15 Restaurants Added To CA Michelin Guide 2025: See List

CALIFORNIA — California is one of the most multicultural and agriculturally productive places in the world, and that means more than its fair share of world-class restaurants. Fifteen new restaurants across California were added to the coveted MICHELIN Guide, and soon judges will decide if they receive stars or the Bib Gourmand.

The new restaurants are located all over the state, from Los Angeles to San Francisco to Carmel to the Napa Valley. They take diners on a culinary trip across the world, from Japan to South Korea to China to France to right here in California. Here are the latest mouth-watering entries. Click on each of the links to learn more.

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1. Carmel-by-the-Sea: Stationæry

This cheerful restaurant has become a “local brunch favorite” thanks to its California take on American classics. Enjoy innovative mixes like potato pancakes with Korean-braised kimchi, or avocado toast mixed with radishes and local seaweed. Dinner, served three nights a week, boasts haute cuisine dishes like duck egg raviolo with crispy garlic and brown butter, or grilled swordfish steak with romesco and Meyer lemon.

2. Los Angeles, Melrose Hill: Bar Etoile

An excellent wine list pairs well with Chef Travis Hayden’s “product-driven cooking, presenting simple dishes that allow ingredients to shine.” The Larchmont restaurant offers “something for everyone,” notably “perfectly moist striped bass with a crispy skin and topped with salsa macha over caramelized sunchoke” or its dessert of chocolate tart with passion fruit chantilly.

3. Culver City: Kusano

This small restaurant punches way above its weight. Even though the chef also doubles as a waiter and bartender, he still finds the time to make delicious sushi, like the Hokkaido uni draped with a thin slice of squid, and a yuku granita dessert.

4. Los Angeles, Sawtelle: Mori Nozomi

Mori Nozomi is another tiny LA sushi joint where reservations are crucial. You’ll see why when you taste their fish flown in fresh from Japan, mixed with local, seasonal produce. Complementing these impeccably fresh dishes are a five-course tea pairing, and mochi ice cream accompanied by matcha.

5. Los Angeles, Rampart Village: Rasarumah

Travel deep into the jungles of Malaysia at Chef Jonny Lee’s Chinese-Malaysian restaurant, which offers impeccably prepared dishes like ulama bendi with charred okra, and steamed eggplant with sambal and dried shrimp. Judges especially appreciated the beef rendang in curry, accompanied by buttery roti, and the dessert of cendol sundae with coconut and pandan ice cream with pandan jelly noodles, red bean, gula melaka syrup, and toasted buckwheat.

6. Los Angeles, Downtown: Restaurant Ki

This Korean contemporary restaurant in the heart of Downtown LA offers an exciting new twist on one of the world’s hottest cuisines. Prepare for sumptuous entrees like barbecue roasted squab with foie gras sauce, and 45-day dry-aged dairy cow with golden beet jus and Korean bone broth, which are complemented by delicious desserts like a mushroom ice cream sandwich.

7. Santa Monica: Seline

Chef Dave Beran’s “ambitious tasting menu dances between sweet and savory, and delivers on drama.” That drama includes creative concoctions like roasted leeks with foamy eucalyptus sauce and a banana leaf puree, or dry-aged beef tartare with celery root and a savory granola, or squab served in two parts plates roasted breast with a fennel sausage-stuffed leg. This is followed by smoked chocolate and squab liver truffle with strawberry sauce.

8. Los Angeles, Westchester: Tomat

This quirky restaurant highlights seasonal, farm-fresh California cuisine. As you relax into the red-orange leather seats set against a pale-green wall, you’ll enjoy zesty items like barbari bread with roasted tomato powder-dusted butter or charred seasonal vegetables over a smooth ajo blanco. Judges especially appreciated the duck, which is “deftly cooked with crispy skin” and “enhanced with a pomegranate and walnut mole.”

9. Oakland: Sun Moon Studio

This hole-in-the-wall Oakland spot merges California ingredients with an innovative take of Chinese cuisine. The “pared down and technically precise” menu includes gems like Dungeness crab with yuzu kosho butter, perched over silken tofu, savory egg tarts with salmon roe, and steamed brioche buns enclosing Taiwanese sausage.

10. Petaluma: Table Culture Provisions

The “toast of downtown Petaluma” is celebrated for a seasonal menu of four to seven-course meals that combines California and French influences. Judges appreciated dishes like a “beautifully flaky pithivier filled with squab and kohlrabi, matched with buttery Robuchon-style potatoes,” or desserts like “dressed up chestnut Mont Blanc with almond sable and blackberry sorbet.”

11. San Francisco: Four Kings

This “buzzy” Chinatown restaurant is drawing large crowds eager for their “breezy, contemporary” take on Cantonese cuisine. If you’re lucky enough to snag a table, you’ll enjoy dishes like claypot rice with bacon and Chinese sausage and a savory “fish fragrant eggplant.” “The cooking taps into traditional flavors while offering a fresh perspective, a formula that seems to have struck gold,” judges wrote.

12. San Francisco: Prelude

Take a trip down south with a menu inspired by Chef Celtin Hendrickson-Jones’ Alabama grandmothers. Down-home dishes like lacy fried chicken wings, partially boned and stuffed with andouille dirty rice, or pimento cheese made with triple cream cheese and garnished with trout roe offer “hearty flavors tempered by an edge of refinement.”

13. San Francisco: The Wild

Diners at this "cavernous" restaurant sit around a central hearth, where they can watch vegetables, seafood, and meat tended over coals. This results in delicious Californian-Japanese fusion dishes like yellowtail crudo with spruce and ponzu, or noodles with chayote squash, black garlic, and uni-lobster broth.

14. San Francisco: Verjus

Just below the Transamerica Pyramid, diners can enjoy fine, seasonal French bistro offerings like duck-based pâté en croûte with vibrant green pistachios, sweet razor clams with celery brunoise and Meyer lemon, or a caramelized brioche pain perdu.

15. Sonoma: Enclos

Inside an old house on a winery, guests can enjoy an “opulent” tasting menu that pays homage to Chef Brian Limoges’s New England roots. Even though you’re deep in a wine country, you’ll almost smell the salty sea breezes as you enjoy a lobster roll canapé or a clam chawanmushi. The seafood is finished by tasty desserts like sorrel ice cream sprinkled with makrut lime and pomegranate-flavored leaves.

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