2014 Michelin Star Winners Announced
Total Michelin stars of the top 6 autonomous communities of Spain
The Basque Country compared to the rest of Spain
Here at Eusko Guide, we thought it would be interesting to look a little deeper at where these Michelin stars are within Spain. Some of the results were quite interesting. In the graphic above, we see the 6 autonomous communities of Spain with the most Michelin stars. We know that in Catalonia, they eat very well and they come out as the winner for the total number of stars. However, Catalonia also has a population of approx. 7.5 million. So it doesn’t seem quite fair to only look at the total number of stars, especially when we consider a place like the Basque Country with a population of only 2.2 million. So we took each region and divided their total number of stars by their population to get the total number of stars per capita.
Per capita Michelin stars of Spain’s autonomous communities
Looking at the graph we can see that based on per capita, the Basque Country is clearly the winner with 12.7 stars per million inhabitants. That is roughly 1/3 more stars than even the second place Catalonia and nearly 4 times as many stars as Madrid.
Michelin Stars on the Basque coast
Let’s take a closer look at the Basque coast, specifically the Spanish Basque provinces of Biscay and Gipuzkoa and then over the Spanish border at the French Basque province of Labourd. In this small area, we find 4 three-star restaurants, 2 two-star and 26 one-star. That makes a total of 39 stars on the Basque coast!
Michelin Stars on the Basque coast
Just for fun, we wanted to compare the Basque coast with other places in Spain on a per capita basis.
Per capita Michelin stars – The Basque Country vs. the rest of Spain
The results are pretty staggering. With 18.9 stars per million inhabitants, the Basque coast has nearly 5 times the number of Michelin stars compared to that of the Spanish national average.
So while it is a pity that there weren’t any new stars announced this year for the Basque Country, we can still be proud to be one of the best culinary destinations of the world. The Basque Country itself may not be so densely populated with people, but it is densely populated with high class dining. Cheers to Euskadi.
We have updated our Michelin star restaurants page and it now features a map with all the Michelin starred restaurants in the Basque Country. Be sure to check it out.
