Michelin Restaurants

Singapore may seem close, but the flight takes more than five hours from Shanghai.A few months ago, aside from attending the Michelin awards ceremony in Singapore, I finally had the chance to visit my old friends — and couple — Francisco and Fernanda at their Chilean restaurant Araya.I first met them when they were head chef and pastry chef at Nappa in Shanghai.

Some restaurants are destined to become legends.From Barcelona Airport, it’s about an hour and a half by car to Girona — a quiet-looking town made famous by El Celler de Can Roca, twice named The World’s Best Restaurant.

In the recently released Michelin Guide Tokyo 2026, one familiar name popped up in the list of new one-star restaurants—and I nearly jumped out of my chair in delight.

Crowned five times as the world’s best restaurant, Noma held a four-day guest residency in Taipei from August 8–11, set against the lush backdrop of YMS by onefifteen on Yangmingshan. Once a 1950s dormitory compound, YMS has preserved its mid-century modernist architecture while weaving together natural scenery, art curation, and gastronomy—an oasis on the city’s edge. Within its grounds, Lab 10 and Restaurant 12 are the first to open, offering respectively a contemporary tea experience and a seafood-focused menu rooted in local waters.

In July, I visited “Ginza Kojyu,” a two-Michelin-star kaiseki restaurant in the fiercely competitive culinary district of Ginza, Tokyo. Located on the fourth floor of a building amidst Ginza’s glittering facades, its discreet signage is easy to miss if you’re not looking closely.

When the elevator doors opened, a different world unfolded — a small garden with stone paths led me to the counter seats. Chef Toru Okuda, with his gentle demeanor and calm presence, greeted us from behind a 700-year-old hinoki cypress counter. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, he surprised us by bringing out hamo (pike conger), a prized summer fish, and began skillfully performing the traditional honegiri (bone-cutting) technique right in front of our eyes.

In 2024, one restaurant made gelato its star — MINIMAL — and stood out for making gelato its central offering, becoming the world’s only Michelin one-star gelato specialty shop. Its achievement has drawn curious eyes from around the globe.

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