The number of top-ranked restaurants in France is inching up
The number of three star dining rooms inched up to 31
[PARIS] As France gears up for the busy tourist season, the Michelin guide has unveiled its 2025 restaurant rankings.
The number of three star dining rooms – the zenith of gastronomy for Michelin – inched up to 31; last year it was 30. Two years ago, 29 restaurants held the top ranking.
One of the newly minted three stars is the eponymous Christopher Coutanceau in La Rochelle, which lost the top distinction two years ago and this year recaptured it. “We didn’t change anything,’’ he said in an interview when asked how the establishment won back its third star, noting that it has retained signature dishes like sardine from head to tail and pithivier of scallops. “I’m a fighter like all chefs. It’s a really tough profession.’’
The other new three-star spot is another seafood specialist Le Coquillage in Saint-Meloir-des-Ondes in Brittany, headed by chef Hugo Roellinger, a former merchant marine officer, who gets inspirations from local seafood and ingredients from the garden, as well as his idyllic setting. (The dining room overlooks the water.) In contrast to Coutanceau, he said his restaurant doesn’t have a signature dish.“My cuisine is like a music album, I like to play with different tempos,’’ he said. “One dish might emerge from what’s come before and what will come afterwards. It comes in waves.’’
The list was announced on Monday, March 31 at a live event in Metz, a city on the Moselle River in eastern France that’s famous for the kind of dishes that Michelin doesn’t tend to recognise, like quiche Lorraine and suckling pig, and desserts and brandies made with Mirabelle plums.
France is the home of the Michelin; the guide got its start here in 1900, and it’s also the place where the first stars were awarded, in 1926. Yet the company has also stirred controversy in its home country this year after unveiling in January a partnership with Bravo’s Top Chef series during which its inspectors will award a star.
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The ceremony comes as the French economy has slowed and political uncertainty has increased, putting more pressure on the tourism industry to generate revenue and jobs. The country’s reputation for fine dining has long pulled in visitors. After a record number of tourists in 2024 when France hosted the summer Olympics, the first quarter of this year has started well, according to the finance ministry.
“You are doing good for the world, that is what’s important,’’ Gwendal Poullennec, international director of Guide Michelin, said at the introduction of the event, raising the more somber theme of war raging in Europe.
This year there are nine new two-star restaurants. Among them are a pair of places in Bordeaux: Maison Nouvelle and L’Observatoire du Gabriel, and another pair in Paris, Blanc and Sushi Yoshinaga.
Michelin also revealed 57 new one-star restaurants in the country. One of them is Agape in Paris’s 17th arrondisement near the Arc de Triomphe.
Outside the French capital, new one stars included Freia in Nantes, Monique in Calvisson and Ombellule in Lyon.
Ahead of this year’s announcement, the Michelin guide announced bad news for some restaurants. The guide downgraded 82-year-old Georges Blanc’s establishment in Vonnas, Ain, from three stars to two. He had held the highest distinction since 1981 after his grandmother earned a first star in 1929, making the restaurant the world’s longest holder of Michelin stars.
“It was a surprise but we’re living with it,” Blanc said in a recorded message “There were likely one or two inspections and maybe they didn’t go as they should have....Maybe we’re too classic.”
The three-star takedown has happened before, including famously, in 2023, when star chef Guy Savoy dropped to two stars at his Paris restaurant.
Altogether, 23 restaurants in France were downgraded this year including 21 that lost their one-star status.
Among the special awards given out were for a category called “Passion Desserts,” designating notable work by pastry chefs. Among the 10 winners was Jorice Sardain at the Parisian restaurant Fana where he makes his version of the French classic Paris-Brest.
The Young Chef prize went to 30-year-old Valentina Giacobbe of Ginko in the northern city of Lille, which also obtained its first star.
This is the fourth year in a row Michelin has held its award ceremony outside Paris; in previous years, chefs celebrated at events in Tours, Strasbourg and Cognac. BLOOMBERG
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