Which Chef Has The Most Michelin Stars Of All Time?

Each year, the Michelin Guide awards star ratings to a number of restaurants around the world for excellence in dining. Michelin inspectors assess the eligibility of both new restaurants and those establishments that have already earned stars to see if they should remain intact. A Michelin star is the highest honor a restaurant can receive, with one, two, or three stars possible; a three-star rating signals "superlative cooking of chefs at the peak of their profession," per the Michelin Guide. 

Michelin stars are awarded to restaurants and not chefs. But, which professional cook has had his restaurants presented with this honor more than anyone? The answer is Joël Robuchon, a French chef who earned 31 stars over the course of his career, which spanned from 1960 until his death in 2018.

With 31 stars total, Robuchon well outranks all other Michelin-starred chefs. In second and third place are, respectively, Alain Ducasse, another renowned French chef with 21 stars, and Gordon Ramsay who has 17 stars. In fact, Ramsay trained under Robuchon in the 1980s in the latter's Parisian restaurant Jamin.

Over the course of his career, Robuchon opened more than 20 restaurants around the world, including in Paris, Las Vegas, and Tokyo — the city with the most Michelin stars. He was named "Chef of the Century" in 1989 by the prestigious Gault & Millau culinary guide. Robuchon was best known for his signature pommes purée, which Food Republic rated as the best mashed potatoes in the U.S. (the silky buttery potatoes are still on the menu at L'atelier de Joël Robuchon in Las Vegas).

In 1960, Joël Robuchon began his career at the age of 15 as a pastry chef apprentice. When he was 36, he opened his own restaurant Jamin in Paris. Jamin earned one Michelin star in its first year, a feat for a new restaurant. It then went on to earn two stars in its second year and become the first restaurant to earn three stars in three years.

In 1984, Jamin was named Best Restaurant in the World by the International Herald Tribune. The revered dining establishmen was known for its upscale dining — Robuchon took classical French dishes and reinvented them, while still respecting the traditions of the cuisine.

After retiring in 1995, Robuchon returned to the kitchen in 2003 to open the more casual L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Tokyo as well as in Paris, his first expansion of many around the world. He brought the restaurant to Las Vegas in 2005 and to London, New York, and Hong Kong in 2006. In 2008, he opened a Japanese restaurant in Monaco called Yoshi, and he brought his restaurants to Singapore in 2011.

Robuchon died in 2018 at 73-years-old, but his impact lasted on the world of food and cooking. In 2016, Andalusian chef Dani Garcia organized a dinner recreating interpretations of Robuchon's classic dishes at Marbella Resort. As a quintessential chef of the '80s, Robuchon inspired many contemporary chefs today, including Eric Ripert, Andrew Zimmern, and Anne Sophie-Pic.