Could Charlotte finally get a Michelin Star? Onlookers prep for restaurant guide in city
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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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For years, chefs in Charlotte have wanted to be a part of the Michelin Guide, which reviews and rates the best restaurants in the world. Now, they just might get their chance.
Behind the scenes in North Carolina’s dining and tourism industry, something has turned up the dial on Michelin Guide chatter in recent weeks. However, there’s been no official announcement.
“The MICHELIN Guide is always looking for possible new Guide destinations. However, we don’t currently have any news to share about additional Guide destinations in North America,” Carly Grieff on Michelin’s communications team told CharlotteFive via email.
Local tourism officials, who regularly partner with the guide across the country, have also said there are no updates just yet.
“Although we’re proud of Charlotte’s amazing cuisine and would welcome the Michelin Guide in our city, we don’t have any news to share,” Laura White, senior director of brand marketing & strategy at the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority told CharlotteFive via email.
In the meantime, chefs and foodies are waiting to see what unfurls.
Sam Hart — the chef-owner of Counter- who was a 2023 finalist for the James Beard Award: Best Chef Southeast — has long lobbied for the Michelin Guide to turn its eye toward Charlotte. They’ve heard there’s some potential for North Carolina’s inclusion in a multi-state guide, as well.
Hart, who has visited 91 Michelin Star restaurants, has heard rumblings for years about the potential for a Michelin Guide covering our area. Heat on the topic has turned up quite a bit in the past few weeks, the chef told CharlotteFive as they prepared to travel to Barcelona to experience the food and service at a few three-star Michelin restaurants.
“First off, it is just absolutely fantastic if it does happen. 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. And that is such a beautiful foundation of hyper local and small farming and diverse farming,” they said.
“Just the rumors alone have really created a lot of changes and improvements and things like that in the culinary scene. ... I mean, not even announcing, that’s just rumors. So as soon as everything’s announced, I mean, you’re going to see a culinary bomb drop on Charlotte,” Hart added.
Michelin ‘carries the most weight’
Michael Chilly Winters, a Charlottean who works in finance and travels to Michelin Star restaurants and other fine dining establishments as a hobby, said he has no official relationship with the guide but keeps an eye out for “whenever there’s a new revelation.”
He’s eaten at Michelin Star restaurants at least 70 times — often repeating favorites.
“Despite all the other guides and rating systems that have come and gone in between that, Michelin is still the one that probably matters the most and carries the most weight,” he said.
Winters told CharlotteFive he thinks Charlotte restaurants “could go toe to toe with plenty of the one stars” he’s dined at across the United States and in Europe, especially “based on flavors alone.” In his mind, though, the matter at hand is chefs prioritizing what Michelin inspectors are looking for when they make a visit.
“What I think a lot of people don’t understand — and because I just watched this happen when the guide came to Texas a couple months ago — is that it’s not a question of the food is good or it is even delicious or anything like that. It’s: ‘Does it fit into how it stacks up with the five criteria that the guide officially is looking for?’ And if ... they aren’t meeting those, you’re not going to get a star,” Winters said.
The five criteria are:
- Ingredient quality
- Flavors and cooking techniques
- Chef’s culinary point of view shines through
- Value on price for the experience
- Consistency among inspectors’ multiple visits
“Tasting menus are generally a well-known bias for the guide,” Winters also noted.
“They know that every guest is getting the same thing, unless you have like allergies or aversions. ... But you know, everyone’s getting essentially the same meal and you’re getting the same service, and there’s no chance of you ordering the ‘wrong thing.’ So, it really lends itself to making sure inspectors have a comparable experience over visits. “
‘Just being a part of the guide is massive’
Hart thinks there’s plenty of potential for Charlotte restaurants to get Michelin Guide attention, as well.
“I do believe that Charlotte has a much stronger food scene than when I was being raised here 30 years ago. ... It’d be amazing if we get one or a couple stars here in Charlotte, but just being a part of the guide is massive,” Hart said.
Tasting menus — a dinner featuring multiple courses of small plates, some of which could be only a few bites’ worth — just happens to be what Counter- is all about. At Counter-, the menu rotates quarterly, set around a theme for telling a story through the food, drink and music.
“Here at Counter-, if Michelin Guide gets announced, we would be hunting after two stars and really pushing everything that we could to attain two. That’s a huge goal that we have here,” Hart said. “And, you know, Michelin cares about unique storytelling. Chef-driven, but then also something that is special specifically to that place — something that makes it singular.”
Hart believes several Charlotte restaurants also have a good chance at getting a Michelin Green Star, a designation given for dedicated sustainability efforts.
“I think here in Charlotte, there would be more restaurants that get Green Stars than restaurants that get Michelin Stars — not as a knock toward how many Michelin Stars we might receive, but more as a showcase of how green a lot of the restaurants are here in Charlotte,” they said.
“We would be thrilled about getting a Michelin Star. We would be very, very proud if we received a Green Star for the amount of work that the team has done to be as sustainable as possible at the restaurant.”
A ‘massive electric shock to the city’
Hart has long believed there’s plenty of potential for Charlotte should a Michelin Guide covering the area come to fruition. If and when it actually happens, good things for the city lie ahead, they said.
“What the Michelin Guide will do is show ... what our city looks like alongside these other international cities — and things that are very good about it and things that we need to work on.
“But regardless, being a part of the Michelin Guide is something that is such a massive lightning bolt — not only culinarily, but in every way, shape and form of tourism and food — to just really jump start everything yet again. It’s just going to be this massive electric shock to the city if it happens,” Hart said.
“I’ll say at the end of the day, no one really knows what’s going to happen. No one knows if it’s going to happen. But I will say that out of all the rating systems ... the Michelin Guide is the most consistent that there really is. You could really tell when you walk into a restaurant that there is a true difference between a one, a two and a three, and the vast majority of it is very consistent on its delivery,” they said.
This story was originally published March 5, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Could Charlotte finally get a Michelin Star? Onlookers prep for restaurant guide in city."
