Chef's Table 10 Top Rated Restaurants By Michelin Star

Fans of Netflix’s Chef’s Table have been treated to a cornucopia of talented and diverse chefs. Many of the chefs featured in the series rank among the greatest in the world. Any foodies looking for a tasty tour of some of the greatest restaurants and chefs that Netflix has shown it’s the spotlight on, let’s take a look at the restaurants the Michelin Guide has deemed worthy of a star (or three).

Remember, for a restaurant to earn one star, it must be considered “A very good restaurant in its category.” For two stars, “Excellent cooking. Worth a detour.” And finally, for a third star a restaurant must dish out “Exceptional cuisine, worth a journey.”

10 L’Arpege (France) - 3 Michelin Stars

After taking over the restaurant that his mentor was awarded three Michelin stars, Chef Alain Passard would later go on to earn three Michelin stars of his own. While a third Michelin star may lead some to assume that Chef Passard may have grown complacent in his position. However, that is precisely the opposite of how Passard feels.

To him, there is always a fourth, invisible star that he must chase. Ever-growing. Ever-evolving. Much like his Chicken Duck Cooked In Its Hay. Literally half of a chicken that is sewn to half of a duck before it is cooked.

9 Osteria Francescana (Italy) - 3 Stars

While Italian critics were initially abrasive towards Chef Massimo Bottura and his restaurant Osteria Francescana, when they finally came to their senses, both he and the restaurant had been thrust into the stratosphere.

With dishes like the Oops! I Dropped The Lemon Tart, Chef Massimo is proving with his dishes, just like with his career, that there’s always a chance to turn things around for the better. There’s always a chance to turn a mistake into magic. Chef Massimo has managed to turn a three-star restaurant into a home. And vice versa.

8 Troigros (France) - 3 Stars

Chef Michel Troigros was born into a cooking dynasty. Maison Troigros, along with Maison Bocuse, has the longest record in France for holding three Michelin stars. Like many great chefs, Troigros is incredibly curious. His hunger for other cultures and cuisines, seemingly insatiable. Which is why when he took over Maison Troigros, he decided to do away with the dish that had made them a world-famous restaurant.

Chef Troigros need to make his restaurant about discovering all the possibilities of an ingredient. It certainly makes its way into the food he prepares. As the diners arrive, they are greeted by the kitchen staff and invited into the kitchen with them before their meal. This restaurant has been in the family for generations, and the people that make their way into the kitchen are family as well.

7 Atelier Crenn (San Francisco) - 3 Stars

Chef Dominique Crenn is certainly making a statement with her San Francisco restaurant, Atelier Crenn. When diners sit down at Atelier Crenn, they are greeted with a menu that reads like a poem, each line represented a separate dish. These dishes aren’t meant to create a dialogue between chef Crenn and her diners.

She is sharing a story, an experience, a feeling or memory. Diners may be fooled into think that the first female Michelin two-star recipient in the United States pridefully named the restaurant after herself. However, they’d be surprised to find that the restaurant carries the name of her adoptive father.

6 Alinea (Chicago) - 3 Stars

The truly beautiful and remarkable thing about Alinea is that by the time their Chef’s Table episode aired on Netflix, they’d probably already changed their menu entirely. Alinea isn’t driven by following any particular path, it’s about following any path, every path.

Through the philosophies that drive Alinea, chef Grant Achatz hopes to lead his collaborators in the kitchen, as well as his diners, to think how they’ve never thought before. To shift the lens on their perspective and look at their plates and the world around them with fresh eyes.

5 El Cellar De Can Roca (Spain) - 3 Stars

Unlike many of the other restaurants featured on Netflix’s Chef’s Table, El Cellar De Can Roca was not featured because of the brilliance of it’s head chef Joan Roca-- though he is brilliant as well.

Rather, this episode focused on the brilliance of his younger brother Jordi, El Cellar De Can Roca’s pastry chef. El cellar De Can Roca may have already had one Michelin star, however, since Jordi began work as their pastry chef, they’ve been awarded two more.

4 Restaurant Tim Raue (Germany) - 2 Stars

As a young child trying desperately to escape the abuse at the hands of his father, a young Tim Raue would take his pocket money and spend it on food at local shops. There he would escape his life for brief moments, hiding in the tastes and textures of the food in his home in Germany.

Raue spent much of his youth lost, looking for fights when he should’ve been moving forward. This time on the streets, these little escapes to food would later help Raue to take German cuisine to the next level. His restaurant, Restaurant Tim Raue, is also the only German restaurant to be listed in the World’s Top 50 Restaurants list.

3 Gaggan (Bangkok, Thailand) - 2 Stars

When chef Gaggan Anand first opened his, now closed, Bangkok restaurant Gaggan, he wanted to the world that Indian cuisine was capable of being taken seriously in fine-dining. Most people think of Indian food in terms of curries and naan.

True Indian cuisine, however, is much, much more delicious and varied than those two staples. Staples that were actually introduced by British colonizers. When chef Gaggan finally opened his restaurant to the world, what they found was that Indian cuisine was exceptionally matched for a fine-dining environment.

2 n/naka (Los Angeles) - 2 Stars

Chef Niki Nakayama’s Los Angeles restaurant, n/naka has become not only one of the highest-rated restaurants in Los Angeles, but the rest of the world at all. Her fascination with the Japanese tradition of Kaiseki or Kaiseki-Ryori (a traditional multi-course meal) has bled beautifully into her restaurant and the philosophy driving it. Kaiseki is typically very rigid, very defined.

There are a lot of rules to be followed. And in that way, chef Nakayama has kept her modern take on the tradition close to home. She keeps studious records of diners that have visited before. What they like, what they don’t like, what they’ve had, what they’ve yet to try. Staying ever-vigilant to make sure a diner is never served the same thing twice. There’s a lot of care and attention that goes into the experiences she curates for each diner.

1 Osteria Mozza (Los Angeles) - 1 Star

With her restaurant, Osteria Mozza, Chef Nancy Silverton is showing diners the positive outcomes of obsession. An obsession with one thing, in particular, bread.

With a pizza dough developed in the time span that it takes most people to earn a master’s degree, Chef Silverton’s dough is so complex it’s almost “anti-Italian” (according to a now-disgraced Italian chef). Diners from around the world can agree that pizza is amazing, however, Silverton is serving up incredible bread, pasta, and even grilled cheeses if you happen to get there on the right day.

NEXT: 5 Cheapest (& 5 Most Expensive) Michelin Star Restaurants In The World