In China's ‘Michelin Guide,' Tokyo leads overseas listings with 30 entries
In a move to expand its global influence, China's e-commerce giant Meituan held the awards ceremony for its prestigious Black Pearl Restaurant Guide overseas for the first time.
Hosted at Singapore's Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre on April 25, the awards ceremony showcased the winners of the guide's 2025 edition while using the city-state's reputation as a vibrant food hub to promote Chinese cuisine on the world stage and foster greater cross-cultural exchange.
The event attracted a strong turnout of some of Asia's top chefs, such as Julien Royer of Odette (Singapore), Chan Yan Tak of Lung King Heen (Hong Kong), and Thomas and Mathias Suhring of Suhring (Bangkok).
First launched in 2018 by Meituan and dubbed as China's answer to the Michelin Guide, the Black Pearl Restaurant Guide aims to recognize the best in fine dining in Asia with a Chinese perspective in mind.
Guests at the award ceremony's gala dinner were treated to sumptuous feast. |
BLACK PEARL RESTAURANT GUIDE
The 2025 edition features 370 restaurants from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and the dining capitals of Tokyo, Singapore and Bangkok.
Other food cities like Kyoto, Osaka and Seoul remain absent from the guide, but it's only a matter of time before they show up on the list. The guide has seen a steady growth in international listings over the past five years.
'We want to provide consumers who love fine food and life with an authoritative, fair and professional guide that is tailored to the Chinese palate,' says Tang Yan, head of the Black Pearl Restaurant Guide, adding that the evaluation system is distinctly Chinese.
'In Chinese culinary culture... we pay attention to the harmonious balance of five basic flavors: sourness, sweetness, bitterness, spiciness and saltiness,' says Tang. 'The diversity of Chinese ingredients and cooking techniques fosters a highly inclusive palate, enabling appreciation for a wide range of flavors and culinary experiences.'
Tang Yan, head of the Black Pearl Restaurant Guide, says the guide is tailored to Chinese palate, which is more attuned to the balance of sour, sweet, bitter, spicy and salty flavors. |
BLACK PEARL RESTAURANT GUIDE
Restaurants are evaluated based on their culinary excellence, service, ambience, heritage and innovation.
According to Tang, the guide's reviewers are mainly experts who have 'a deep knowledge of Chinese cuisine and culture' and 'a good understanding of local taste preferences and an international culinary perspective.' They comprise seasoned diners (more than 77% of the panel) and gastronomy researchers. Anyone with direct industry connections, such as suppliers and restaurant public relations representatives, are excluded.
To maintain objectivity in the evaluations, each reviewer's tenure is limited to a maximum of five years, and 30% of the judges undergo an annual rotation.
To ensure a fair, transparent and authoritative rating system, the results are supported by big data from Meituan's crowd-sourced restaurant reviews, which offer insights on consumer sentiments, and also undergo third party verification by China's national notary agencies, explains Tang.
'We have also developed the first comprehensive evaluation system tailored to Chinese cuisine, a set of criteria specific to Chinese cuisine culinary styles, (and one which) addresses the absence of detailed Chinese cuisine standards in international restaurant lists or rankings,' she says.
A wider taste
The prize-giving ceremony in Singapore handed out a total of 114 awards to restaurants from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Tokyo, Bangkok and Singapore. (An earlier event that focused on winners from Chinese cities was held in Nanchang, China, in January this year.)
Excluding Hong Kong, which had 37 restaurants in the guide, Tokyo dominated the overseas listings with 30 entries, followed by Singapore with 16 restaurants and Bangkok with nine — the trio make up 14% of the listings with 55 entries, a record for the guide.
The guide uses a three-level diamond system — the highest being three diamonds — to rate the restaurants. The more diamonds a restaurant has, the more it is worth trying, says Tang.
There was a sense of deja vu for some of the winners: Singapore's Les Amis and Odette — both three-Michelin-starred restaurants — earned three-diamond honors, while Bangkok's highest-scoring restaurants, the two-diamond-rated Gaa and Suhring, are also two-Michelin-starred eateries.
