For the first time in its 125-year history, the Michelin Guide brought its annual ceremony to the Principality.
And for 48 hours, Monaco became something quite rare even in its own vocabulary of superlatives: glamorous, exclusive and indispensable.
As Prince Albert II noted, Monaco already featured in the very first Michelin Guide in 1900, with three establishments in the Principality, including the Hôtel de Paris, mentioned in that inaugural edition.
This was not a new relationship. It was a return to source.
Before the Stars: Power, Precision, and Ducasse
The real electricity came the night before, at Le Louis XV, Alain Ducasse in the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo, where 110 two- and three-star chefs gathered alongside 250 guests in what can only be described as a summit of global gastronomy.
The dinner, orchestrated by Alain Ducasse and executed by Emmanuel Pilon, showcased a cuisine of Mediterranean naturality, refined, restrained, and increasingly influential. It set the tone.
The Ceremony: Michelin Goes Monaco
By Monday, the scale expanded dramatically.
More than 1,000 guests , ultimately closer to 1,200, filled the Grimaldi Forum in a setting described, not inaccurately, as Oscars-like.
A red carpet under glass.
A hall of white jackets.
And a concentration of culinary names rarely seen in one room: Yannick Alléno, Anne-Sophie Pic, Pierre Gagnaire, and Mauro Colagreco.
The Results: Controlled Change at the Top
The 2026 Michelin Guide confirmed both expansion and restraint:
• 668 starred restaurants
• 54 new one-star establishments
• 7 new two-star promotions
• Only one new three-star
That final number defines the mood.
At the summit of gastronomy, Michelin remains deliberately conservative, reinforcing that three stars are not awarded to momentum, but to permanence.
The Riviera Rising
Within that national framework, the South-East stood out.
11 new stars were awarded in the wider region, including 8 across the Var, Alpes-Maritimes and Monaco:
Robuchon Monaco — Monaco
La Table du Cap Estel — Èze
La Table de Pierre — Saint-Paul-de-Vence
Épicentre — Nice
Auberge de la Roche — Valdeblore
plus three in the Var
They signal a shift in tone, more personal cuisine, more Mediterranean identity, less rigid classicism.
Chefs speak of energy, imagination, and freedom, a “gastronomie décomplexée” that still meets Michelin’s exacting standards.
Monaco’s Two Distinctions and a Quiet Victory
Numerically, Monaco gained two distinctions:
• A new star for Robuchon Monaco
• The Michelin Service Award for Marco Tognon at Les Ambassadeurs by Christophe Cussac (Hôtel Métropole Monte-Carlo)
At the same time, all existing starred restaurants retained their status, maintaining the Principality’s remarkable total of 13 stars across its restaurants, now increased to 14 stars.
The Monaco Effect
Everything about the event reinforced a single idea:
Monaco is not just a participant in Michelin’s universe.
It is one of its reference points. It gathered 110 elite chefs before the ceremony even began. It hosted the world’s culinary elite in a setting unmatched in scale and polish. It demonstrated a continuity from Ducasse to Robuchon, from legacy to renewal.
Even the closing cocktail, a gastronomic promenade through curated buffets, extended the message: This is a place where cuisine is not only judged. It is staged.
Meaning Beyond the Stars
Amid the celebration, one remark lingered.
Pierre Gagnaire reminded the audience that young chefs do not pursue this craft for wealth, but “to give meaning to their lives.”
In Monaco, that sentiment stands out.
After Monaco
From Monaco we get a recalibrated sense of where gastronomy stands today.
More emotional.
More personal.
Still exacting, but less rigid.
Unmistakably Monaco is a place that understands both performance and precision better than almost anywhere else.
