The Michelin Guide UK and Ireland 2020

The Michelin Guide for the UK and Ireland has been published and a record number of stars have been handed out.

Quirky French restaurant The Lecture Room and Library at Sketch, in Mayfair, London, and co-owned by Paris based chef Pierre Gagnaire, is the big winner as the only new three-star restaurant on the list.
Sketch joins four other restaurants in the upper echelon - Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, London; Gordon Ramsay, London; Fat Duck, Bray and Waterside Inn, Bray. The elevation of Sketch was somewhat unexpected, but the restaurant has been on the radar for a long time and Gagnaire has a stellar reputation and holds three stars for his eponymous restaurant in Paris.

There are four new two-star restaurants, two of them in Ireland. Greenhouse, where S.Pellegrino Young Chef winner Mark Moriarty works under head chef Mickael Viljanen gained a second star and Aimsir, Celbridge, which comes straight into the list after only 6 months in business, with two stars. The Dining Room, Malmesbury, England and La Dame de Pic, London, were the other two new restaurants to bag a brace of stars.

In other news, the city of Manchester in England came in from the cold with its first star for 40 years for former Noma chef Simon Martin’s Mana restaurant.

The biggest shock of the evening was reserved for Mayfair sushi den Araki which lost all three stars. With chef Mitsuhiro Araki leaving the restaurant this year and handing it to his long-term protégé Marty Lau, the loss of one star, allowing the new chef to make his mark, had been expected, but the loss of all three took everyone by surprise.