In addition to the 116 star-restaurants, a further 119 received Bib Gourmand awards. A Bib Gourmand restaurant should serve a well prepared but reasonably priced menu – in expensive Switzerland, reasonably priced is CHF65 (around $67 / €60).
The new Michelin three-star restaurant in Switzerland is Cheval Blanc with head chef Peter Knogl in the Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois in Basel. Cheval Blanc was awarded its first star in 2008 and has been a Michelin two-star restaurant since 2009.
Peter Knogl is only the second German chef heading a three-star restaurant outside Germany. Hans Beck in La Pergola in the Rome Cavalieri Hilton was the first German to achieve three-stars in a foreign restaurant.
The other two three-star restaurants in Switzerland remained as previously Schauenstein in Fürstenau (Graubünden) and Restaurant de l’Hôtel de Ville in Crissier (Vaud).
The Michelin Switzerland Hotel and Restaurant 2016 guide described a record 841 hotels and 944 restaurants. As before, the guide aims to identify the best establishments in various classes ranging from standard comfort to luxurious, traditional grand hotels.
Just over a quarter of the described restaurants in Switzerland was praised for having notable wine collections while 123 are considered to be particularly pleasant establishments.
As usual for the Michelin Switzerland red guide, the write up of the various hotels and restaurants are not in English but in the predominant national language of the region the establishment is located in. This explains the Suisse (French), Schweiz (German) and Svizzera (Italian) in the official name of the guide. The extensive introduction and explanation of symbols are also included in English making the guide still useful and fairly easy to use for diners not familiar with the three largest Swiss official languages.
The Michelin 2016 Switzerland Hotels and Restaurants Red Guide (ISBN-10: 2067206184, ISBN-13: 978-2067206182) is on sale from October 8, 2016 in Switzerland for CHF33 and in Germany, Austria and France for around €30 (Amazon Deutschland)