Best Bay Area Michelin-Starred Restaurants

Acquerello

Number of Michelin Stars: 2

This Italian fine-dining restaurant in Nob Hill has had a Michelin star ever since the first Bay Area Michelin guide came out in 2007. That’s a full decade of excellence, people. Executive chef Suzette Gersham has been at the helm for 28 years and shows no signs of slowing down her innovative output. 

Atelier Crenn

Number of Michelin Stars: 3
French chef Dominique Crenn has made her nest here in San Francisco with this multi-course tasting menu experience. The ingredients are fresh and local, inspired by the bounty that surrounds in the Bay Area, but with Crenn’s gentle French touch. Located in Cow Hollow steps away from SF's Marina District, Atelier Crenn is the chef's flagship eatery, but she also oversees nearby Bar Crenn and Petite Crenn in Hayes Valley.

Baumé

Number of Michelin Stars: 2 
Billed as French modern cuisine, Bruno Chemel’s dishes are more like abstract art. Dinner at this Palo Alto eatery is an ​eight-course tasting menu full of items like goat cheese fondue, alba truffle and parsnip soup and noirmoutier turbot with eggplant and olives. The menu changes seasonally, depending on the best produce available. 

Benu

Number of Michelin Stars: 3
Once the head chef of the French Laundry, Corey Lee has created something entirely unique to the Bay Area at Benu, where he's been at the helm for seven years running. Hailing from South Korea originally, Lee’s menu at this SOMA restaurant is a little bit French, a little bit rock and Seoul. Think crispy frog legs with sweet and sour vegetables or thousand-year-old quail egg with potage and ginger. 

Coi

Number of Michelin Stars: 3
What was the brainchild of chef and restaurateur Daniel Patterson and later came into the good hands of Executive Chef Matthew Kirkley earned its third Michelin star in 2017. The North Beach restaurant serves a tasting menu of the fine American palette, but also recently gained some Quince veterans as their wine director and pastry chef. Dungeness crab, grapefruit, and champagne still sounds like a winning combo. 

Commis

Number of Michelin Stars: 2 
When former local critic Michael Bauer goes on about the bread, you know you’ve hit the jackpot. Chef James Shyabout offers a new tasting menu at his Oakland eatery every month that can be described as American cuisine: Veal tartare and horseradish; frozen pear with juniper; and a dried roe sandwich. 

Lazy Bear

Number of Michelin Stars: 2
Fine-cuisine gets the dinner party treatment at this light-hearted restaurant in San Francisco's eclectic Mission District. The ticketed dinners are served around a communal live edge wood table, where you’ll make friends with strangers quickly as you bond over the amazing dishes in front of you. 

Manresa

Number of Michelin Stars: 3
The ingredients come straight from the farm at this high-scale and highly touted Michelin-starred restaurant in the South Bay city of Los Gatos. Ingredients come in not just in weekly shipments but sometimes daily – ​freshly picked from the farm for the freshest dinner you could ever imagine.

Saison

Number of Michelin Stars: 3

This is an amazing meal, but be ready to shell out the cash. This tasting menu is $1000 ticket. The interior of this fine dining eatery, located out near San Francisco's Oracle Park, feels a lot like another casual dining affair, with chef Joshua Skenes wandering around in jeans and a flannel. But the food is nothing but ordinary: wild thistle with bouillon, buckwheat greens, and uni toast are some of the more experimental ingredients that have been used. 

The French Laundry

Number of Michelin Stars: 3
This Napa Valley fine-dining stalwart never repeats an ingredient throughout your entire meal. You can see the farm from out the windows and there’s a whole course dedicated to bread, butter and salts (thousand-year-old salts!) It’s an absolutely out of body experience. 

The Restaurant at Meadowood

Number of Michelin Stars: 3
Modern American is the name of the game at this other wonderful North Bay eatery. Christopher Kostow runs the kitchen and was just nominated for yet another James Beard Award. It’s fresh and exciting and the Meadowood resort is beautiful to boot. 

Quince

Number of Michelin Stars: 3
This romantic, dimly lit classic French spot near SF's Embarcadero has gone from one star in 2011 to three today. Opt for the tasting menu to get the full experience and whatever you do, don’t skip out on the wine.