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11 Tokyo restaurants awarded three stars in latest Michelin Guide
Tokyo has been lauded again as the world's best culinary city by the Michelin Guide, with 11 restaurants awarded three stars in the new Tokyo edition of the guidebook.
French tire manufacturer Michelin announced Tuesday the outline of the restaurant-rating "Michelin Guide Tokyo 2010" to be released on Friday, listing a total of 197 starred restaurants: 11 with three stars, 42 with two stars and 144 with one star. Since its first issue in 2007, the Tokyo edition has produced the largest number of stars globally for three consecutive years.
The number of three-star restaurants, up by two from the Tokyo 2009 edition, is also larger than those in any other Michelin city edition, surpassing 10 in the Paris 2009 edition.
Michelin Director Jean-Luc Naret applauded Tokyo as the world's No.1 gastronomic city during a press conference at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government on Tuesday.
Those newly crowned with three stars are Esaki (classic Japanese restaurant), Saito (sushi) and Yukimura (Japanese), which earned two stars in the previous edition. Eight other restaurants -- Ishikawa (Japanese), Kanda (Japanese), Quintessence (French), Koju (Japanese), Joel Robuchon (French), Sukiyabashi Jiro Honten (sushi), Sushi Mizutani (sushi) and L'osier (French) -- maintained three stars.
Japanese cuisine accounted for nearly 70 percent of all the listed restaurants, including commonly eaten yakitori and kushiage (fried vegetables or meat on a skewer) places as well as izakaya (Japanese-style pubs), which were newly given one star.
The Michelin Guide Tokyo 2010, priced at 2,415 yen, will have an initial print run of 180,000 copies in total for the Japanese and English versions. Last month, the "Michelin Guide 2010 Kyoto & Osaka" was released for the first time in Japan, with seven restaurants earning three stars.
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(Mainichi Japan) November 18, 2009