On Wednesday evening, the culinary stars will collide in downtown San Diego. That’s when The Michelin Guide will bring its California restaurant awards ceremony to San Diego for the very first time.

At the invitation-only event, Guide officials will unveil the California restaurants that are receiving new Michelin stars for 2026 or retaining the stars they’ve earned in years past. San Diego County restaurants have only been eligible for Michelin recognition since 2019, so luring the awards ceremony here has been a top priority for local restaurant and tourism officials ever since.

Nobody is more proud to be hosting the event in San Diego than William Bradley, the chef-director of Addison by William Bradley. The Chula Vista native opened his restaurant in San Diego’s Carmel Valley 20 years ago, and it is now one of just 14 Michelin three-star restaurants in the United States.

“To get the ceremony in San Diego was something I really dreamed of and pushed for,” said Bradley. “What an opportunity to have so many great chefs here in our hometown and in our own backyard to celebrate as a group all of the great restaurants in the state. We’re so ready to shine in San Diego. We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

Advertisement

The Michelin effect

Born in France in 1900, the Michelin Guide was created to boost sales of the company’s car tires. The guide booklet, which recommended restaurants and other spots to visit during cross-country road trips, was a hit (for tire sales and the restaurants). In the 1920s, Michelin stars were introduced and over time they became the international standard for excellence.

In 2005, the Michelin Guide arrived in the U.S., starting in New York City, followed by the San Francisco Bay Area in 2007 and Chicago in 2011.

In 2019, the Guide finally expanded its coverage throughout California, thanks to a $600,000 investment in the program by the Visit California tourism organization. Michelin spent the money recruiting and training inspectors with at least 10 years of hospitality industry experience to dine anonymously at restaurants around the state year-round.

In the first year of statewide eligibility in 2019, Addison by William Bradley earned Southern California’s first Michelin star. Seven years later, San Diego County is now home to 43 Michelin Guide-honored restaurants, including five with Michelin stars, nine with Bib Gourmand awards, which recognize great cooking at great value, and 29 with selection honors, recognizing high-quality food.

For these local restaurants, Michelin awards have put them on the international map, brought in more business and helped them recruit investors and motivated workers. For local tourism officials, the awards have raised the profile of San Diego as an international culinary destination.

San Diego Tourism Authority Chief Operating Officer Kerri Kapich said restaurant awards from Michelin, as well as from the James Beard Foundation and Eater.com, give travelers another reason to visit San Diego, stay longer and spend their dollars eating out.

Advertisement

About $1.6 billion of San Diego’s $14.8 billion visitor economy in 2025 was spent on dining, and most of that was driven by overnight guests, she said.

“I love how fresh our food is here and the quality and diversity of our restaurants,” said Kapich, who has worked in local tourism for more than 20 years. “When we talk to travelers about why San Diego is a great place to visit, they’ll talk about our unique local cuisine and the quality of our cuisine.”

In its 2025 “Beyond the Michelin Stars” study, the accounting firm Ernst & Young found that 60% of international travelers under the age of 34 use the Michelin Guide when choosing a restaurant, and 74% of travelers consider Michelin’s presence in a city as a reason for choosing a destination.

The study also found that 82% of chefs surveyed reported an increase is overall sales after receiving a Michelin award.

Chef and restaurateur Roberto Alcocer, whose 4 1/2-year-old contemporary Mexican restaurant Valle in Oceanside earned its Michelin star in 2023, said there’s a common adage in the industry about how stars impact a restaurant’s bottom line.

Advertisement

“They say when you get one star, your business grows by 40 percent. If you get two stars, it grows 60 percent, and if you get three stars it grows 100 percent. But when we got our star, our business grew 100 percent,” Alcocer said.

