#michelin-guide

The fifth MICHELIN Guide Kuala Lumpur & Penang, released Nov. 4, recognises 159 places: one two-star restaurant, nine one-star restaurants, 60 Bib Gourmands and 89 MICHELIN Selected establishments. The only promotion is Potager, a contemporary French restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, which earns its first star. Darren Teoh's Dewakan, known for indigenous ingredients and Malaysian flavours, keeps two stars and remains the country's only two-star restaurant.

The other one-star restaurants are Akar, Beta, Chim by Chef Noom, DC. by Darren Chin, Molina and Terra Dining in Kuala Lumpur, and Au Jardin and Auntie Gaik Lean's Old School Eatery in Penang. Four places joined the Bib Gourmand list and 12 entered the Selected category. Aidan Low of Akar won the Young Chef Award, and Potager's Mr Nazahar won the Service Award.

ExpatGo notes that, unlike previous years, Michelin skipped a gala and announced the selection by press release only.

The Michelin Guide revealed its new Swiss selection on Monday, Nov. 2, at a ceremony in the Andermatt concert hall. The one new three-star restaurant is The Japanese Restaurant at The Chedi Andermatt, run by identical twins Dominik Sato and Fabio Toffolon, who have cooked there together since May 2023. That makes five Swiss three-star restaurants, alongside Memories (Bad Ragaz), Cheval Blanc by Peter Knogl (Basel), the Restaurant de l'Hôtel de Ville (Crissier) and Schloss Schauenstein (Fürstenau).

Tageskarte, citing Gault&Millau, reports that the brothers cut the restaurant from 17 tables to 12 and that revenue still rose. No new two-star restaurants were named; Switzerland has 22. Seven restaurants earned a first star, including rémy in Zürich, ad lib in Zermatt and Schlüssel by Tanja Grandits in Oberwil, and 11 new Bib Gourmands were added. Tageskarte counts 133 starred restaurants in all (Cuisine Helvetica says 132); last year's guide had 145, according to Keystone-SDA.

The Michelin Guide unveiled its second Manila and Environs & Cebu selection on Thursday night at the Manila Marriott Hotel: 127 establishments, including one Two Star restaurant, nine One Star restaurants, 31 Bib Gourmand picks and 86 Michelin-Selected restaurants.

Helm in Makati, led by chef Josh Boutwood, keeps its two stars. The only new star goes to Flow in Makati, led by chef Kevin Jonathan Uy. All eight returning one-star restaurants keep their star: Asador Alfonso (Cavite), Celera, Hapag, Inatô, Kása Palma and Toyo Eatery (Makati), Gallery by Chele (Taguig) and Linamnam (Parañaque). Michelin says Filipino cuisine made up nearly 60% of the newly selected places.

Special awards went to chef Frances Tariga's Tadhanà (Opening of the Year), Digámo's chef Francis Lacson (Young Chef), Tito Boy's Clyde Joshua Zafra in Pampanga (Service) and Automat's Ron Job Sanchez (Exceptional Cocktails).

Michelin revealed its 2027 Beijing & Tianjin selection at a ceremony in Tianjin on Wednesday, the first time Tianjin has been included. The combined list has 135 establishments: 34 starred restaurants, 48 Bib Gourmands and 52 Michelin Selected.

In Beijing (107 restaurants), Chao Shang Chao and Xin Rong Ji keep three stars, and Black Swan, Jingji, King's Joy, Lamdre and Lu Shang Lu keep two. The one-star list grows to 26 across 14 cuisine styles: Sichuan restaurant Chef 1996 is promoted from Selected, and Old Tower earns a star on its debut.

Tianjin's first selection has 27 places, including one star for China Banquet, a Huaiyang restaurant opened in 2023, plus 16 Bib Gourmands. Special awards went to Jun Dai of Lamdre (Mentor Chef), Yunjia Zhang of Under Clouds Green (Young Chef), Wei Qiao of Re Hai Fan Zhuang in Tianjin (Service) and Andrea Amadio of Monsieur Dior by Anne-Sophie Pic (Sommelier).

Days after Michelin's October 8 Texas update added five Dallas-area restaurants, D Magazine published an investigation (October 15) concluding that most or all of the new Dallas write-ups were produced with a large language model, the New York Post reports. A local chef had flagged an odd-sounding entry for Sushi Kozy to critic Brian Reinhart.

According to the Post, the AI detector Pangram rated the text "100%" AI, and Carnegie Mellon professors Alex Reinhart and David Brown pointed to GPT-4o as the likely source; Brown suggested an inspector may have fed notes to a chatbot and edited the output. The magazine said it found no sign of AI in Michelin's other city guides it compared.

Michelin denied it to D Magazine: "AI is not used in the writing of these reviews," saying inspector notes are written collaboratively from firsthand meals. Delish reports chef Tom Colicchio commented that "it's time to start ignoring this guide," while other readers argued AI detectors are unreliable.

Michelin announced its 2027 Greece selection on October 20, expanding beyond Athens to Thessaloniki and Santorini for the first time. Greek City Times reports the guide now covers 62 restaurants across the three destinations, with seven new one-star restaurants (four in Athens, three in Santorini), seven Bib Gourmands and 21 newly recommended places.

Lycabettus at the Andronis Luxury Suites in Oia, led by Christos Karagiannis and Petros Brandenburg, debuted with two stars. Keep Talking Greece says it is now the country's only two-star restaurant after Athens' Delta, at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, was listed with one star this year. Special awards went to 29-year-old Theodoros Kaloidis of To Manitari in Thessaloniki (Young Chef), Christian Potelle of Spondi (Service), sommelier Despina Tokalakis of Aleria and Amphibian in Athens (Opening of the Year).

The Michelin Guide revealed its second American South selection on October 21 at The Pinnacle in Nashville, covering Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Atlanta. Only three restaurants in the seven-state region earned a new star: So. Fox in Atlanta's Virginia-Highland, Uberto at the Quercus property in Gay, Georgia, and Dakar NOLA in New Orleans, Atlanta Magazine reports.

The AJC notes Uberto's chef Ryan Smith had given up a star at Staplehouse when he moved his tasting menu south of Atlanta; he also received one of the night's two new Mindful Voices awards. Atlanta Magazine says Uberto sources more than 90 percent of its produce from an on-site regenerative, solar-powered farm.

All eight previously starred Georgia restaurants kept their stars, giving the state 10, per the AJC. Atlanta Magazine counts five Georgia restaurants that appear to have dropped out of the guide (one closed) and two moved from Bib Gourmand to Recommended.