The Michelin Green Star is one of the most misunderstood accolades in fine dining, partly because Michelin just overhauled the entire program in 2026. If you have seen a restaurant advertise a Green Star and wondered what it actually means, or whether it still exists, here is the full picture, including what changed this year.
The Michelin Green Star is a distinction Michelin created to recognize restaurants that pair excellent food with genuine leadership in sustainable gastronomy. It was introduced in 2020 and first appeared in the 2021 editions of the Michelin Guide, starting in Great Britain and Ireland before rolling out to other countries, including the United States. A restaurant marked with a Green Star, shown as a small green clover icon next to its listing, has impressed Michelin inspectors not just with its cooking but with how it sources ingredients, manages waste, treats its staff, and reduces its environmental footprint.
Unlike a Michelin Star, which is awarded purely on the quality of the food, service, and consistency of the dining experience, the Green Star sits on top of an existing distinction. A restaurant cannot receive a Green Star on its own. It first has to already hold a Michelin Star, a Bib Gourmand, or a spot on the Michelin Selected list before it becomes eligible for the sustainability recognition.
Michelin actually hands out several distinct honors, and it is easy to mix them up. Here is how they compare.
| Award | What It Recognizes | Icon | Status in 2026 |
|---|
| Michelin Star, one to three | Exceptional cooking, judged on quality, technique, and consistency | One, two, or three stars | Active, unchanged |
| Bib Gourmand | Great food at a good value | A caricature of the Michelin Man, called Bibendum, licking his lips | Active, unchanged |
| Green Star | Leadership in sustainable and ethical practices | Green clover | Being phased out, replaced by Mindful Voices |
You can learn more about the core rating system in our guide to what a Michelin Star actually means and our breakdown of what a Bib Gourmand is.
Michelin never published a rigid checklist for the Green Star, and that was intentional. A vegetable focused restaurant outside Santa Barbara and a seafood driven dining room on the coast of Maine are not going to practice sustainability the same way, so inspectors evaluated each restaurant within the context of its own region and cuisine. That said, a handful of themes came up again and again in Michelin's public commentary on Green Star winners.
- Sourcing directly from local farms, fishermen, and foragers instead of large distributors
- Building menus around what is actually in season, rather than importing ingredients out of season
- Reducing food waste through practices like nose to tail cooking and root to stem vegetable use
- Running on site gardens, composting programs, or renewable energy such as solar panels
- Treating staff fairly and investing in the surrounding community
Inspectors gathered this information the same way they evaluate everything else on a visit, through anonymous meals, conversations with the kitchen and front of house team, and repeat visits over time, not through a third party sustainability audit. To understand how that process works in general, see our explainer on how Michelin inspectors work.
By the end of 2025, more than 640 restaurants worldwide held a Green Star, including about three dozen in the United States. California has consistently held more than any other state, a reflection of how many of its acclaimed restaurants already lean on small, local growers, with San Francisco, New York, and Miami acting as the other major U.S. hubs for the distinction.
Even with a phase out already announced, Green Stars were still being awarded in U.S. guides through the middle of 2026. The June 2026 Michelin Guide California selection added new Green Stars to Monte's in Santa Barbara, Sierra Mar in Big Sur, and Six Test Kitchen in Paso Robles, a twelve seat restaurant that runs on solar power and sources most of its produce from a single nearby farm. Restaurants that hold both a Michelin Star and a Green Star, such as Providence in Los Angeles, are often cited as proof that fine dining and sustainability are not competing goals. They can be the same meal.
In May 2026, Michelin confirmed it is retiring the Green Star program, with existing Green Stars set to be phased out by the end of the year. The company's public explanation is that sustainability at Michelin has outgrown a single, restaurant focused award, especially as the Guide has expanded into related categories like Michelin Keys for hotels and Michelin Grapes for wine. Michelin says it wants a sustainability story that follows people, not just dining rooms.
There is also a less official explanation that has circulated widely in food media. Chefs and industry observers had criticized the Green Star for years over its lack of standardized criteria, with some calling it closer to a marketing tool than a rigorous certification, since Michelin never disclosed a fixed scorecard the way an organic certification body would. Whatever the exact mix of reasons, the retirement marks the end of a six year run for the accolade.
In place of the Green Star, Michelin launched an editorial initiative called Mindful Voices, which debuted in Copenhagen in June 2026. Mindful Voices is explicitly not an award. It has no icon, no logo, and no formal criteria a restaurant can meet or fail to meet. Instead, it is a running series of profiles and interviews, published across the Guide's website, app, and social channels, that spotlights chefs, hoteliers, and wine producers Michelin considers to be pushing the industry forward on sustainability and ethics. The subject is the person, not the restaurant, and a restaurant cannot apply to be featured.
