More Stars for Japan's Culinary Crown

TOKYO — According to the latest guide from restaurant referee Michelin, the new global champion in three-star dining is …Kansai.

The Michelin guidebook to be released Friday for Kansai, the Japanese region that encompasses Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe, awards its coveted three-star rating to 12 restaurants — a culinary antidote to Japan's economic fortunes and largely sagging sclerotic policy making.

Kyoto and Osaka had seven three-star restaurants in the 2010 guide.The latest guide added Kobe restaurants, and an additional five top ratings.

That edges the region fits reigning champion Tokyo (11 three-star restaurants) and places it well above Western dining capitals Paris (10 top-rated restaurants), New York (five) and London (two).

When the French tire maker debuted its Tokyo guide in 2008, it stars on Tokyo bestowed more than any other city in the world, spurring controversy.

For all of Japan's economic woes and its diminished presence on the global stage, the country's food culture has never been more widespread. There is a sushi counter inside the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Plano, Texas. And from Manhattan to Moscow to Bangkok, the repertoire of Japanese cuisine has outgrown sushi: Yakitori (grilled chicken on a skewer), Windows (noodles in broth), and soba (buckwheat noodles) restaurants are legion.

Though more than a decade of deflation has certainly lowered the cost of eating out in Japan — a simple gyudon, or beef bowl, costs just 280 yen (about $ 3.50) today — it hasn't curbed the country's collective appetite.

The Japanese are among the world's most devoted foodies.

Television shows featuring food seem to loop endlessly on Japan's major networks, with telegenic young women holding up quivering sea urchin or a glistening red slab of fresh tuna between their chopsticks before devouring it.Then they open their eyes wide and utter the most overused adjective in the Japanese vocabulary: "Oishii!"("Delicious!")

"Gastronomy is vibrant here," said Jean-Luc Naret, director of the Michelin guides, in an interview.

"There are 160,000 restaurants in Tokyo and 15,000 in Paris," he added when asked if Michelin had been too generous with its ratings in Japan.

When the Japan guide debuted, critics accused Michelin's mostly Western inspectors or being too generous out of a lack of understanding of Japanese food. Mr. Naret said that now all seven inspectors in Japan are Japanese.

The government is busy figuring out ways to monetize the country's growing cultural clout. This summer, Japan's government established a Cool Japan office to promote fashion, food and tourism.

Newscom Michelin Guide director Jean-Luc Naret displays the new Kansai regional guide in Kobe, Japan, on Tuesday.

The number of Japanese restaurants around the world has exploded over the past decade.There were 24,000 Japanese restaurants globally in 2006, the last year figures were tallied, according to Japan's ministry of agriculture.In North America, the number of Japanese restaurants doubled to 10,000 in the decade from 1996 to 2006.In the same period, the number of Japanese restaurants in China also swelled.

"I think on the whole it's a good thing — Michelin is taking Japanese chefs seriously and giving them international recognition," said Mark Robinson, the author of "Izakaya: The Japanese Pub Cookbook."

"But a lot of people [in Japan] think that Michelin doesn't have any business judging them," he said.

Kyoto is renowned for its kaiseki cuisine — a multicourse tasting menu whose roots go back almost 500 years — and the proud purveyors of the tradition, passed down for generations within families.It is a closed, rarefied world and one where outsiders aren't always welcomed.A handful of the restaurants included in the guide come without pictures.

"In Tokyo we have to ask twice [to get pictures]," said Mr. Naret."In Kyoto we have to ask three times.On the fourth, they will give us pictures. "