news/michelin: 2023 MICHELIN TAIWAN STARS REVEALED

Wow! This year, Michelin decided award two new restaurants with 3 Michelin Stars, changing the predictable result of Le Palais being the only one in Taiwan holding 3 stars since 2018. 

The first restaurant the Michelin Guide honored with new 3 stars was JL STUDIO in Taichung, and Michelin mentioned it’s the first time Singaporean cuisine + chef has gotten THREE STARS!! Huge huge congrats for Chef Jimmy Lim, who looked visibly shook (not shiok, haha) and taking in the moment, and the JL family! 

The second milestone of the day was chef Kai Ho receiving his first shiny THREE STARS for TAIRROIR, putting modern Taiwanese flavors on the Michelin 3 star map for the first time ever. Congrats Chef Kai and your team!!  

Ten other restaurants received new Michelin stars, including chef Kunihiro Hagimoto’s playful INITA, which has been on my to eat list for too long, and ZEA, a modern Latin American restaurant by chef Joaquin Elizondo that I enjoyed very much when it opened, and MUDAN, a refined (and expensive but still very difficult to book) restaurant serving an amazing tempura tasting menu. 

 

Congrats to all the chefs and their teams! Here is the 2023 Michelin Stars for Taiwan- Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. (Will add more tomorrow, typing this out from East Coast 230AM!) 

2023 MICHELIN GUIDE TAIWAN

★ MICHELIN ONE STAR

Danny's Steakhouse 

de nuit 

Fleur de Sel (Taichung) 

Forchetta (Taichung) 

Fujin Tree Taiwanese Cuisine & Champagne 

Holt

Impromptu by Paul Lee

Ken Anhe

Longtail

Ming Fu

Mipon

Mountain and Sea House

Oretachi No Nikuya (Taichung) 

Paris 1930 de Hideki Takayama

Shin Yeh Taiwanese Signature

Sho (Kaohsiung) 

Sur（Taichung) 

Sushi Akira

Sushi Nomura

Sushi Ryu

Sushiyoshi

T+T

The Guest House

Tien Hsiang Lo

Ya Ge

Yu Kapo

Golden Formosa 

2023 NEW ★ MICHELIN ONE STAR

A Cut

Ad Astra

Ban Bo

Haili (Kaohsiung) 

Inita 

La Maison de Win (Taichung) 

Zea

★ ★ MICHELIN TWO STARS

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon

logy

RAW

2023 NEW ★ ★ MICHELIN TWO STARS

Liberte （Kaohsiung）

Molino de Urdaniz

Mudan

★ ★ ★ MICHELIN THREE STARS

Le Palais

2023 NEW ★ ★ ★ MICHELIN THREE STARS

JLStudio（Taichung）

Taïrroir

MICHELIN GREEN STAR ★

Embers 

Little Tree Food

Mountain and Sea House

Yangming Spring

NEW 2023 MICHELIN GREEN STAR ★

Hosu

Thomas Chien (Kaohsiung) 

vegetarian/western: i strongly recommend MIA CUCINA

MIA CUCINA

No. 11, Lane 107, Section 1, Fuxing S Rd, Da’an District

(02)2752-8767

(more locations below)

MRT: Zhongxiao Fuxing

11AM - 9:30PM

$$

Date visited: February 2022

Recommended dishes:  the 3 cheese roasted tomato flatbread (NT$420), the avocado mushroom panini, wild mushroom pasta, harvest salad, kale farro salad

Hello everyone in 2023! It really is easy to forget things when I don't write about it. This meal was from almost a year ago February 2022, and the first one that popped up from my google photos that uploads from my laptop. Looking at this meal, I remember it's from Mia Cucina because of their signature thin crust flatbread pizza and piles of salad and pasta, but without the menu in front of me, I'll have to google the prices and names of the dishes.  I'm thinking if I can upload random past meals from my photostream and get some posts done for 2023, even if they are throwbacks. Let's see how long this lasts! 

Mia Cucina was one of the first "vegetarian, but you can take your family who eat meat" restaurants and also one of the first places to have a great salad selection. Looks like they celebrated their 10th anniversary last year, which means they opened in 2012. Now there's a ton of Western vegan/vegetarian restaurants in Taipei, but Mia Cucina really was one of the first to have pages of over a dozen salads, pizzas, paninis and pasta, and be exclusively vegetarian. Now there's Herbivore, Baganhood, Herban Kitchen and Bar. It also reminds me of Gonna, which is not vegetarian but does the whole salad and pasta with same ingredients thing.

