New York City Dominates America’s Fine-Dining Capitals

Receiving a Michelin star is still the highest honor for a restaurant and more than 200 in the United States currently hold the distinction.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, Michelin-star restaurants cluster around the country’s biggest metros and most can be found in New York City.

Diners there have a large variety to pick from, including Michelin-starred Mexican at Casa Enrique in Long Island City, contemporary Scandinavian cooking at Brooklyn’s Aska or modern, set family-style meals at Family Meal in Manhattan. A total of 72 restaurants in the city currently have at least one Michelin star. 12 boast two stars and five even have three stars, also the highest number of any U.S. city.

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San Francisco and the Bay Area come in second in the ranking, with 38 highly-awarded eateries stretching from the North Bay through Palo Alto all the way to Saratoga. Restaurants offering different Asian cuisines are most often Michelin-starred in the area, followed by those offering contemporary or so-called Californian fare, which is focused on local and seasonal ingredients as well as fresh vegetables and lean meats. 

The dining scene is quite similar in Greater Los Angeles, where 28 star-studded restaurants are welcoming well-heeled customers from Hollywood to Costa Mesa. Another place where Michelin-starred restaurants are typically found in the United States is Napa Valley north of San Francisco, where plush dining rooms looks out over the countryside.

Washington D.C. and Chicago have fewer Michelin-starred restaurants than Californian cities, but in contrast to Greater Los Angeles, both places boast one locale with three Michelin stars each. Alinea in Chicago offers contemporary cooking that borders on the performative with dishes that flip and other tricks that the Michelin website describes as “tableside fun”. In Washington D.C., The Inn at Little Washington is a more traditional joint that dishes up intricate vegetable creations and grows many ingredients on site.