When you see how precise the Japanese work it the kitchen, and how small many of their finer restaurants are, it is not surprising that Japan now has both more Michelin two (116 over 83) and three star (32 over 26) establishments than France. In any case, you can eat extremely well there, even when you move beyond sushi, sashimi and yakitori. The recently released guides, which safeguards French honour by including Monaco as part of France, still gives its home team an upper hand in the total number or starred restaurants, if not stars, by handing out 485 one stars in France to Japan's 441. We all know, though, how poorly you can eat in a one star restaurant in France (I generally avoid them) and much of Japan has probably not yet been seriously reviewed. Here is how the final tally of the top dozen looked.

When you look though a stars per capita, the picture changes. Punching far above its weight, Switzerland becomes number one, with a star for every 66,100 citizens. The French need 86,145 inhabitants to keep a star cook in business. The loser in that class must certainly, though, be the United States. If Michelin is to be trusted, you need almost two million Americans to feed a star. Comments