Sensational, nothing less, are the news that the Guide Michelin 2023 had to announce to the gourmet country Germany on Tuesday at its gala in Karlsruhe. Ironically, in these post-pandemic pre-apocalyptic times, the French restaurant guide has not only awarded one, two or three Michelin stars to the record number of 334 restaurants, seven more than in the previous record year 2022. He also had the audacity to award Jan Hartwig's restaurant "Jan" in Munich, which opened just a few months ago, three stars right away, a case almost without precedent in the more than century-old history of Michelin.

Jakob Strobel y Serra

Deputy Head of the Feuilleton.

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Half a dozen times the testers had been in the "Jan", and there was complete agreement among all that Hartwig cooks at an absolute world-class level, Ralf Flinkenflügel, the director of the Guide Michelin Germany, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "It is one of the best restaurants not only in Germany, and it is three stars without a hint of a doubt. Jan Hartwig has a special gift, similar to Messi or Ronaldo. Others can train as long as they want, they will never reach this level," says Flinkenflügel. And anyone who has been lucky enough to eat at Hartwig's knows how right the Michelin Guide is with its decision.

The pyramid is getting wider and wider

Since all the other three-star chefs were able to keep their ratings – effortlessly and without any doubt, as Flinkenflügel emphasizes – there are now ten German restaurants in the highest category again: Marco Müller's "Rutz" in Berlin, Kevin Fehling's "The Table" in Hamburg, Christian Jürgens' "Überfahrt" in Rottach-Egern, Christian Bau's "Victor's Fine Dining" in Perl, Clemens Rambichler's "Sonnora" in Dreis, Thomas Schanz' "schanz.restaurant" in Piesport, Claus-Peter Lumpp's "Bareiss" in Baiersbronn, Torsten Michel's "Schwarzwaldstube" also in Baiersbronn and the "Aqua" of Hartwig's teacher Sven Elverfeld in Wolfsburg.

The number of two-star restaurants has risen by eight to an impressive 50, a clear indication that the pyramid of Germany's top gastronomy stands on an ever broader foundation. Long overdue were the upgrades of Thomas Kellermann ("Gourmetrestaurant Dichter", Rottach-Egern) and Daniel Schimkowitsch ("L.A. Jordan", Deidesheim), somewhat surprisingly the second star for Thorsten Bender comes from "being" in Karlsruhe.

The double stars for Niclas Nussbaumer ("Mühle", Schluchsee), Max Natmessnig ("Alois", Munich), Benjamin Gallein ("Votum", Hanover), Julian Stowasser ("Lakeside", Hamburg) and Frédéric Morel ("Cœur d'Artichaut", Münster) are likely to cause little discussion, but all the more approval. Painfully missed in the list, however, is Sigi Schelling, who cooks at the "Werneckhof" in Munich at least as well as before in the two-star institution "Tantris". The fact that the TV riot chef Frank Rosin has lost his second star, however, will not seriously hurt anyone – in contrast to the death of the cooking legend Heinz Winkler, with which the two stars of his "residence" in Aschau have also been extinguished.

Among the 34 new one-star hotels, the wide geographical spread of the establishments is remarkable. The round dance is stretched from Leipzig to Donaueschingen, from Munich to Münster, from Hamburg to Prien am Chiemsee, whereby the Michelin in this category sometimes has to put up with the quiet accusation of inflationary generosity. And the last gaps are being closed.

Thus, the city of Freiburg, which is completely unsuspicious of any pietistic hostility to pleasure, in which there was not a single Michelin-starred restaurant before, is now represented with three addresses, including Martin Fauster's excellent "Wolfshöhle". There are no spectacular devaluations in the new Michelin Guide, and the fact that Berlin's top gastronomy is losing a little momentum and that new star restaurants are no longer springing up there like mushrooms from Grunewald is more due to consolidation than a crisis.

The impressive courage of top chefs

In these notorious times of crisis, there can be no talk of a crisis of German culinary art anyway. The Michelin director himself is rather amazed at how confidently the top gastronomy has come through the turbulence of war, inflation, energy price hysteria and shortage of skilled workers. 2022 was actually a black year for restaurateurs, but in the star hotels you hardly felt anything of it, says Flinkenflügel.

The standard has not only been maintained, but even increased, and the courage of the top chefs not to back down in difficult times is as admirable as it is impressive. However, one should not forget that all this does not work without the guests, especially the younger ones, whom he sees more and more often in the star hotels – and this is probably the best news of the new Michelin Guide: It seems as if Germany is slowly becoming a pretty gourmet country.