Two Japanese restaurants in Mayfair have each been awarded two stars in the 2016 Michelin restaurant guide.
Central London restaurants The Araki, the nine-cover sushi restaurant where every table “is a chef’s table” and which charges £300 a head for its “omakase” chef’s set menu, and Umu, which promises to move traditional Japanese cuisine into the modern age, are the only UK restaurants to receive two stars in the guide published on Thursday.
For once, Heston Blumenthal’s famous The Fat Duck at Bray is absent from the guide as, following a temporary move to Australia, it did not reopen in time for the guide to assess it.
“It is a great compliment to London that when sushi master Mitsuhiro Araki closed his three-star counter restaurant in Tokyo it was because he wanted to come to the UK to challenge himself in a different culture,” said Rebecca Burr, editor of the Michelin Guide. “Umu is a very different style of Japanese restaurant – chef Yoshinori Ishii has steadily been improving the food and he has taken it to a whole new level”.
The announcement, usually a well-kept secret until the guide’s publication, came on Twitter after news of the list looked as if it was about to leak after a couple of books got out from a bookshop ahead of the planned release.
Let down once again by a bookshop here are the new #MichelinStars2016
— The MICHELIN Guide (@MichelinGuideUK) September 16, 2015
There are 15 new one-star awards. In London they include Lyle’s in Shoreditch, Bonhams, based at the auction house in New Bond Street, Portland in Marylebone and The Dining Room at the Goring in Victoria.
In Leeds there is one star for The Man Behind the Curtain, and in Loughborough for John’s House, described as an “unexpected find” where chef John Duffin cooks at the family farm where he grew up. In Scotland, The Cellar in Anstruther receives one star.
Carters of Moseley in Birmingham gaining a star brings the city’s tally to five, making it the second-most awarded city after London.
Belfast boasts two of the new stars, at Eipic, which Michael Deane opened just 18 months ago, and at Ox, opened in March 2013. The two were “putting Belfast back on the culinary map”, said Michelin.
Deane described it as “an absolute joy”, while Ox Belfast tweeted their happiness at the award. In the Irish Republic, the Greenhouse in Dublin and Loam in Galway are also awarded one star.
Wow!We are absolutely delighted and very proud of team Ox.What an honour!thanks everyone for the support and kind words X.@MichelinGuideUK
— OXBelfast (@oxbelfast) September 16, 2015
Nathan Outlaw in Port Isaac retains the two stars first awarded in Rock. “The next generations of chefs are really coming through to give the established chefs a run for their money. They all have their own individual style and their ability – coupled with their confidence – looks set to lead them on to great things,” said Burr.
Three stars are retained by Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, and the Waterside Inn in Bray.
The Bib Gourmand, which recognises establishments offering good food at affordable prices – up to £28 for three courses – has 25 new establishments. Among them are the White Swan in Fence, Oli’s Thai in Oxford, Tom Kerridge’s pub The Coach in Marlow and Nuno Mendes’ Taberna do Mercado in London’s Spitalfields.
“Star and Bib Gourmands are annual awards. Each year we seek out new candidates and reassess our existing award restaurants,” said Burr. “Consistency is a key part of our selection process and it is important for our readers that the standard of cooking is maintained”.
