Park City is officially home to a Michelin-rated restaurant. The Michelin Guide on Wednesday evening released its first-ever Southwest Guide, which lists recommended restaurants across Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada, in a ceremony held at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.  Handle, The Ne lson Cottage by High West and Matilda are the three Park City establishments to make the pages of the region’s first little red book.  Handle gets a Michelin Recommended Handle, which opened in 2014 at the Gateway Center in Park City, is led by chef and co-owner Briar Handly. He also opened a Salt Lake City location in 2016 called HSL. As a Vermont native, Handly said he learned to cook with the seasons, which is how he designed the modern American restaurant. Menus are tweaked and printed daily, and no style of cuisine is off the table.  This Michelin recognition isn’t the first time Handly has caught the eye of prestigious reviewers. In 2020, 2022 and 2023, he was named a semifinalist for the James Beard Award in the Best Chef: Mountain category. Following the initial announcement of the Michelin Southwest guide, Handly said he expects the decision to include Utah will lead to improved dining quality statewide. “Stars from them do not come easy, so we will see what shakes out in their 2026 guide,” Handly said in December. “If nothing else, I believe it will make chefs of the Wasatch step up their game a bit, including us, so that’s exciting, and we are looking forward to it.” The Nelson Cottage gets a Michelin Recommended The Nelson Cottage by High West Distillery, located on Park Avenue, a few doors up from High West Saloon, is a tasting-menu concept led by Chef de Cuisine Julia Sorroche. It’s known for whiskey pairings and “whiskey ambassadors” who guide diners through the tasting and sipping of a multi-course dinner. The menu changes every two to three weeks, sometimes more frequently, and each iteration is built entirely around what is available and at its peak in Utah. The Nelson Cottage by High West team celebrates their Michelin Recommended accolade Wednesday evening at the inaugural Southwest guide ceremony. Credit: Katie Hatzfeld/Park Record Sorroche has been with the restaurant for four years, and she incorporates both her training under Michelin-rated chefs and her Brazilian heritage in each menu. Either in flavor or in presentation, Sorroche said, she adds touches of Brazil, even in the use of green and yellow to represent the country’s flag. When the Southwest Michelin guide was first announced, Sorroche admitted that she’s always wanted to win a Michelin star and believed The Nelson Cottage was already operating at that level.  “I’ve always tried to push myself,” she said in January. “I think that would be awesome, not just from a personal standpoint as a professional accolade, but also as something that I think my team and everyone at the cottage would love to get is that recognition.” Matilda gets a Michelin Recommended Matilda, a pizza and small plates restaurant located at the Snow Park shopping center, is owned by Ian Pope. Setting out to create the right pizza, Pope knew he wanted a sourdough crust because of its flavor and the better digestibility, so he brought on Sam Pew, a sourdough baker down in Salt Lake City, as a consultant. “He is obsessed about the flavor of sourdough, and not just the act of sourdough, but he’s obsessed about what flour you put in there, the percentages of flours, the flavor of the different flours, and that really aligned with what we wanted,” Pope said. The result is a 100% sourdough, fully naturally leavened, with a touch of rye for the added nutty aroma and taste, cooked at a low temperature to keep its form. And of course, fresh, produce-driven toppings. The Michelin Guide evaluates restaurants using its long-standing global methodology built on five criteria: quality of ingredients, harmony of flavors, mastery of technique, the chef’s personal expression and consistency across multiple anonymous visits. Three Park City restaurants earn Michelin Recommended accolades in the inaugural Southwest guide: Matilda, The Nelson Cottage by High West and Handle. Credit: Katie Hatzfeld/Park Record Three primary recognitions are included in each guide: Michelin stars, from one to three, are the most prestigious; a Bib Gourmand is given to “friendly establishments that serve good food at moderate prices;” and Michelin Recommended, which honors establishments serving “good food.” Founded in France in the early 1900s to support motorists — and tire sales — the guide has maintained the same inspection approach ever since, expanding its reach worldwide. Michelin introduced its first North American guide in 2005 for New York and has steadily grown its coverage to include major U.S. and Canadian destinations. Recent additions include Colorado, Atlanta, Mexico, Texas, Quebec, the American South, Philadelphia and Boston. When the guide first expanded to the United States 20 years ago, Michelin Guide’s International Director Gwendal Poullennec said his inspectors witnessed a surge in both quality and quantity of restaurants. So a few years ago, the guide started to plan a gradual expansion throughout the rest of the country. The Southwest guide is the latest in that growth, he said. The Park City Chamber/Bureau was influential in bringing the guide to the state through the Wasatch Culinary Collective, which includes Visit Salt Lake, Visit Park City and Sundance Resort. Together, the collective, as paid sponsors, helped turn Michelin’s eyes toward Utah restaurants for the first time. Ultimately it was marketing, they said, a way to put the Park City name in front of a wider food-loving audience.  That’s an “ingredient” that Michelin looks for when determining a new location, Poullennec said. Michelin Guide’s International Director Gwendal Poullennec, left, speaks at the inaugural Southwest guide ceremony hosted in Las Vegas. Credit: Katie Hatzfeld/Park Record “When we make the decision to move forward with the full-scale Michelin guide selection project, we have to ensure that not only are there existing good restaurants,” he said, “but also because we feel there is a real dynamic, and that the arrival of the Michelin guide could play its role as a catalyst to push the destinations to the next level in the coming years.” This is just the start, Poullennec said, and the guide is designed to be updated and evolve as the industry rises to the challenge. It’s not just Michelin’s presence that helps “raise the bar,” he said. It’s ultimately the consumer. “To build a sustainable gastronomic ecosystem, first and foremost you need discerning clients. I mean, foodies,” Poullennec said. “The quality of the restaurants is driven by the local foodies. The more discerning they are, the more willing they are to be exposed to new trends, new concepts … it makes a whole difference.” On Wednesday the Michelin Guide celebrates the inaugural Southwest listing with a ceremony in Las Vegas. Credit: Katie Hatzfeld/Park Record The post Park City restaurants make the cut in first-ever Michelin Southwest Guide appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less