ANDERMATT. The Japanese Restaurant at The Chedi in Andermatt has been awarded a third Michelin star, the guide announced on Monday night. The kitchen moves from two stars to three. Switzerland now has five restaurants at that level. The chefs are the twin brothers Fabio Toffolon and Dominik Sato, who cook Japanese dishes with classical technique inside the Uri resort hotel.
The ceremony was held in Andermatt. A third star is the guide’s mark for exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey. For a village that rebuilt itself around a luxury hotel and a ski area, the star is also a tourism fact. Andermatt now has a starred restaurant in each of the three categories, four starred tables in all. Guests who never book the tasting menu will still see the star in the way the resort is sold this winter.
Switzerland’s five three-star restaurants
The other four were already there. Memories, at Bad Ragaz in St Gallen. Hôtel de Ville, in Crissier in Vaud. Cheval Blanc, in Basel. Schloss Schauenstein, in Fürstenau in Graubünden. The new name is the first three-star table in Uri, and the first Japanese room in that Swiss group. The guide’s Swiss selection for 2026 runs to 133 starred restaurants in total: the five with three stars, 22 with two, and 106 with one. Seven of the one-star restaurants are new this year.
A promotion from two stars to three is rarer than a first star. The kitchen has to be judged exceptional against its own previous standard, not merely very good. Toffolon and Sato have been the public face of The Japanese since the room made its name. Monday’s note from the guide credits them with the cooking. It does not, on the night, publish a new menu or a new price. The star is the news. The bill at The Chedi was already a resort bill.
What the star changes, and what it does not
For Andermatt, a third star is a marketing asset with a long memory. Resorts collect them because guests planning an expensive weekend use the guide as a map. Uri is not Vaud or Basel, where fine dining already had an international address. A three-star Japanese restaurant in a high Alpine village is a reason to stop, in a canton better known for the Gotthard than for a tasting menu. The hotel around the restaurant is part of that bet. The star does not belong to the hotel in the guide’s logic. In the booking engine, it will be sold as if it does.
The rest of the 2026 list is a reminder of scale. One hundred and six one-star restaurants, seven of them new, is the part of the guide most diners can actually use. A first star changes a neighbourhood bistro’s week. A third star changes a resort’s winter. Both numbers came out of the same announcement. The one that will be repeated on Tuesday morning is the fifth name on the shortest list: The Japanese, Andermatt, three stars, with Toffolon and Sato in the kitchen.