiety for chefs and restaurateurs. After all, it\u2019s the night when they discover whether their restaurants gain, maintain or, in the worst-case scenario, lose a Michelin star, one of the culinary industry\u2019s most coveted honors. But at Wednesday night\u2019s event in San Diego, there<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[58,55,81,82,83],"class_list":["post-331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-cuisine","tag-sfgfood","tag-sfgla","tag-sfglafood"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117251813210301963","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331","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=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}