On Tuesday, March 12, the Michelin Guide announced 10 new additions to its California guide, including nine restaurants in the Los Angeles area and one restaurant, 7 Adams, in San Francisco. Throughout the year, Michelin adds restaurants to its guide leading up to the announcement of its Bib Gourmands and Michelin stars during a summer ceremony. The “discoveries” from Michelin added to the guide represent a selection of the best restaurants, according to Michelin inspectors. These additions could be included in next year’s Michelin ceremony as starred restaurants, or as Bib Gourmands.
Los Angeles is well represented in this year’s California guide with restaurants that cover the spectrum, from the affordable family-run Peruvian chicken spot, Pollo a la Brasa, to Evan Funke’s high-end pasta restaurant, Funke. The guide also highlighted Echo Park’s Quarter Sheets, a 2022 Eater Awards winner, Little Fish, and Liu’s Cafe, a Chinese-American daytime cafe in Koreatown. On the more upscale side, Michelin added three Japanese restaurants to the guide, Sawa, 2023 Eater Awards winner Sushi Sonagi, and Uka, as well as West Hollywood’s French bistro Amour.
In the past, Michelin has struggled to represent the enormity of Los Angeles’s dining scene with its guide. While the latest selections represent a wide variety of price points and dining options, they are still mostly geographically centered around the area between Downtown Los Angeles and West Hollywood, save for Sushi Sonagi in Gardena.
At last year’s Michelin ceremony, only one Los Angeles restaurant received a new star — Heritage in Long Beach. There were no new two- or three-star restaurants.