Michelin awards Tokyo most 3-star restaurants in blow to Paris

Gallic gastronomic pride was dealt a blow on Monday when Paris lost out to Tokyo as the city with the most Michelin three-star restaurants in the world.

By Henry Samuel in Paris and Julian Ryall in Tokyo

Published: 6:53PM GMT 17 Nov 2009

"Tokyo remains by far the world capital of gastronomy and also has the most three-star restaurants," said Jean-Luc Naret, the director of the legendary French food guide.

Tokyo just pipped the City of Light to the post in the latest edition of the Michelin guide to the Japanese capital, with 11 eateries awarded the maximum three stars, compared to 10 in Paris. New York has four three-star restaurants and London was awarded just one in 2009.

Tokyo also retained its title as the city with the most stars in the world – some 261 étoiles in 197 restaurants - triple the number awarded to Paris eateries.

Not all Japanese chefs initially welcomed the idea of foreign food critics passing comment on dishes of which they knew relatively little.

"Who are they to judge my food and decide whether we are worthy of one, two or three stars? Or no stars at all?" said Toshiya Kadowaki, owner of Azabu Kadowaki, in Tokyo's Azabu-Juban district, who turned down the opportunity to feature in the inaugural 2008 Tokyo edition – which sold 300,000 copies.

Michelin's debut Tokyo edition was criticised by local critics who claimed that it had a foreign bias, so this year the guide employed entirely local judges with extensive experience of Japanese cuisine.

"We give stars where we find them and in Tokyo the culinary richness is extraordinary," said Mr Naret.

Some critics have said that part of Toky's success is due to the sheer number of restaurants in the city. While the French capital has around 40,000 eating establishments, Tokyo has four times that many.

The French are fiercely proud of their cuisine – President Nicolas Sarkozy has backed a bid to have it enshrined as a world Unesco treasure - but there were no sour grapes from Alain Passard, whose Parisian restaurant, L'Arpège has the maximum three Michelin stars.

"There is a real message there for everyone: we must work even harder to keep pace with Tokyo," he said.

He praised Japanese restaurants not only for their meticulously prepared food, but also for presentation and their unique hospitality. "They have a level of subtlety that we do not possess," he said.

However, Mr Naret insisted that French cuisine remains the most creative in the world – a claim bolstered by the fact that France, as a country, is still top of the Michelin triple-star stakes, with 25 restaurants compared with 18 in Japan.

François Simon, the Le Figaro newspaper's feared food critic, said: "I have always thought that Tokyo was the world's gastronomic capital.

"I was never convinced when people said the same of London, where restaurants have great atmospheres but don't have the gastronomic quality."

Japanese gastronomic supremacy was the result of three things, he said: wonderful quality of the food, an adventurous public, and incredible choice.

He praised the Japanese for their relative "intellectual openness" when it came to culinary matters, and criticised the French for being mistrustful of foreign cuisine.

"In Paris people are too self-satisfied, they think they have the perfect formula and forget the fundamentals," he said.

Mr Simon said: "Even the croissants are better [in Japan] than in France most of the time."

The Japanese have given global cuisine some unique dishes - from high-end sushi to traditional vegetarian "shoijin ryori" served in temples, lightly battered tempura, "wagyu" beef from Kobe and even simple "okonomiyaki" savoury pancakes - but Michelin's stamp of approval confirms that prowess for a global audience.

The Japanese guide will be out on 20 November and an English version in Europe in February.