Val M. Cantú's Mission District tasting menu made history Wednesday night at the 2026 Michelin Guide California ceremony in San Diego. Enclos in Sonoma also vaulted to three stars, giving the Bay Area its most dominant showing in the guide's California history.

Val M. Cantú stood on the stage at Eve in San Diego Wednesday night and accepted a third Michelin star for Californios, his Mission District tasting menu — making it the first Mexican restaurant in the world to reach that tier.

Cantú trained at Benu, Saison, and Sons & Daughters in San Francisco before spending time at Enrique Olvera's Pujol in Mexico City. He launched Californios as a series of pop-ups in 2013, found a permanent address in the Mission in 2015, and has been building toward this for more than a decade. Michelin's inspectors called the menu "a truly singular gastronomic destination," citing "a dizzying variety of Mexican flavors" transformed through "masterful technique" and "subtle international influences."

Enclos in Sonoma also vaulted to three stars Wednesday — Chef Brian Limoge's Victorian-era room in downtown Sonoma, which entered the guide at two stars just last year, uses produce from the affiliated Stone Edge Farm estate. Limoge previously worked at Atelier Crenn, Quince, and Birdsong before taking the kitchen at Enclos.

That pushes California to ten three-star restaurants — double New York City's current count. The eight retained three-star rooms include Atelier Crenn, Benu, and Quince in San Francisco; The French Laundry in Yountville; and SingleThread in Healdsburg.

Among the night's nine new one-star designations statewide, two landed in the Bay Area. Naides, Chef Patrick Gabon and partner Celine Wuu's Filipino tasting menu in San Francisco, earned one of the rarest designations in American dining — Michelin-starred Filipino cuisine remains vanishingly uncommon nationally. Michelin's inspectors described it as "a jewel box operation" and "a labor of love," with foraged herbs and flowers woven into dishes drawn from Gabon's mother's name and her culinary heritage. In Healdsburg, Troubadour — a sandwich shop and bakery by day that runs a tasting menu after dark — earned a star for Melissa and Sean McGaughey's French-inflected cooking with California ingredients.

No Bay Area restaurant lost a star. Commis in Oakland, Acquerello, Birdsong, Lazy Bear, and Saison in San Francisco all retained two stars. The full Peninsula and South Bay constellation — Plumed Horse in Saratoga, Village Pub in Woodside, Protégé in Palo Alto, Wakuriya in San Mateo, Selby's in Atherton — held. State Bird Provisions and The Progress, Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski's paired Fillmore Street restaurants, kept their stars as well.

Special recognition went to the bar team at Maria Isabel in San Francisco, which took the Exceptional Cocktails Award for a program built around traditional Mexican spirits, and to Frida Blomdahl Hay and the floor staff at Sons & Daughters, who received the Outstanding Service Award.