Three new two-star restaurants in the 2015 Michelin guide Kansai

Michelin has released its 2015 guide to Kansai, a region in southern-central Japan and the home of four major culinary cities: Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe and Nara. 

This year, three new restaurants have been awarded two stars. Mitsuyasu and Iida in Kyoto and Aoki in Osaka have all recieved the two star status. In all, the guide lists 54 two-star restaurants. In the one-star category, the 2015 edition includes 16 new establishments and a total of 186 throughout the region.

The Bib Gourmand category also continues to grow, with a further 18 new restaurants and a total of 84. 36 of these restaurants serve French food (15 each in Kyoto and Osaka and 6 in Kobe) and 48 serve Italian (11 in Kyoto, 23 in Osaka and 14 in Kobe).

Michael Ellis, International Director of the Michelin guides, said: “We are very pleased with the new edition of the Michelin guide Kansai. It includes all sorts of culinary specialties from throughout the region, such as French and Italian cuisine, tempura, sushi, oden and kushiage. Overall, a wide array of cooking styles are listed.”

He added: “Having traveled for many months throughout the Kansai region, our inspectors noted a broad variety of restaurants serving traditional Japanese cuisine, or washoku, a style of cooking that is arousing growing interest around the world and which represents more than 60% of the addresses in this year’s guide. Once again, the selection illustrates the region’s vitality and the range of cooking styles to be found there, even if traditional Japanese cooking continues to dominate the gourmet scene.”

The 2015 Michelin guide Kansai will go on sale in Japan on October 23 and a digital version will be available from October 20.  It features 432 establishments, including 59 hotels, 335 restaurants and 38 ryokans.

All of the restaurants featured in the guide were selected by Michelin’s famous inspectors. They anonymously travel throughout the Kansai region in search of culinary perfection, applying the same methods used all over the world to ensure an international standard of excellence. To fully appreciate the quality of a restaurant, the inspectors rely on five criteria defined by Michelin: product quality, preparation, the chef's personality as revealed through his or her cuisine, value for money, and consistency over time and across the entire menu.

These objective criteria are respected by all Michelin guide inspectors, whether in Japan, the United States, China or Europe. The number of restaurants recognised by the latest Michelin guide is a clear indication of local vitality in the Kansai region.

By Tom Evans