Michelin Restaurant Guide Tokyo

11 Top Tokyo Restaurants

Looking for a Tokyo Restaurant?
Michelin Restaurant Guide Tokyo published Nov '09 gives you a list of Best Tokyo Restaurants.
Find out which Tokyo Restaurant is Officially the Top restaurant in the Japanese capital.

Not many people don't know this, but Tokyo is one of the most amazing cities in the world in terms of restaurants.
The city is building a reputation as the ‘dining capital of the world'.

Michelin's secret criteria are traditionally unpublished.
One star indicates a very good restaurant, two stars mean excellent cuisine worthy of a detour, while three denotes exceptional cuisine deserving of a “special journey”, Michelin says.

The Tokyo guide is in English and Japanese. It goes on sale in Japan on Nov 09'.

"Tokyo remains by far the world capital of Gastronomy and also has the most three-star restaurants," said Michelin guide director Jean-Luc Naret.

Tokyo has succeeded Paris as the city with the most Michelin three-star restaurants, and confirmed its position as the 'world capital of gastronomy'.

Tokyo now has 11 three-star restaurants compared with 10 for Paris according to the latest edition of the Michelin guide Tokyo. New York by comparison has four three-star restaurants.

Tokyo also has more stars in total than Paris - 261 shared by 197 restaurants.

There was some controversy over earlier Michelin Tokyo guides.
Many locals were confused as to how these stars were awarded. Rumors indicated that some unworthy restaurants received Michelin stars, while some of the best restaurants in Tokyo received none.

Some restaurants refused to accept the stars that Michelin was willing to award them, claiming that they did not want their name stained by a non-Japanese authority that knew nothing of Traditional Japanese foods.


Another dissatisfaction was about Michelin Restaurant Guide recommending non-Asian kitchens in Tokyo (French, Italian) instead of concentrating on the wide variety of local Japanese foods (regional kitchens).

This criticism was addressed in this edition of the Tokyo Guide as it used only Japanese inspectors.

Tokyo's sheer size helps explain why it has so many Michelin stars. Tokyo is much bigger than Paris and has 160,000 restaurants compared with about 40,000 in Paris.

Of the 197 restaurants selected in this Michelin Guide Tokyo, two-thirds serve Japanese food while the other Tokyo Restaurants prepare French, Spanish, Chinese and Italian.
French restaurants, including one by Joel Robuchon, took three of the 11 three-star slots.

The next Michelin guide to Paris will be published in March 2010.

The Tokyo Restaurants Awarded Three Stars

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