Benu is a three-Michelin star New American restaurant located in the SoMa district of downtown San Francisco opened in 2010 by chef Corey Lee, the former Chef de cuisine at the French Laundry. Benu made the list of The World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2019.
Wine Country is a region of California, in the northern San Francisco Bay Area, known worldwide as a premier wine-growing region. The region is famed for its wineries, its cuisine, Michelin star restaurants, boutique hotels, luxury resorts, historic architecture, and culture. Viticulture and wine-making have been practiced in the region since the Spanish missionaries from Mission San Francisco Solano established the first vineyards in 1812.
Thomas Aloysius Keller is an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. He and his landmark Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry in Yountville, California, have won multiple awards from the James Beard Foundation, notably the Best California Chef in 1996, and the Best Chef in America in 1997. The restaurant was a perennial winner in the annual Restaurant list of the Top 50 Restaurants of the World; the voting process has since been changed to disallow previous winners from being considered.
The French Laundry is a three-Michelin-star French and Californian cuisine restaurant located in Yountville, California, in the Napa Valley. Sally Schmitt opened The French Laundry in 1978 and designed her menus around local, seasonal ingredients; she was a visionary chef and pioneer of California cuisine. Since 1994, the chef and owner of The French Laundry is Thomas Keller. The restaurant building dates from 1900 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
Michael Dominic Chiarello was an American celebrity chef, restauranteur, and businessperson, who was known for Italian-influenced California cuisine. He hosted the cooking TV shows Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello on Food Network, and NapaStyle on Fine Living Network. He was the owner of a tapas restaurant named Coqueta and an Italian restaurant named Bottega and has locations in Napa Valley, California and San Francisco, California. He was a competitor on the fourth season of The Next Iron Chef.
Yountville is an incorporated town in Napa County, in the Wine Country of California, United States. Located in the North Bay region of the Bay Area, the population was 3,436 at the 2020 census. Almost a third of the town's population lives at the Veterans Home of California. Yountville is a popular tourist destination, particularly for its wineries and its famed Michelin-starred restaurant, The French Laundry.
David Kinch is an American chef and restaurateur. He owned and operated Manresa, a restaurant in Los Gatos, California, which was awarded three Michelin stars in 2016. Kinch's California cuisine has strong French, Catalan and Japanese influences. Kinch opened a second restaurant in Los Gatos, called The Bywater, on January 12, 2016.
Baumé was a French restaurant in Palo Alto, California, opened in 2010 by chef Bruno Chemel. Until 2021, it had two Michelin stars. Originally seating 28, the restaurant was reduced to eight tables in the mid-2010s, and staffed only by Chemel, his son Antoine, and his wife Christie. In 2021, Chemel requested the Michelin stars be withdrawn, and in 2022 he converted the restaurant into a more casual Bistronomie by Baumé. It closed permanently in August 2023.
Manresa was a restaurant in Los Gatos, California that specialized in California cuisine. It was founded in 2002 by chef David Kinch. The Michelin Guide: San Francisco, Bay Area and Wine Country conferred two Michelin stars on the restaurant in 2007, and upgraded it to three stars in 2016.
Christopher Kostow is the executive chef at The Restaurant at Meadowood in Napa Valley, California. Under chef-owner Kostow, The restaurant was awarded three stars by the Michelin Guide consecutively from 2011 to 2019. In 2013, Chef Kostow was awarded the James Beard Foundation Award for "Best Chef: West".
Adega was a Portuguese restaurant in the Little Portugal neighborhood of San Jose, California. Established in 2015, in 2016 it became the city's first restaurant to be awarded a Michelin star. In summer 2023, the owners announced that the restaurant would close at the end of the year, to be replaced by a second location of Petiscos, a more casual Portuguese restaurant with the same chefs.
Quince is a restaurant in the Jackson Square neighborhood in San Francisco, California. Opened in 2003 by chef Michael Tusk and his wife, Lindsay, in Pacific Heights, the restaurant has been located in Jackson Square since 2009. A sister restaurant, Cotogna, opened next door in 2011.
Coi was a restaurant in San Francisco, California. It served a nightly tasting menu for $250 per diner featuring seafood of the California coast. In 2017, it was awarded three Michelin stars under executive chef Matthew Kirkley.
Jū-Ni is an Omakase-style sushi restaurant located at 1335 Fulton Street in San Francisco, California founded by Geoffrey Lee and Tan Truong. It was Michelin-starred in 2017, and lost the star in 2022.
Atelier Crenn is a French restaurant in the Cow Hollow neighborhood in San Francisco, California. Opened in 2011 by Dominique Crenn and Juan Contreras, the restaurant became the seventh restaurant in San Francisco Bay Area to be awarded three Michelin stars by the Michelin Guide in 2018.
State Bird Provisions is a San Francisco restaurant founded by chef-owners Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski.
The Glass Fire was a wildfire in Northern California, that started on September 27, 2020, at 3:48 AM (PDT) from an undetermined cause and was active for 23 days. It was part of the 2020 California Wildfires and the 2020 Western United States wildfire season. The fire was named due to its origin nearby Glass Mountain Road in Deer Park, Napa County, and it extended also into Sonoma County. Initially a single 20-acre brush fire, it rapidly grew and merged with two smaller fires that expanded to 11,000 acres during the night of September 27 into September 28.
Californios is a Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco, California, serving Mexican cuisine. Its head chef is Val M. Cantu, one of the restaurant's co-owners. Californios earned its first Michelin star in 2015 and its second in 2017, becoming the first US restaurant serving Mexican cuisine to earn two Michelin stars. Its original Mission District location closed in 2020. The restaurant relocated to the South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood in early 2021.
Michelin Guide, 2013 [1] 
