The Michelin Stars of England Trivia Quiz

Answer: Alain Roux

With its acclaimed French cuisine, the Waterside Inn was awarded three Michelin stars in 1985. In 2010, it became the first restaurant outside of France to have retained three-star status for 25 years.

Situated alongside the River Thames in Bray in Berkshire, it was founded by brothers Michel and Albert Roux in 1972. Michel became its head chef in 1977 after the original chef, Pierre Koffmann left to start his own endeavour. In 2002, Michel retired from what he described as his "life's work" and his son, Alain took over as chef patron.

Answer: Marco Pierre White

The Restaurant Marco Pierre White, to give it its full name, was awarded its third Michelin star in 1995 when White was just 33, making him both the first British person and the youngest worldwide to achieve the accolade. Two years later, White moved the establishment from the Hyde Park Hotel to Le Méridien Piccadilly Hotel, where it occupied and took the name of The Oak Room dining room in the hotel.

Prior to The Restaurant, White had been chef proprietor at Harveys, where he claimed his first two stars. He had learned his trade at a couple of the restaurants featured in this quiz, Le Gavroche and La Tante Claire, as well as working under Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir and Nico Ladenis at Chez Nico.

Answer: Albert Roux

Le Gavroche in Mayfair in the heart of London's West End, was the starting point for many of the chefs featured in this quiz and is arguably the most influential restaurant in the UK's history. Established by the Roux brothers, Albert and Michel in 1967, it was a breeding ground for a host of future Michelin stars, including Marcus Wareing, Jun Tanaka and Stephen Terry.

Serving classic French haute cuisine, in 1972 it became the first UK-based restaurant to be awarded a Michelin star and then followed that with the first two-star rating in 1977 and the first three-star in 1982. It lost its third star when Albert retired as head chef and handed over the reigns to his son, Michel Jr, but retained two stars and remained as one of London's great destination restaurants until it closed its doors for the final time in 2024.

Answer: Gordon Ramsay

Probably the most famous chef ever to come from the UK's shores, Gordon Ramsay's fame as a TV personality stems from his impressive career in the restaurant business. Ramsay worked under Marco Pierre White at Harveys and Albert Roux at Le Gavroche before taking on his first head chef position at Pierre Koffmann's La Tante Claire.

In 1998, he opened Restaurant Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road. Just three years later it was awarded three Michelin stars. Around the same this time Ramsay started on his television career with an appearance on the documentary "Faking It". Soon he would be given his own shows "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" and "Hell's Kitchen" which rocketed him to greater fame and an international profile.

Answer: Pierre Koffmann

It took just six years for La Tante Claire to gain three Michelin stars from its opening in 1977. It was originally situated in the same Royal Hospital Road premises that would later become Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, but moved to the Berkeley Hotel in 1998. Unfortunately for Koffmann it did not retain its stars when it moved but was still rated as two-star.

Koffmann started in the culinary world in his native France before moving to the UK in 1970. Prior to opening his own restaurant he worked at Le Gavroche and then as the first head chef at the Roux brothers' Waterside Inn. His restaurant served classic French cuisine with the speciality dish being pig's trotter with chicken mousseline, sweetbreads and morels.

Answer: Heston Blumenthal

Blumenthal opened The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire, just down the road from the Roux brothers' Waterside Inn, in 1995. By 2003 it had been awarded three Michelin stars, going from its first star to its third faster that any restaurant in the UK had achieved that feat previously.

Blumenthal employed scientific methods to come up with new dishes, an approach known as molecular gastronomy. The dishes were dreamed up in a laboratory run by Blumenthal a few doors down from the restaurant. This saw some unusual additions to the menu such as snail porridge and bacon and egg ice cream. The restaurant was voted the best restaurant in the world by "The World's 50 Best Restaurants" publication in 2005.

Answer: Pierre Gagnaire

London's Sketch Lecture Room and Library, to give the restaurant its full name, was awarded its third Michelin star in 2019. For Pierre Gagnaire it was his third restaurant to achieve this accolade, the first two being named Pierre Gagnaire, first in his hometown of St Etienne and secondly in Paris.

Gagnaire's London restaurant is noted for its nouvelle cuisine style, pairing unexpected combinations of taste and texture with each dish consisting of multiple small plates of different elements. One such is the grand dessert that includes frozen lemon, pineapple marinated in peppercorns, jellies, pomegranate and tapioca pearls, ice cream, a black truffle souffle tart, mushroom crisps and more.

Answer: Clare Smyth

Clare Smyth became the first female chef to run a three-starred restaurant in the UK when she was appointed head chef by Gordon Ramsay at his Royal Hospital Road restaurant. After four years at the helm she left to begin her own restaurant, Core in Notting Hill, London. In 2021, that restaurant too gained three Michelin star status.

Core concentrates on British-sourced ingredients with one of its signature dishes being Potato and Roe; herring and trout roe served on a baked potato with dulse beurre blanc.

Answer: Simon Rogan

The one restaurant on this list that is not based in the south of England, Simon Rogan's L'Enclume in the Lake District is named for the previous occupation that occupied the building in which it is housed. A former blacksmith's forge, enclume is the French word for anvil.

Opened in 2002, it received its third Michelin star in 2022 having already been named the best restaurant in the UK by "Good Food Guide" on four occasions. Most of the produce used to create the menu is grown or reared on Rogan's own farm located just a short distance from the restaurant, with other ingredients foraged from the surrounding area.

Answer: Brett Graham

The Ledbury first opened in 2005 under Australian chef patron Brett Graham. Situated in Notting Hill in West London its modern European cuisine was immediately popular with critics and gained a Michelin star as soon as the first guide was published after its opening.

As its reputation grew with the public it gained a second star in 2010. It retained these stars for ten years before the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to close in 2020. In 2022, it re-opened with Graham back at the helm and with the publication of the 2024 Michelin guide, it finally gained its third star.