Taipei saw five restaurants being honored, with Mume Taipei and Le Palais achieving two-diamond ratings. Logy, a two-Michelin-starred establishment, is Taipei's only Japanese establishment in the guide, earning a one-diamond distinction. The restaurant is led by chef Ryogo Tahara, a Hokkaido native who honed his skills at Tokyo's celebrated two-Michelin-starred Florilege .
With a one-diamond recognition, chef Takuto Murota of Lature is a new addition to the Black Pearl Restaurant Guide 2025's Tokyo listings. |
BLACK PEARL RESTAURANT GUIDE
Most of the Black Pearl's winners from Tokyo are names that are already celebrated in prestigious restaurant guides like Michelin, Asia's 50 Best Restaurants and France's La Liste.
Twenty establishments from Tokyo earned the Black Pearl's one-diamond recognition, including restaurants like Sushi Yoshitake, Myoujyaku, Kutan, Quintessence, Sezanne and Florilege. Nine restaurants such as Sazenka, Akasaka Sichuan Hanten and L'Effervescence snagged the two-diamond status, while Sushi Saito, which had its three Michelin stars stripped in 2019 when it stopped taking reservations and became a referral-only eatery, was Tokyo's only three-diamond winner.
For Akasaka Sichuan Hanten, this marks the restaurant's third consecutive appearance in the Black Pearl guide. Owner-chef Kentaro Chen, whose Singapore outpost Shisen Hanten holds one Michelin star, says the Black Pearl's recognition 'helps us share our unique Japan-grown Sichuan cuisine with international visitors.'
'The Black Pearl award's influence extends beyond China, significantly impacting global food tourism,' says Chen. 'The greatest appeal of the guide is that it offers an Asian perspective and its evaluation system embodies the characteristics of Chinese food culture.'
French restaurant Lature , located in Shibuya, is a new addition to the Tokyo cohort, with a one-diamond recognition. The eatery is known for using seasonal Japanese ingredients to create dishes that capture the essence of nature.
Lature's chef-owner Takuto Murota, who first encountered the Black Pearl Restaurant Guide on Dianping, a media platform and app owned by Meituan, was the only chef from Tokyo to attend the award ceremony.
'Currently, about 40% of our guests are from overseas and out of this number, 12% are from China, so I am interested to find out about the restaurants that got selected by the guide and to learn the evaluation criteria,' says Murota.
'I hope more people will be interested in Japanese restaurants,' he adds. 'Besides (places offering) sushi, tempura and yakiniku (grilled meat), there are a lot of other Japanese restaurants featuring high-quality food waiting to be discovered.'
Celebrity chef Tetsuya Wakuda of Singapore's Waku Ghin was on hand to give a description of a dish he has made for the event's guests. |
BLACK PEARL RESTAURANT GUIDE
Tang says the Tokyo restaurants currently listed in the guide 'pay great attention to the quality of the dishes and their ingredients.'
'The chefs are extremely serious and strive for perfection when dealing with food,' adds Tang. 'This (attitude) enables a restaurant to consistently present high-quality dishes, a craftsmanship that is increasingly valued by Chinese consumers nowadays.'
She adds that Tokyo's restaurants like Lature and Shanghai crab specialist Xie Wang Fu have experienced noticeable increases in bookings and visitations after receiving their Black Pearl citations.
'This demonstrates that our guide has established a strong reputation in the overseas Chinese community,' she says. 'We plan to organize more events in various international cities to build awareness and influence among the local populations.'
Celebrity chef Tetsuya Wakuda, whose Waku Ghin at Marina Bay Sands picked up a one diamond accolade, says the Black Pearl guide has been drawing Chinese clientele to his restaurants.
'Sometimes, they ask for Moutai (a brand of Chinese liquor distilled from fermented sorghum),' he says. 'Of course, we have it.'
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