These were proposed as gastronomic badges, a clear and educational way of identifying top quality restaurants, but over time Michelin stars have become much more numerous. Today they are an institution. And it is a tourist attraction in every aspect. Just like their beaches, heritage or festivals, there are cities that boast about their stars as if they were just attractions. Therefore, the debate about being the city with the most “awards” in the world goes far beyond a simple matter of pride and gastronomic meadow.

It is related to the greater or lesser capacity of a city to attract visitors.

Now we know which cities are ahead.

Gastronomy and much more. They recently asked an interesting question on Chef’s Pencil: Which city has the highest concentration of Michelin restaurants? More precisely, which cities might have the highest number of these businesses per capita? To dispel doubts, technicians devoted themselves to scanning the Michelin Guide according to a set of criteria.

To narrow it down, they looked at major cities with at least 500,000 residents and only counted restaurants located within each region’s geographic boundaries, without accounting for their region. The report’s authors acknowledge that their approach does not align with other analyzes or the Michelin Guide website itself. It’s not strange, they say, that the report includes one city’s results as well as restaurants in neighboring towns.

A clear “TOP 3”. Based on these criteria, Chef’s Pencil ranked 15 major cities around the world according to the number of people per Michelin-starred restaurant. The list is interesting because it shows the cities where the French guide recognizes the most businesses, but above all, when we look at their populations, it reflects the metropolises where these businesses are most concentrated. With this approach, there is a clear “TOP 3”: Kyoto, Paris and Washington.

At the top is the Japanese city with 100 Michelin restaurants and a population census of 1.46 million; This works out to 14,637 residents per restaurant. Coming in second is the French capital, which is home to more Michelin stores (122) but has a much larger population; This means 17,235 people for each organization. Washington DC ranks third with 27,582 restaurants. The number of Michelin restaurants there is much lower (25), but so is its population: it does not reach 700,000.

How’s the ranking going? Well distributed. The only cities with fewer than 30,000 inhabitants per Michelin restaurant are Kyoto, Paris, and Washington DC, but the list is rounded out with other cities that offer notable concentrations of gastronomic talent. While Antwerp (31,534) ranks fourth, the “TOP 5” is closed by Osaka (32,398), also in Japan. These are followed by the French Lion (32,641), San Francisco (33,614), Lisbon (39,193), Amsterdam (40,061) and Macau (42,500).

There is also a Spanish representative in the ranking: Barcelona can boast of having one restaurant for every 62,321 registered inhabitants, with 26 Michelin restaurants. Expanding the list with more locations to include the “Top 20” reveals a third Japanese city, Tokyo, with 78,300 results. Japan is actually the only country with three representatives in the “Top 20”.

San Sebastian case. Although the authors of the Chef’s Pencil study did not include this in their rankings, they were based on information from a study from a decade ago that, in their view, “is often incorrectly classified as the city with the most Michelin restaurants per capita (the second city in the rankings).

In their report, they say the city is home to two three-Michelin-starred restaurants, which is “remarkable for a city of approximately 160,000 people.” If you directly consult the version of the Michelin Guide available online and search for places in San Sebastián rated between one and three stars, four options appear, two of which are three-star. There are other restaurants in the area, such as Martín Berasategui in Lasarte-Oria. With a population of 188,743 people, there will be one Michelin restaurant for every 47,186 people in Donostia.

widen the focus. The Chef’s Pencil report allows us to broaden the focus and analyze smaller cities with populations ranging from 100,000 to 500,000. Interestingly, Japan stands out once again in this range. Nara in the Kansai region of Japan ranks first. With 23 Michelin restaurants and a population of 367,353, there is one business for every 15,972 registered businesses. This is followed by Maastricht in the Netherlands; in Geneva, Switzerland; in Annecy, France; and in Mendoza, Argentina. A city in the south of Spain is on the list: Marbella.

The study also allows analysis by country. In this case, the focus changes again. Although France is the country with the most Michelin restaurants, when we look at the relationship between the number of establishments and the number of residents and the concentration per capita, the “gold” goes to another European country: Switzerland. Chef’s Pencil recalls that its officials used the occasion to promote itself as a great gastronomic destination. Small Luxembourg will be in second place, while Malta and Belgium will be in third and fourth place, respectively.

Image | Wang John (Unsplash)

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