Michelin moves: San Diego + a local goodbye
The California Michelin Guide will hold its 2026 awards ceremony in San Diego on June 24 — the first time the state event is hosted there, putting the city in the spotlight for dining watchers (sandiegouniontribune.com). Separately, Mountain View’s Chez TJ — a long‑running restaurant with 44 years at its Victorian location and 17 years with a Michelin star — announced it is closing, marking a notable local loss (mercurynews.com).
California’s next Michelin star ceremony is headed to San Diego on June 24, while Mountain View is losing Chez TJ after more than four decades. (guide.michelin.com) (newsbreak.com) (cheztj.com) The June 24 event will unveil the 2026 California ratings, and a Sacramento Bee report says it will be held at the waterfront venue Eve in San Diego by invitation only. Last year’s statewide ceremony was in Sacramento at the SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center. (newsbreak.com) San Diego enters the ceremony with five Michelin-starred restaurants listed by the city’s tourism bureau, including Addison, which reached three stars in 2022, plus Lilo, Valle, Jeune et Jolie and Soichi. Addison remains the only three-star restaurant in Southern California. (sandiego.org) Michelin’s California ceremony has become the state’s annual reset for stars, Bib Gourmands and special awards, with inspectors judging restaurants on five published criteria including ingredient quality, technique, chef personality, harmony of flavors and consistency. The guide also adds recommended restaurants that do not receive stars or Bib Gourmands. (newsbreak.com) San Diego’s host role lands as the city’s tourism agency is pitching the region as a fine-dining destination, not just a taco-and-burrito town. In a February 19 release, the bureau said San Diego had grown from one Michelin-starred restaurant to five in recent years. (sandiego.org) At the same time, Chez TJ’s exit removes one of Silicon Valley’s longest-running Michelin names. The restaurant says it opened on November 26, 1982, inside an 1894 Victorian at 938 Villa Street in downtown Mountain View. (cheztj.com) Chez TJ says it earned its first Michelin star in 2007 and “continues to be” a South Bay standard-bearer for French cuisine. Its website still describes the restaurant as an intimate tasting-menu spot led by executive chef Mo Bejar. (cheztj.com 1) (cheztj.com 2) That leaves California’s Michelin week with two very different markers: a first statewide ceremony for San Diego, and a final service for a Mountain View restaurant that built its reputation over 44 years in the same house. (guide.michelin.com) (cheztj.com)
