Category: Michelin: Bib Gourmand

A Michelin Bib Gourmand signifies that a restaurant offers high-quality, delicious food at a great value. Named after the Michelin Man, this award highlights “inspector favorites” that serve good, often simpler cooking, usually providing a three-course meal at a reasonable price point.

ArizonaMexicanMichelin Recognized RestaurantsMichelin: Bib GourmandRating: N/R (Not Rated)SteakTacosUnited States

Huarachis Taqueria – Phoenix, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

There are a number of restaurants across the globe for which reservations are notoriously difficult to get. Securing a table at The Lost Kitchen in Freedom, Maine, for example, is widely considered the hardest reservation in the world. Instead of going online or calling, hopefuls must mail a physical postcard to the restaurant just to enter a lottery. From a mountain of mail, only a lucky few are drawn for a chance to dine at the 40-seat restaurant.  Then there’s Rao’s in New York City, an old-school Italian spot where tables are privately “owned” by regulars and newcomers can only…

2022 James Beard Foundation Award for "Emerging Chef"MexicanMichelin Recognized RestaurantsMichelin: Bib GourmandRating: N/R (Not Rated)TacosTexasUnited States

Nixta Taqueria – Austin, Texas

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Man cannot live on barbecue alone–not even in Austin, Texas where the world’s very best barbecue is to be found.  To limit one’s self to barbecue–as transformative as it may be–is to deprive yourself of some of the best Mexican food and best fried chicken in the known world.  Though the primary purpose of my week-long visit to the City of the Violet Crown was to visit Michelin starred barbecue restaurants, to have done so have been “going deep,”  exploring just one segment of the Central Texas culinary Utopia.  “Going wide” meant exploring options beyond barbecue–options such as some of…

2023 James Beard Foundation - "Best Chef - Texas" Semifinalist2024 James Beard Foundation "Best Chef - Texas" Semifinalist2024 James Beard Foundation "Best Chef-Texas" Finalist2026James Beard Foundation - "Outstanding Chef" SemifinalistBarbecueJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersMichelin Recognized RestaurantsMichelin: Bib GourmandRating: N/R (Not Rated)TexasUnited States

Burnt Bean – Seguin, Texas

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Legend has it that shortly after the horrendous mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas,  Burnt Bean pitmaster and co-owner Ernest Servantes was asked to serve barbecue to law enforcement officials in Uvalde.  According to sources, Servantes, himself an Uvalde native, refused to serve anything to the milksops whose cowardly inaction resulted in the fatal shooting of 19 students and 2 teachers, and the injuring of 17 others.  Servantes wasn’t around when my new friend and dining companion Melinda Martinez and I finally completed our time in the purgatory of a queue that snaked to the end of the block.  We asked…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBreakfastMichelin Recognized RestaurantsMichelin: Bib GourmandRating: Very GoodTravel Channel Eats New Mexico

The Frontier Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno4:58 AM

Most college and university areas have at least one restaurant that transcends the “student hang-out” label to become a popular dining destination among all demographics, whether or not the diners matriculated at the nearby institution of higher learning. In Albuquerque that dining destination is the Frontier Restaurant. In its fifty plus years of serving the Duke City, the Frontier has gone beyond providing the quintessential college eatery experience. Some contend it may well be THE quintessential New Mexican restaurant. Serving Albuquerque since February, 1971, the commodious, barn-like Frontier Restaurant occupies half a city block (quite remarkable considering it started out…

2022 James Beard Foundation - "Best Chef - Southwest" SemifinalistAfricanDiners Drive-Ins and DivesFood Network Eats New MexicoJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersMichelin Recognized RestaurantsMichelin: Bib GourmandRating: OutstandingSanta Fe

JAMBO CAFE – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Growing up in the 60s–the dark ages before the Internet was even a glimmer in Al Gore’s eyes and google–then spelled “googol”– represented an very large number (currently being approached by build back better spending)–even precocious children like me derived most of our knowledge of Africa from National Geographic magazines and Tarzan movies. We thought Africa was one large monolithic country comprised solely of stark, expansive deserts or lush, mysterious jungles. Africa’s indigenous people, we believed, had to compete for food with lions, tigers and hyenas, oh my. Though Africa was called “the Dark Continent,” it was truly our knowledge…

2026 James beard Foundation: "Best Chef - Southwest" SemifinalistArizonaBarbecueDog FriendlyJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersMichelin: Bib GourmandRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Little Miss BBQ – Phoenix, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

If you grew up in New Mexico, you’ve likely heard some variation of that tired old epigram “The reason New Mexico is so windy is because it’s bordered by Arizona which sucks and Texas which blows.”   If any truth whatsoever can be ascribed to that witticism, New Mexico should have fabulous barbecue because it’s bordered by Arizona which has great barbecue and Texas which has the best barbecue in the universe.  Alas, virtually every barbecue aficionado I know agrees that the Land of Enchantment’s barbecue has a lot to be desired.  It’s “good” most will agree, “better than it…

Dog FriendlyMichelin Recognized RestaurantsMichelin: Bib GourmandNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: OutstandingSanta Fe

La Choza Restaurant – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:02 PM

“I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh Using bold and furious brushstrokes and striking colors (mostly red and green), Van Gogh once created a painting intended to depict humanity at its lowest point. Calling it “Night Cafe” he described it as “…one of the ugliest I have ever done, a collection of clashing colors in the dreariest atmosphere.” To New Mexicans, the notion of red and green being ugly, dreary and clashing in any way is a heretical concept. For denizens of the Land of Enchantment, red…

CaliforniaMichelin Recognized RestaurantsMichelin: Bib GourmandPizzaRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Pizzeria Mozza – Newport Beach, California

Gil Garduno11:25 AM

“Breadmaking is one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world’s sweetest smells –there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music throbbing chapel that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.” ~M.F.K. Fisher, The Art of Eating For those of us geriatrically advanced enough to have had moms who actually baked bread in their ovens, the singular joy of those incredible yeasty bouquets wafting toward us is a treasured memory, one we relive when…

Fine DiningIllinoisMichelin Recognized RestaurantsMichelin: Bib GourmandRating: ExceptionalUnited States

The Purple Pig – Chicago, Illinois

Gil Garduno4:52 PM

Poet Carl Sandburg bestowed the nickname “hog butcher for the world” upon the great city of Chicago at a time when the city was the epicenter for meatpacking in the United States. Companies such as Oscar Mayer, Swift and Armour operated large plants in the city, employing hundreds of residents. Unfortunately, Chicago’s streets became frequently overcrowded with pigs and cattle being herded through the streets to the plants. Ultimately the largest companies banded together in 1865 to build the Union Stock Yards next to the railroad tracks. Henceforth animals were ferried to the plants by train instead of through city…