The Michelin star is without a doubt the greatest honor bestowed upon the international culinary sector. Some have referred to them as “the Oscars of the culinary world.”
Chefs from across the World work their entire careers to achieve just one coveted star in acknowledgment of their expertise. But there is a select handful who has amassed an incredible number of stars in their constellation of fine dining establishments.
The Chefs Who Have the Most Michelin Stars
We look at the World’s most decorated Michelin-starred chefs and why they are regarded as the greatest in the World.
Alain Ducasse has received 19 Michelin stars.
Alain Ducasse is synonymous with breaking Michelin star records, and he presently has 17 Michelin stars. This gives him the World’s living chef with the highest Michelin stars.
Many consider him one of the finest chefs in the World, and he’s developed a business empire with 36 restaurants all over the World. He is also one of only two chefs in history to have had 21 Michelin stars and the first to own three Michelin-starred restaurants in three locations.
Ducasse is the only chef on our list who has transported food into space, in addition to being recognized for world-class French cuisine. In 2015, Ducasse served meals to astronauts aboard the International Space Station, a feat he described as “conquering the ultimate frontier (of cooking).”
4 Michelin Stars for Pierre Gagnaire
Pierre Gagnaire, another well-known French chef, has spent his 40-year career amassing Michelin stars. Growing up in his family’s Michelin-starred kitchen, he earned his first star at the age of 26 and hasn’t looked back since. The Michelin guide describes this iconoclastic chef as “in the vanguard of the fusion cuisine trend,” and he is known for shattering the traditions of conventional French cookery.
Gagnaire’s eponymous flagship restaurant on Rue Balzac in Paris has held three Michelin stars for more than two decades, a culinary marvel in and of itself. He now controls 18 culinary restaurants across the World, including Sketch in London, one of the finest Michelin-starred restaurants in Mayfair.
12 Michelin Stars for Martin Berasategui
Martin Berasategui is the World’s third most decorated Michelin star chef, with twelve stars, more than any other Spanish chef. He is also one of just a handful of chefs in the World with two triple Michelin-starred establishments.
At the age of 25, this extraordinary Basque chef received his first Michelin star for his own restaurant, Restaurante Martin Berasategui. The acclaimed restaurant received its third Michelin star in 2001 and has been on the list of the World’s 50 greatest restaurants for six years.
Berasategui has opened three more Michelin-starred restaurants in Tenerife and Barcelona over the period of 44 years. He also has six more restaurants in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Costa Rica. He is considered a legend in the realm of traditional Basque cuisine and one of the World’s finest chefs.
Yannick Alleno has received 10 Michelin stars.
Yannick Alleno oversees the operations of eighteen restaurants across the World. His Alléno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen is one of Paris’s oldest restaurants, located in the gardens of the Champs-Élysées. It’s a Michelin-star constellation with three star-rated restaurants in the French Michelin Guide 2020. Pavillon Ledoyen became the World’s most star-rated independent institution in 2020.
This French chef isn’t only for accolades. Yannick Alléno has been exploring and developing French food since 2013, to the point of launching his own culinary movement, Modern Cuisine. He examined sauces as part of his study and even developed a process, Extractions®. According to Yannick, this procedure allows for the concentration and refinement of flavors, giving them structure, a lingering finish, and minerality.
8 Michelin Stars for Anne-Sophie Pic
Let us raise our glasses to the women! Anne-Sophie Pic has the most Michelin stars of any female chef, with eight across her five restaurants.
When her father died in 1997, she took over as chef of her family’s restaurant Maison Pic despite having no professional culinary training. Pic launched a second restaurant, Restaurant Anne-Sophie Pic, after achieving three stars for her first. It highlights her family’s culinary ancestry from Valence. It attempts to exhibit the imaginative, adventurous spirit that, according to the Michelin Guide, “binds the Pic family’s history with that of French food.”
The authored article is written by Darshana Joshi and shared with Prittle Prattle News exclusively.
