Four San Francisco restaurants receive new Michelin Star honors

Chef David Yoshimura of Nisei was also honored with the Michelin Young Chef Award. According to Michelin’s anonymous chief inspector, Yoshimura is a chef who is “full of personality” with dishes elevated by his personal culinary journey.

“Chef Yoshimura is just under 35, and I say, he embodies exactly what we’re looking for in a young talent,” the inspector told SFGATE. “His cuisine represents a unique perspective and background and is captured in his cooking that’s both ambitious and highly personal.” 

In total, there are 89 restaurants with Michelin-star status in California and seven of those establishments garnered the three-star ranking. Michelin’s secret restaurant inspectors also awarded two new Green Stars, bringing the state tally of restaurants leading in sustainable practices to 11. There are only two Green-Starred restaurants in any other U.S. states.

Green Stars are awarded to restaurants that are true front-runners in gastronomy and are role models for their guests and peers. 

“That shows also that chefs here are real trendsetters, influencers and California as a whole is definitely a culinary powerhouse,” said international director of the Michelin Guides, Gwendal Poullennec. “California really has something to say and has a strong voice now in the world of culinary conversation. It has a strong identity when it comes to the quality of the produce. It’s really a part of the California culinary identity.”

Poullennec added that the three-star Michelin level is the “crème de la crème” in terms of gastronomy restaurants in the U.S. and beyond. There are 142 restaurants at the three-star level worldwide, with 40 three-star restaurants in the U.S.

“When we look at the number of three-stars in the U.S., so now we have seven in California, and that’s a lot,” he said. “If we look at the U.S. as a whole, it’s the No. 3 destination in the world in terms of the number of restaurants with the three-star label.”

Out of the 18 California restaurants recognized this year for new stars, eight of them are promotions. These were restaurants that were already a part of Michelin’s highly ranked selections and inspectors kept close watch over them throughout the year. The anonymous chief inspector listed Ssal in San Francisco and Localis in Sacramento listed as examples of restaurants getting promoted.

The Michelin Guide is all about consistency, according to Poullennec, who noted that the guide was started in 1900 and hasn’t changed its approach and criteria since then. For more than one century Michelin’s inspectors have followed the same methodology based on five universal criterions: “the quality of the food based on the quality of the products, the master of cooking techniques, the balance of flavors, the personality expressed on the plate, and lastly the consistency.”

Below is the list of San Francisco restaurants that took home the esteemed Michelin recognition with comments from the secret inspectors. For a full list of all 89 Michelin-starred establishments in California visit here. 

Nisei 
San Francisco, Japanese/Contemporary cuisine

“‘Nisei’ refers to the American-born children of Japanese immigrants, which Chef David Yoshimura is; and the synthesis of that heritage forms the basis of this cuisine. The kitchen employs both boldness and subtlety in their cooking, which abounds with personality and technical finesse. The tasting menu is equal parts tradition and invention, where a classic matsutake broth sits in harmony with a wholly original dessert of Okinawan purple sweet potato.”

Osito 
San Francisco, Contemporary cuisine

“Chef Seth Stowaway puts his heart, soul and even his nickname (osito means ‘little bear’) into this rustic, lodge-like spot where live-fire cooking takes center stage. The multicourse tasting menu is served at an expansive communal table and changes with the seasons. The food is both elemental and elevated, with a subtle perfume of smoke wending through the various courses, seen in dishes like a lightly cooked king salmon with fennel and porcini, or a slow-cooked brisket brushed tableside with an intensely savory mussel BBQ sauce.”

San Ho Won 
San Francisco, Korean cuisine

“Combining the prodigious talents of heavy-hitter Chefs Corey Lee and Jeong-In Hwang, here it’s safe to expect the exceptional. The kitchen’s assiduously refined technique deftly combines traditional Korean tastes with a sense of novelty, using impeccable ingredients to make for dishes of surpassing depth and purity of flavor, whether it be the humble kimchi or a rarefied cut of beef.”

Ssal 
San Francisco, Korean cuisine

“Hyunyoung and Junsoo Bae have ample fine dining experience but were inspired to strike out on their own to fill what they saw as a void in San Francisco’s Korean restaurant scene. The result is this tasting menu that draws upon familiar flavors, but sets itself apart with a sense of refined simplicity. Meticulously prepared seafood shows a dedication to craft, as in black cod partially dried before being grilled to achieve a skin so crunchy it can be heard from across the room. Beef short ribs are something of a signature, gently cooked sous vide, then seared to form a sweet-savory crust.”