The Michelin Guide is one of the most prestigious and influential rating systems in the world. It was developed over a century ago by the Michelin tire company in France. Although it’s a complete 180-degree turn from where it started, the Michelin Guide now gives you a list of the world’s best places to eat. Here’s how the Michelin Stars work:

One Star: A great restaurant that uses top-quality ingredients in its food.

Two Stars: A restaurant where the chef offers excellent cuisine that is inspired and full of personality.

Three Stars: The highest rating for a place offering culinary excellence, where food is art, and going here is worth the journey, wherever you may be in the world.

Here are five restaurants that we’ve selected to give you an incredible vegan Michelin experience.

As only the second restaurant in Scandinavia to receive a Green Michelin Star, sustainable gastronomy is at the core of Bistro Lupa. Not only does this place focus on plant-based cuisine, but it also prioritizes craftsmanship.

A seasonal, five-course menu here consists of an appetizer, two starters served family style with bread, a main course, and a dessert of the kitchen’s choosing. Bistro Lupa not only shows masterful culinary skills, but it also goes above and beyond in its beverages. Some incredible cocktail combinations include pear and kombucha, amaretto and punch, and coffee and cream.

With every experiment that takes place in Lupa’s kitchen, the end goal remains the same: to make plant-based food as exciting and flavorful as possible, while easing the environmental pressure on our planet.

Édition Koji Shimomura, better known as Koji, is in Osaka, Japan. Currently holding a single Michelin Star, this restaurant is rooted in French techniques. The elegant cuisine served here isn’t overpowered with butter and cream. Natural flavors, aromas, and ingredients are allowed to do their magic and dance on your taste buds.

The founder and head chef, Koji Shimomura, offers an innovative culinary experience that is a love letter to his travels around the world. Shimomura has worked with countless food producers and culinary artists from all over. Inspiration from his surroundings motivated him to kickstart Koji in 2007, and since then, he’s never looked back.

Signature meals at Koji include chilled oysters with seawater and citrus jelly, as well as kadaif-wrapped John Dory. Fun fact: The word “Édition” in the restaurant’s name speaks of Shimomura’s innovative approach of constantly editing his recipes.

It is Shimomura’s wish that as many people as possible have the opportunity to experience his food at Édition Koji Shimomura.

At DAR, there’s a cultural blend waiting for you in every bite. The plant-based cuisine inspiration is drawn from the Moroccan and Spanish roots of Chef Zineb Hattab. At DAR, she combines these two cuisines as a way of spreading her dual cultures through respective cuisines.

DAR offers a sharing menu of around fifteen dishes, accompanied by drinks served at the adjoining bar before or after your meal, as per your preference. Like Bistro Lupa, here too, the season dictates the menu changes. Like any other fine dining restaurant, DAR has an entire brunch tasting menu complete with all the Moroccan tea you can drink.

The names on DAR’s menu might throw you off, but what’s the fun in being prepared? This restaurant allows you to enhance your taste buds with some standout dishes. There’s hummus on tortilla chips and Spanish tomatoes with pickled peppers, red onion, and capers. A BBQ mushroom sandwich, Harisa mayo and herb salad, and grilled winter veggies are bound to knock your socks off.

DAR is much more than just another restaurant with a Michelin Star. This Spanish–Moroccan food fusion contains history and culture on a single plate.

Chef Daniel Humm transformed Eleven Madison Park into a fully plant-based restaurant in 2021, retaining its three Michelin Stars in the process. Humm’s dedication and culinary precision go hand in hand, as Eleven Madison Park is the only vegan restaurant in the world to hold three Michelin Stars.

The menu features innovative dishes like sunflower butter with bread rolls, cucumber with melon and smoked daikon, and zucchini with lemongrass and marinated tofu. Humm’s approach involves reimagining traditional culinary techniques, such as fermenting almond milk and creating plant-based alternatives to dairy and fish sauces. Entrées consist of a freshly baked, crispy vegan roll served with faux butter, a quenelle of tonburi, mimicking caviar, plated with horseradish cream and accompanied by a radish tostada with a dollop of pumpkin seed butter. The dessert course at the Park also has a delectable line to choose from. Being the epitome of fine dining, you can expect a nine- to ten-course tasting menu to set you back around $370, while a six-course menu will cost you $285.

Humm’s mission goes beyond his restaurant. He founded Rethink Food to address food insecurity and was appointed as UNESCO’s first Goodwill Ambassador for Food Education.

The rise of vegan Michelin Star restaurants is redefining luxury dining and allowing plant-based cuisine to stand on its own. Experimentation through a variety of ingredients and flavors has brought a spark to vegan cuisine, and these Michelin Star restaurants have only just scratched its surface.

These restaurants wear their Stars on their sleeves and remind us that sustainable ingredients can give us some darn good meals.