ORLANDO, Fla. – For the first time in the history of the state, Florida restaurants have been ranked among those that have received a coveted Michelin star, including four Orlando restaurants.
The stars were awarded Thursday night by the French tire manufacturer during a ceremony at the Ritz-Carlton, Grande Lakes in Orlando.
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The Orlando restaurants that received the prestigious honor are Soseki, Knife & Spoon, Capa and Kadence.
“Yo, we did it, Orlando! One Michelin star! Let’s go for two,” chef Mike Collantes of Soseki said after his win.
The chef was still feeling the excitement on Friday.
“This was a monumental moment,” Collantes said at his restaurant in Winter park.
Soseki is a ten-seat omakase restaurant offering an intimate experience for customers.
“Hospitality at its fullest right? Ten seats, you have five to six people just taking care of you,” Collantes said. “It’s very casual we don’t really feel like you’re in a stuffy restaurant and we really wanted to make sure that there was a lot of like this one-on-one.”
Kadence is another one of the Orlando-area restaurants that took home a Michelin star. The restaurant prides itself on offering an authentic sushi experience.
“A lot of this stuff right here-this is flown in from Japan, fresh fish,” Daniel Penovith, a worker at the Winter Park restaurant, said. “The rice that we make, that’s the backbone of sushi and other than that it’s really just the identity that Mark and Jen have created.”
Only one Florida restaurant received the rare honor of two Michelin stars, L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon Miami.
In all, 15 Florida restaurants were awarded stars. Miami restaurants took home the majority of the night’s honors. No Tampa restaurants received a Michelin star.
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In addition to the four Orlando-area restaurants receiving stars, seven more received the distinction of Bib Gourmand which honors high-quality food at reasonable prices.
Those restaurants include Bombay Street Kitchen, Papa Llama, Domu, Strand, Swine and Sons, The Ravenous Pig and Z Asian.
The Michelin guide also gave recommendation nods to 18 additional Orlando-area restaurants. These include The Pinery, Black Rooster Taqueria, Hawkers, Tori Tori, Shin Jung, Maxine’s on Shine, Sticky Rice, Se7en Bites, Kabooki Sushi, Pizza Bruno, Selam, Primo, Ravello, Four Flamingos, The Polite Pig, Citricos, Bacan, Prato, Morimoto Asia, California Grill, Primo, Kai Asian Street Fare, and Sear + Sea.
You can find the complete list of Florida’s Michelin-starred restaurants here.
You can find the complete list of Florida’s Bib Gourmand restaurants here.
See Collantes on the Florida Foodie podcast: