Could Raleigh restaurants get a Michelin Guide? Here’s what we know right now
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Does Michelin have its starry eyes on North Carolina for a Guide?
The Michelin Guide is a review of the best restaurants in the world.
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The top restaurants in North Carolina could soon be judged on a global scale.
Seemingly improbable a decade ago, the Michelin Guide, famous for its star system of restaurant reviews and ratings, may include North Carolina in the near future.
Persistent rumblings in the state’s restaurant and tourism industries suggest North Carolina’s sizzling food scene could be considered in an imminent Michelin Guide.
But for now, nothing is official.
“The MICHELIN Guide is always looking for possible new Guide destinations,” said Michelin press officer Carly Grieff in an email. “However, we don’t currently have any news to share about additional Guide destinations in North America.”
For more than a century, the Michelin Guide has been the world’s standard for rating fine and notable restaurants. Its influence and renown are largely on the international stage, particularly in Europe where most of its stars have been bestowed.
In America, Michelin has only been rating restaurants for 20 years, primarily in major cities like New York, San Francisco and Washington, DC. But in recent years Michelin Guides have also been added for Atlanta, Orlando, Miami and the state of Texas.
For North Carolina, a Michelin Guide would place Raleigh and Charlotte in a different tier of restaurant consideration. The Triangle’s acclaimed food scene has collected several James Beard awards and other accolades, but a Michelin Guide would allow North Carolina’s restaurants to be compared against the very best in the world.
Again, there’s nothing official out there, only the background and off-the-record chatter that North Carolina could be considered for one of the next Michelin Guides.
Tourism officials declined to comment on the speculation, but said any potential Michelin interest is exciting and deserved.
“We’re very proud of Raleigh’s amazing food scene and would love to have the guide feature Raleigh!” said Jessica Holt, Visit Raleigh’s director of public relations and international travel, in a text message.
“It would be great for the state of North Carolina if Michelin were to come here,” said Scott Peacock, Visit NC director of tourism and communications, in a text message.
A James Beard finalist weighs in
When Raleigh chef Scott Crawford and his family moved to the Triangle 15 years ago, he assumed he was bypassing any dreams of Michelin stars.
He spent most of his early career in fine dining luxury resort kitchens, including Herons at The Umstead Hotel, the level of restaurant often competitive for Michelin stars. But Crawford’s geography had never aligned with Michelin’s.
That could change.
“I never thought it would be a possibility when we moved here,” Crawford said. “I never thought it was something we’d be talking about.”
Crawford said he had heard the Michelin rumblings about North Carolina for some time now, and said the state would benefit from a Guide.
“Michelin was always the highest level of recognition,” Crawford said. “There’s such a rich history of rating amazing restaurants. (The Guide) is a little more trusted, the star system is still intact….If this is in fact true, it would be very good for the Triangle and for North Carolina as a whole.”
Charlotte chef and James Beard finalist Sam Hart told CharlotteFive that a Michelin Guide would help the region’s restaurant scene grow.
“First off, it is just absolutely fantastic if it does happen,” Hart said. “Because not only will this be promoting what’s already here, this will also be a huge beacon for chefs to come to Charlotte and come to the surrounding area and open up restaurants here versus somewhere else and take advantage of a foundation that doesn’t exist anywhere else.”
In the Triangle, currently only a few chefs have worked in Michelin-starred restaurants, including Tamasha’s executive chef Bhavin Chhatwani, who spent time as a senior sous chef at Campton Place in San Francisco, then the only two-star Indian restaurant in the United States. The pressure to earn and maintain stars can challenging, he said.
“The expectations were incredibly high — there was no room for error,” Chhatwani said. “The constant pursuit of perfection was intense, but it instilled a level of discipline in me that has shaped my approach to cooking. I believe every chef should experience this kind of environment at least once in their career, as it profoundly changes the way you think about food and creativity.”
After living in Raleigh for a little more than a year, Chhatwani hoped that Michelin would consider the Triangle for a guide.
“Michelin is every chef’s dream, and when I moved to Raleigh, I could see the food scene rapidly growing,” Chhatwani said. “I always believed it was just a matter of time before the Michelin Guide would recognize the area. I’m looking forward to the day when it officially arrives, as the region now has so much to offer.”
The seismic shift brought on by a Michelin Guide for North Carolina could elevate the regions restaurants in unexpected ways.
Steven Devereux Greene, who has been the executive chef at ultra fine dining Herons restaurant for the last decade, said a Michelin Guide could impact the talent attracted to the region.
“It would be a really big deal for a lot of reasons; I think you’ll get people who are in the business who will look to the region as a place to come to and open a restaurant because of Michelin,” Greene said. “You’ll have chefs realize maybe they can stay in the state and gain the experience of working in a Michelin-star restaurant. Or chefs who great up in North Carolina, thinking maybe they want this challenge of Michelin, they can do that here now. It would bring in a different clientele of foodies. What it would do for tourism is huge.”
Like Crawford, Greene had to accept that staying in the Triangle meant possibly letting go of any Michelin dreams, as North Carolina seemed like a long-shot for a guide 10 years ago. Now Greene and Herons could have the chance to be placed alongside the best restaurants in the world.
“Michelin is by far the most respected gauge of restaurants in the world,” Greene said. “That’s because Michelin is not really about fine dining, Michelin focuses directly on the quality of the food and the ingredients in the dishes.
“I always believed (North Carolina would have a Michelin Guide), but I had a little doubt,” Greene said. “Ever since I got into fine dining and luxury restaurant, it was the biggest dream of mine to have a Michelin star. To even dream that far-fetched dream, and maybe have the opportunity to have one, is tremendous.”
This story was originally published March 5, 2025 at 9:17 AM with the headline "Could Raleigh restaurants get a Michelin Guide? Here’s what we know right now."