For diners, that is the biggest practical change. Once existing Green Stars are fully retired, there will be no simple icon on a Michelin Guide listing that tells you a restaurant is sustainability focused. You will need to read Michelin's Mindful Voices coverage directly, or rely on a restaurant's own transparency about where it sources its food.
If sustainability matters to you when picking a restaurant, a Green Star listing is still a reliable signal for as long as it remains on a restaurant's profile in the 2026 guides. Once the phase out completes, look instead for restaurants that talk openly about where their ingredients come from, run their own gardens, or partner publicly with regional farms, since those are the same practices Michelin inspectors were rewarding in the first place. For a broader look at how awards fit together across the industry, browse our full guide to award winning restaurants, including our roundups of the Michelin Star and the Restaurant Listings Award, or see how other major honors like the James Beard Awards and the five star rating system evaluate restaurants differently.
Diners sometimes assume a Green Star works like a certification such as USDA Organic or a Certified B Corporation, with a fixed set of standards a restaurant either meets or does not. It never worked that way. Formal certifications rely on documented audits, paperwork trails, and repeatable scoring criteria that any inspector can apply the same way twice. The Green Star relied instead on the same anonymous, subjective visit model Michelin uses for its cuisine ratings, filtered through the judgment of individual inspectors rather than a standardized form. That approach gave Michelin flexibility to reward genuinely different kinds of sustainability work, from a rooftop garden in a dense city to a rural restaurant built around a single family farm, but it is also exactly what drew criticism from chefs who felt the bar moved depending on who was reviewing them and where.
Reaction from Green Star restaurants has been mixed. Some operators have told trade press that the accolade genuinely helped, pointing to a measurable bump in bookings from environmentally conscious diners and an easier time recruiting kitchen staff who wanted to work somewhere with a clear sustainability mission. Others have been more neutral about losing it, noting that their sourcing and waste practices were built into how they already ran the business long before Michelin took notice, and will not change now that the icon is going away. That distinction matters for diners trying to figure out which restaurants are sustainability focused for marketing purposes and which have simply built it into daily operations regardless of outside recognition.
Once the Green Star icon disappears from Michelin listings entirely, you can still look for the same signals inspectors were checking for. A restaurant that lists specific farms, ranches, or fishing boats by name on its menu is usually sourcing seriously rather than using the word sustainable as decoration. Seasonal menus that actually change several times a year, rather than staying identical year round, are another strong indicator. So is a restaurant that is transparent about where less glamorous ingredients, like proteins and dairy, come from, not just its produce. These are the same categories Michelin inspectors weighed for years, and they remain useful even without a formal award attached to them.
Frequently asked questions
It is being phased out during 2026. Some U.S. guides, including California, still awarded new Green Stars as late as June 2026, but Michelin has confirmed the program will be fully retired by the end of the year and replaced with an editorial initiative called Mindful Voices.
A Michelin Star is awarded purely on the quality, technique, and consistency of the cooking. A Green Star recognizes leadership in sustainable and ethical practices, such as local sourcing and waste reduction, and can only be given to a restaurant that already holds a Michelin Star, a Bib Gourmand, or a spot on the Michelin Selected list.
Yes. Green Stars were reviewed each year alongside a restaurant's other Michelin distinctions, so a restaurant could lose one if its practices changed. With the 2026 phase out, every restaurant currently holding a Green Star will lose it once the program is fully retired.
Mindful Voices is the editorial series Michelin launched in June 2026 to replace the Green Star. It is not an award. It has no icon or fixed criteria, and instead profiles individual chefs, hoteliers, and wine producers that Michelin considers to be leading on sustainability.
As of the 2026 guides, roughly three dozen U.S. restaurants hold a Green Star, with California home to more than any other state. Recent additions include Monte's in Santa Barbara, Sierra Mar in Big Sur, and Six Test Kitchen in Paso Robles.
No. A Green Star has nothing to do with whether a menu is plant based. It recognizes practices like local sourcing, seasonal menus, waste reduction, and community investment, and plenty of Green Star restaurants serve meat and seafood alongside vegetables.
Reviewed and verified by the Restaurant Listings Editorial Team for accuracy and relevance. Our content is researched using official restaurant sources, public records, government agencies, and recognized food safety and hospitality industry resources.
Last reviewed: September 2026
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