The first location I went to was their first one in Neihu, probably in 2013 and I remember being in awe because they had a semi-open kitchen with huge assortment of colorful veggies and you could see them as they assembled the salads and dishes. (I'll have to see if I can dig out the photos!!) The state of finding a salad in Taipei before then was so tragic- Caesar salads or lettuce with some diced cucumber, and at best, the salads from Chilis. It really was so sad. Look at us now! Mia Cucina now has locations in Daan, Tianmu and Xinyi, in the very visible second floor walkway of A11. I actually really used to like Mia Cucina, but haven't gone as often once all the cafes and Gonna and Herbivore opened. But don't be deceived- it can still be very busy and popular and you should make a reservation.

Their OG salads were the Farmers and the Harvest, which I would always get confused, with overlapping ingredients (and early menus only in Chinese). Ok let's break it down- Farmers salad has grilled sweet potato, bell peppers, grilled corn, raisins (YUCK WHY), red onions, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, cherry tomatoes, carrots, boiled egg, caramelized pecans, pineapple (again hmm), broccoli, croutons, avocado, cheddar cheese and ranch dressing. Harvest salad has grilled corn, grilled bell peppers, cherry tomato, asparagus, grilled carrots, grilled eggplant, red onion, cucumber cubes, quinoa, cilantro, toasted almonds, dried cranberries, feta cheese with lemon vinaigrette. 

In the last few years, they've changed it up, adding salads like Kale and farro (NT$435) and brunch and bowl options. Might have to revisit to give it a try!

Farro Kale Salad - kale, pecans, cranberry, scallions, celery, feta, lemon vinegar sauce

wild mushroom pasta

Other locations: 

110, Taipei City, Xinyi District, Songshou Rd, 11號2樓號

(02) 2722-3120

Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Nanxi Store One

Zhongshan District, Nanjing W Rd, 12號2樓

(02) 2522-2438

No. 48號, Dexing W Rd, Shilin District, Taipei City, 111

02 8866 2658

news/michelin: 2022 TAIPEI TAICHUNG KAOHSIUNG MICHELIN STARS ⭐️

I spotted some friends posting from the 2022 Taipei Michelin Guide Awards, so I hopped onto Facebook to watch the livestream and screencap some highlights for you guys! 

The Michelin Guide now has four cities in Taiwan in their guide- adding Tainan and Kaohsiung for the first time this year to Taipei and Taichung. 

Michelin awarded 38 restaurants with stars for 2022, along with Michelin Green Stars, Bib Gourmand and Michelin selected restaurants (which confuses me a little bit- it's not a star, but I guess like an honorary mention. I'm not sure if the previous Plate category is still included also, or if this mention replaces Plate). 

Kaohsiung's Liberte and Sho managed to catch new stars, but none for Tainan. 

Five of the seven restaurants who were newly starred were in Taipei- Holt, Paris 1930 de Hideki Takayama (at Landis Hotel), Shin Yeh (yay!), Sushiyoshi and Yu Kapo. 

Chef Hiroki from Sushiyoshi seemed to be having the most fun with the mandatory photo ops onstage, making silly faces and heart signs with the Michelin Man and head of Michelin Taiwan. 

It was also a sweet moment when host Alex Niu made sure that Shin Yeh's founder Mrs. Lee got a photo of her chef receiving their first star. 

Le Palais remains the only 3 starred restaurant in the Taipei Michelin Guide, for the fifth year in a row, while JL Studio, Logy, Tairroir, Raw, Shoun Ryugin, Guest House and Robuchon kept their 2 star status. 

Highlighting Chef Justine Li of Fleur de Sel in Taichung and the wife owner of Ming Fu in the sea of male dominated chefs onstage. 

Congrats to all the chefs and restaurants that were honored this year. What do you guys think of the list this year? Any surprise inclusions or snubs? Comment below or DM me! 

