A restaurant featuring ramen, a humble Japanese noodle dish, took its place among the more exalted gourmet restaurants as Tokyo kept its crown as the Michelin guide’s dining capital of the world for the ninth straight year.
Among the establishments gaining three-star ratings in next year’s Michelin guide to Japan’s capital was one serving blowfish that is poisonous if improperly prepared and a sushi restaurant whose master chef is in his late 80s.
The guide also widened its listing of foods in the “Bib Gourmand” section that emphasizes cheaper restaurants to include Japanese-style curry and gyoza, the Japanese version of Chinese potsticker dumplings.
“The number of restaurants in Tokyo is just huge, and the breadth of the offerings very wide, making it an extremely appealing city for fine dining,” Michelin guides international director Michael Ellis said in a statement yesterday.
Thirteen restaurants gained the coveted three-star rating, one more than last year, with the promotion of Kohaku — a Japanese restaurant featuring elaborate courses of elegant traditional dishes — to three stars from two.
In a world first, Tsuta, a restaurant featuring ramen, or noodles in soup, was awarded a single star.
As many as 217 restaurants gained stars, down from 267 last year, but still the most for any world capital city, a Michelin spokeswoman said.
The first Michelin restaurant guide, aimed at drivers in the early days of motoring, was published by the tire company in 1900, with the star rating system introduced in the 1920s. Tokyo was the first Asian city to have a guide devoted to it.
Following is a list of the 13 top-rated Tokyo restaurants, according to next year’s Michelin guide, which goes on sale on Friday.
1. Ishikawa
2. Esaki
3. Kanda
4. Quintessence
5. Kohaku
6. Saito
7. Joel Robuchon
8. Sukiyabashi Jiro Honten
9. Makimura
10. Yamadaya
11. Yukimura
12. Yoshitake
13. Ryugin
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not