Here Are the 2024 Michelin Star Winners in Los Angeles

California’s culinary elite gathered at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay tonight, August 5, for the 2024 selection of the Michelin Guide California. The awards ceremony, which was unofficially livestreamed on Instagram by Eater LA when the tire company’s YouTube livestream stalled, honored the state’s most ambitious, inventive, and expensive restaurants.

Coming into this year’s ceremony, Los Angeles and Orange County did not have a single three-Michelin-starred restaurant. The year 2023 saw the region granted five two-Michelin-starred places and 23 restaurants with a single star, including the now-closed Taco Maria and Manzke, and the soon-to-close Maude.

Highlights from the ceremony included chef Gilberto Cetina’s Holbox, a Mexican seafood counter restaurant inside the Mercado Paloma, earning its first star. New entrants also awarded a Michelin star included Rebel Omakase in Laguna Beach, Uka at Japan House in Hollywood, and chef Jordan Kahn’s Meteora. The Sommelier Award was presented to the wine director of Anajak Thai Cuisine Ian Krupp, while Vespertine in Culver City was presented with two Michelin stars and a Green Star Award for its efforts around sustainability.

Q Sushi in Downtown and Curtis Stone’s Maude lost their single Michelin stars. The high-end Beverly Hills omakase restaurant Sushi Ginza Onodera lost one of its two stars, along with N/Naka, the modern kaiseki restaurant in Palms. Chefs Niki and Carole Iida Nakayama provided a statement to Eater:

Although we are disappointed by Michelin’s decision this year, we are grateful that it has given us an opportunity to reflect on what really matters. It is the journey, the highs and lows that shape who we are. This announcement further fuels our determination to keep pursuing the standards of excellence we believe in, and we remain fully committed to our goal of uplifting the human spirit. Bring it on.

No restaurants in Los Angeles, Orange County, or the Central Coast received the highly coveted three stars. For the most part, Michelin-starred restaurants from 2023 retained their ratings; the full starred list is below.

Michelin previously published a Los Angeles guide in 2008 and 2009, then dropped the program for California under the former Michelin Guide director, Jean-Luc Naret, who famously told Esquire that people in LA “are not too interested in eating well.” A decade later, the California Tourism Board Paid $600,000 to woo the Michelin Guide back in 2019. Michelin did not award stars in 2020 and 2021 due to impacts on the industry during the pandemic.

Whether one loves or loathes the tire company’s grading system, there’s no arguing that it promotes a specific type of fine dining experience. Awardees tend to be pricey, chef-driven restaurants that serve Eurocentric tasting menus or Japanese omakase experiences paired with fine wines and meticulously coordinated service. While there are some notable exceptions to this criteria, for the most part, one-, two-, and three-star designations are awarded to fine dining restaurants. More casual restaurants serving “good quality, good value cooking” are given Bib Gourmand status.

Even with Bib Gourmand designees, the Michelin rubric ignores many of the family-run restaurants and street food staples that define Southern California’s unparalleled dining landscape. While the awards do not capture the breadth and depth of Los Angeles’s restaurant scene or the ways Angelenos like to eat, they can be a helpful resource for locals who can dine at sky-high price points and affluent international travelers.

Two Stars

• Hayato
• Mélisse
• Providence
• Vespertine

One Star

• 715
• Bell’s
• Camphor
• Caruso’s
• Citrin
• Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura
• Gwen
• Hana re Sushi
• Heritage
• Holbox
• Kali
• Kato
• Knife Pleat
• Meteora
• Morihiro
• N/Naka
• Nozawa Bar
• Orsa & Winston
• Osteria Mozza
• Pasta Bar
• Rebel Omakase
• The Restaurant at Justin
• Shibumi
• Shin Sushi
• Six Test Kitchen
• Sushi Ginza Onodera
• Sushi Inaba Restaurant
• Sushi Kaneyoshi
• Uka at Japan House