2022 TAIPEI TAICHUNG KAOHSIUNG MICHELIN STARS 

1 MICHELIN STAR TAIPEI ⭐️ 

• Danny's Steakhouse 
• De Nuit 
• Fujin Tree Taiwanese Cuisine 
• Golden Formosa 
• Holt (new)
• Impromptu by Paul Lee 
• Ken Anhe 
• Kitcho 
• Longtail
• Ming Fu
• Mipon 
• Molino de Urdaniz 
• Mountain and Sea House 
• Mudan 
• Paris 1930 de Hideki Takayama (new)
• Shin Yeh (new)
• Sushi Akira 
• Sushi Nomura 
• Sushi Ryu
• Sushiyoshi (new)
• T+T
• Tien Hsiang Lo 
• Ya Ge 
• Yu Kapo (new)

1 MICHELIN STAR TAICHUNG ⭐️ 

• Fleur de Sel 
• Forchetta
• Oretachi No Nikuya 
• Sur 

1 MICHELIN STAR KAOHSIUNG ⭐️ 

• Liberte (new)
• Sho (new)

2 MICHELIN STARS ⭐️ ⭐️ 

• JL Studio (Taichung) 
• L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon (Taipei)
• Logy (Taipei)
• Raw (Taipei)
• Shoun Ryugin (Taipei)
• Tairroir (Taipei)
• The Guest House (Taipei)

3 MICHELIN STARS ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 

• Le Palais (Taipei)

Sommelier Award 

Paris 1930 de Hideki Takayama

Lin Yun Shu

Welcome and Service Award

Fleur de Sel 

Pauline Pei-Ling Yu

Young Chef Award 2022

T+T 

Kei Koo and Johnny Tsai

Green Star 2022 for sustainable gastronomy

Mountain and Sea House

Yangming Spring
Embers 

Little Tree Food 

READ ABOUT PREVIOUS YEARS

2020 Michelin Guide Taipei Taichung post 

2019 Michelin Guide Taipei post

bread/taiwanese: i recommend EAT MI

The pandemic had everyone making bread at home, me included. For the first time, I made quick foccacia, no knead peasant bread, salted honey butter parker rolls, easy yogurt flatbread, honey beer bread, easy pretzels and of course, a lot of banana bread (not really a bread, but you know what I mean). Wow, okay seeing that, that's a lot of bread, but it's also been a loooong two years. It's evidence that  I love bread and all kinds of bread. But it wasn't until I got the invitation by a friend to try EatMI that I had heard of bread made from rice. 

Like everyone else, I’ve been trying to figure out how to eat healthier in between those media tastings, brown sugar boba and shaved ice cravings, and carb-bread-cinnamon roll-cake-croissant temptations. And most of the time, the cravings win.

So that’s why I was intrigued by EatMI, a new company making toast and bread with Taiwanese rice. Around the world, people are eating less rice (whether it’s because they are cutting carbs or have other options to pick from) and in Taiwan, rice consumption has fallen more than 30%. So the partners founded EatMI and spent two years figuring out how to make bread made from 100% Taiwanese rice and zero wheat flour, but still have a texture that bread lovers would still enjoy. With a master baker from Jiu Zhen Nan (舊振南), a food business keeping Chinese pastry traditions alive since 1890, and other partners, they are looking for a way to evolve the way people in Taiwan eat rice and the way they eat bread. 

EatMi started with a popup at Taipei 101 in December 2021, a vegan kickoff at Ooh Cha Cha x OmniPork with chef Mai Bach who also helped create some vegan toppings for them for their 101 popup, and then some collaborations with 5 restaurants like M One Cafe and Tamed Fox doing their thing with EatMI toast into eggs benedict, French toast, and bread pudding. 

Shrimp eggs Benedict w crispy hashbrowns
EatMi x M One Cafe 

Charsiu eggs Benedict Tamed Fox with EatMi English muffins

No flour, no wheat, just rice- which makes the bread a great option for those looking for gluten free options in Taipei. The first version of the packaging was individually packed and in a box, with three flavors available- original, nutty and chocolate. (NT$770/ 8 slices, combination box) 

My favorite was the nutty toast and the original a close second. They recommend (and I agree) that the toast is best when toasted longer than you would for normal toast... I use my air fryer and a good 3-4 minutes in it before I top it. I even tried my hand at the French toast that I tried from Brun, and it definitely helps those crusts when I airfried/toasted it a few minutes after griddling. The rice toast has a slightly chewy texture, not as chewy as mochi waffle, but just a slightly chewier than regular toast, and the crusts become caramelized. It's hard to describe, you kind of have to try it for yourself.

Strawberry French toast by Brun x EatMi. This was sooo tasty! 

Just launched, EatMi's second version comes in a sliced loaf, with slightly more eco-friendly packaging, and better pricing at NT$330 for 6 original slices, or NT$380 for 6 nutty slices. It's definitely still a splurge for bread, which is extremely competitive in Taiwan, but much more affordable than the pricing for the first time around. For those looking for gluten-free options, this is much tastier than the gluten free breads I've tried in the states. For more info, check out eatmi.com