CALIFORNIA – The 2020 California Michelin Guide will still be released later this year, despite several restaurants were closed amid the COVID-19 pandemic due to safety concerns and economic instability, according to the report released on Friday, August 14.

The inspectors who are responsible for reviewing the restaurants already completed the fieldwork for the 2020 California edition before the pandemic, so the “dining service” in the latest edition of the Michelin Guide was based on the dining experiences and information gathered before March.

“Some chefs have expressed their resulting fears about the implications on the next installment of the Michelin Guide,” said Gwendal Poullennec, international director of Michelin Guides. “We are fully aware that this situation is unprecedented. Therefore, we will adapt to the circumstances to evaluate your restaurants in a fair and equitable manner once things have returned to normal.”

The Michelin Guide returned to California in 2019 after a decade, unveiling 657 Michelin-recommended restaurants and 90 of those earned Michelin stars.

Six new restaurants in Los Angeles were awarded the two-star status including n/naka in Culver City, Providence in Hollywood, Somni in Beverly Hills, Sushi Ginza Onodera in West Hollywood, Urasawa in Beverly Hills and Vespertine in Culver City. There were also 18 new restaurants earning one-star status last year.

The Michelin Guide founded in 1900 is a series of annual guidebooks published by Michelin Group, a tire company in French. The Guide has since rated over 40,000 restaurants in more than 30 territories across three continents, and in the United States, there are four Guides for New York City, Westchester County, Washington, D.C., Chicago and California.