The chefs and owners of California’s eight Michelin three-star restaurants at the 2025 Michelin Guide California Awards Ceremony in Sacramento. At far right is William Bradley, the chef-director at Addison by William Bradley in San Diego. (Marc Patrick / BFA.com)

California’s newest Michelin one-star restaurant chefs, from left, Lennon Silvers Lee, Sarah Cooper, Aomboon Deasy, Ki Kim, Nozomi Mori and Eric Bost at the 2025 Michelin Guide California Awards Ceremony in Sacramento. (Marc Patrick / BFA.com)

Robert Alcocer is the executive chef of Valle, a contemporary Mexican tasting-menu restaurant in Oceanside, which earned a Michelin star in 2023. (John Gastaldo / For the Union-Tribune)

Advertisement

Thomas Keller, chef-owner of the Michelin three-star restaurant The French Laundry in Yountville, gives a standing ovation to winners at the 2025 Michelin Guide California Awards Ceremony in Sacramento. (Marc Patrick / BFA.com)

William Bradley, chef-director at San Diego’s Michelin three-star restaurant Addison by William Bradley speaks at the 2025 Michelin Guide California Awards Ceremony in Sacramento. (Marc Patrick / BFA.com)

William Bradley, chef-director of San Diego’s Michelin three-star Addison by William Bradley, center, with fellow three-star chef Thomas Keller of The French Laundry, left, and two-star chef Chris Bleidorn of Birdsong at the 2025 Michelin Guide California Awards Ceremony in Sacramento. (Marc Patrick / BFA.com)

Restaurateur John Resnick, left, and executive chef Eric Bost inside Lilo, their 24-seat tasting menu restaurant in Carlsbad that earned a Michelin star in 2025. (Elodie Bost)

Eric Bost, the executive chef and partner of Michelin-starred Lilo Restaurant in Carlsbad, gets a handshake from the Michelin Man at the 2025 Michelin Guide California Awards Ceremony in Sacramento. (Marc Patrick / BFA.com)

Advertisement

Show Caption

1 of 8

The chefs and owners of California’s eight Michelin three-star restaurants at the 2025 Michelin Guide California Awards Ceremony in Sacramento. At far right is William Bradley, the chef-director at Addison by William Bradley in San Diego. (Marc Patrick / BFA.com)

Expand

The lure of Michelin

Two of San Diego County’s five Michelin-starred restaurants are in Carlsbad: Jeune et Jolie, which earned its star in 2021, and the 24-seat Lilo, which landed a star in 2025 just 10 weeks after it opened. Both are led by restaurateur John Resnick and executive chef Eric Bost, who is also a partner in Lilo.

When Resnick opened Jeune et Jolie in December 2018, there was no California Michelin Guide. But meeting Michelin’s high-quality standards was Resnick’s top priority for the contemporary French restaurant.

“Michelin was the mindset. They’re not here, but if they were, we want this to be a one-star restaurant,” he said. “We wanted to be creating a really great restaurant that’s incredibly delicious, equal parts special occasion and neighborhood restaurant.”

Bost said that when he was growing up, he was fascinated with the “mystique and romanticism” of Michelin-star restaurants, but it was an abstract concept, since the Guide didn’t exist in the U.S. at the time. So in 2001, he moved to Paris to work in French kitchens, and later worked under French master chefs Alain Ducasse and Guy Savoy.

Bost said earning a Michelin star is a proud achievement, but it’s also a big responsibility. Customers expect excellence every night and stars must be re-earned each year.

“It’s about how to keep the team engaged, the restaurants growing and doing better and better each year,” Bost said. “We’re very conscious of that. It keeps this positive pressure. We have a responsibility to maintain those standards for our guests. It’s an internal compass as much as it is an external recognition.”

Alcocer said his desire to earn a Michelin star was one of the main reasons he moved to Carlsbad from his native Mexico in 2021 to open Valle in Oceanside. Mexico didn’t launch its Michelin Guide until 2024, but by then Alcocer already had a star under his belt in the U.S.

How Michelin works

The Michelin Guide tightly guards the secrecy of its inspectors and its judging process, but the anonymous Chief Inspector of Michelin Guide North America did respond to questions submitted via email by the Union-Tribune.

Inspectors choose the restaurants they visit based on their knowledge of the region’s gastronomic scene and they pay their own bills. They rate restaurants based on the five criteria Michelin has used in its now-global methodology since 1926: use of quality products, harmony of flavors, mastery of cooking techniques, the voice and personality of the chef reflected in the cuisine and consistency between each visit.

The decision to award a star is done collegially, meaning several inspectors will visit a potential star restaurant throughout the year to ensure they all agree that the five criteria have been met.

A Michelin Guide award is not permanent. Every recipient, whether they have a top-tier star or a third-tier selection, are revisited each year to ensure that all five criteria continue to be met.

In San Diego in 2024, Sushi Tadokoro’s star and Solare’s Bib Gourmand awards were both downgraded to selection status. And since 2019, more than a dozen local restaurants that were named selections have been dropped from the guide completely.

