THESE 5 BAY AREA RESTAURANTS JUST GOT ADDED TO THE MICHELIN GUIDE

The Michelin Guide dropped 13 new additions to its California dining guide on Wednesday, July 10.

Five Bay Area restaurants made the cut: Azalina’s, Hed 11, and Tiya in San Francisco; Burdell in Oakland; and Molti Amici in Healdsburg. These restaurants join San Francisco’s 7 Adams on the “Recommended” list, which was added to the California guide in March. Michelin typically adds groups of restaurants to its guide throughout the year, leading up to the annual announcement of Bib Gourmands and newly starred restaurants each year. This year’s California Michelin Guide ceremony takes place in Half Moon Bay on Monday, August 5.

Chef Azalina Eusope is among the San Francisco industry notables on this list, known for the Malaysian food at her Tenderloin restaurant Azalina’s. Eusope landed on the James Beard Foundation’s long list of 2024 semifinalists for the Best Chef: California category and earned Eater San Francisco’s Chef of the Year award in 2023. Hed 11 in Japantown is an ambitious new fine-dining restaurant that opened in April, featuring seafood and Southern Thailand cuisine. The restaurant is led by chefs Piriya “Saint” Boonprasan and Naruephon “Billie” Wannajaro, a duo relatively new to the city. Wannajaro opened Hed Very Thai on Hardie Place in 2023 and operates three other restaurants in Thailand, while Boonprasan previously worked in the kitchens of formerly Michelin-starred Thai restaurant Saawaan and (now-closed) Bo.lan.

Tiya is the newest San Francisco restaurant on the list. It opened in early May and highlights Indian cuisine made with California produce. Brothers and chefs Sujan and Pujan Sarkar bring plenty of experience and cred to the table: Pujan Sarkar has made a name for himself at Rooh in San Francisco, among other restaurants, while Sujan Sarkar recently earned a James Beard Award nomination for his Michelin-starred restaurant Indienne.

Burdell in Oakland, meanwhile, has become popular for chef Geoff Davis’s style of modern soul food and its cozy, nostalgia-driven dining room. Davis was a finalist for the James Beard Awards’ Best Chef: California category this year, and his restaurant also earned an Eater Award shortly after its debut in 2023. Healdsburg’s Molti Amici is a venture between three alums of three-Michelin-starred SingleThread — two of which already own the popular Troubadour and Quail and Condor in town — starring Italian classics. Of the restaurant, the Michelin Guide states that while there are plenty of casual Italian restaurants in the area, “few of them manage to hit their mark quite so dead on as they do here.”

Other additions to the California guide include Ambrogio by Acquerello in La Jolla; Barra Santos, Danbi, Grá, Leopardo, Mae Malai Thai House of Noodles, and Stella in Los Angeles; and Silvers Omakase in Santa Barbara.

2024-07-10T16:00:19Z