Even though Addison’s Bradley is in the Michelin major leagues with fellow three-star California chefs like Thomas Keller, Dominique Crenn, Cory Lee and Michael Cimarusti, he said he still finds it nerve-wracking each year to find out whether his stars have been renewed.

Bradley, Bost and Alcocer said their job as chefs at Michelin-starred restaurants is to never rest on their laurels.

“You have to keep evolving and keep growing. Every time we learn something or see something that could use a small change, we go for it,” Alcocer said.

In the past year at Valle, Alcocer has introduced a lighter tasting menu for off-hours dining, added patio seating, changed the candles on each table, and he’s now sending diners home with a gift bag stocked with house-made Habañera hot sauce and lavender soap made with recycled cooking oil.

Awards night

Because so many of California’s top chefs will be in San Diego this week for the ceremony, Addison, Valle, Jeune et Jolie and Lilo will all be expanding their operating hours to accommodate visiting chefs and restaurateurs.

Resnick and Bost said they’re excited to welcome colleagues from afar who have yet to explore San Diego’s fine-dining community.

“It’s a rad opportunity for people to come and see how incredible this place is with the great community of restaurants that we’ve forged,” Resnick said. “We’re all excited and it’s a big point of pride for all of us.”

At the California awards ceremony each year, invited chefs mingle at a reception before the ceremony begins. Then, Michelin officials announce the year’s new and returning star recipients, starting with the one-star tier and concluding with three stars.

The biggest cheers of the evening always go to restaurants receiving their first-ever star, as well as the rare restaurants fortunate enough to earn a second or third star. California has eight restaurants with three stars, 14 with two stars and 61 with one star.

Bradley said he’s “pretty confident” there will be some good news for San Diego restaurants on Wednesday.

“I think there will be some chefs that are going to get their star this time around. I want them to. We want more stars here in San Diego. It just makes San Diego more of a destination,” he said. “That was our goal many years ago to help secure this region on a world map and here we are. It’s going to be great.”

Here are all 43 of the current Michelin Guide honorees in San Diego County:

Michelin starred: fiveStars honor outstanding cooking, based on the five criteria of ingredient quality, harmony of flavors, the mastery of culinary techniques, how the chef’s personality shines through their cuisine and consistency across the entire menu and over time. Restaurants can earn up to three stars. There are just 14 Michelin three-star restaurants in the U.S.

• Addison by William Bradley, Carmel Valley – three stars
• Jeune et Jolie, Carlsbad – one star
• Lilo, Carlsbad – one star
• Soichi, North Park – one star
• Valle, Oceanside – one star

Bib Gourmand: nineA Bib Gourmand honors great cooking at great value — simple, skillful dishes that don’t compromise on quality.

• Atelier Manna, Leucadia
• Callie, East Village
• Cesarina, Point Loma
• Ciccia Osteria, Barrio Logan
• Cucina Urbana, Bankers Hill
• Dija Mara, Oceanside
• Lola 55, East Village
• Mabel’s Gone Fishing, North Park
• Morning Glory, Little Italy

Selections: 29This represents high-quality food.

• Artifact at Mingei, Balboa Park
• A.R. Valentien, La Jolla
• Born & Raised, Little Italy
• Catania, La Jolla
• Campfire, Carlsbad
• Coasterra, Harbor Island
• Cloak & Petal, Little Italy
• Craft & Commerce, Little Italy
• The Fishery, Pacific Beach
• Fort Oak, Mission Hills
• Great Maple, Hillcrest
• Herb & Wood, Little Italy
• Hidden Fish, Convoy District
• Himitsu, La Jolla
• Juniper & Ivy, Little Italy
• Kingfisher, Golden Hill
• Lucien, La Jolla
• Market Restaurant + Bar, Del Mar
• Menya Ultra, Convoy District
• Nine-Ten, La Jolla
• Paradisaea, Bird Rock, La Jolla
• Siamo Napoli, North Park
• Seréa Coastal Cuisine, Coronado
• Solare, Liberty Station
• Sushi Tadokoro, Old Town
• Tanner’s Prime Burgers, Oceanside
• Trust, Hillcrest
• 24 Suns, Oceanside
• Sovereign, East Village

For the complete list of all California Michelin Guide honorees, visit guide.michelin.com/us/en/california/restaurants.