The Daily Journal.- The Michelin Guide Florida 2026 has confirmed for the third consecutive year Ogawa, in Miami, as an undisputed reference of high-end Japanese cuisine in the United States, retaining its star, while Emelina, its new restaurant in Palm Beach, earns its first Michelin star.
With this official announcement, Álvaro Pérez Miranda became the only Venezuelan in the United States to simultaneously lead two Michelin-starred restaurants.
The renewal of Ogawa within the Michelin selection consolidates a model of sustained excellence based on technique, sensitivity, and operational consistency.
Since its conception, the restaurant, led by chef Masayuki Komatsu, has developed an intimate and multi-sensory experience centered on Japanese cuisine and hospitality, with a philosophy in which product quality, service rhythm, and the diner’s trust in the Omakase format are part of a single narrative of precision.
For Pérez Miranda, maintaining this distinction for three consecutive years is not a circumstantial achievement, but the result of a professional discipline refined over decades.
“The real challenge is not achieving recognition, but earning it every day. Maintaining a Michelin star for the third consecutive year means the team understands that excellence cannot depend on mood, season, or media attention; it is a behavior, a philosophy of life,” Pérez Miranda stated.
Emelina, located in the Flamingo Park district of Palm Beach, enters the Michelin Guide with its first star and a distinct identity from Ogawa. It offers a single tasting menu developed by chefs Osmel González and Camila Salazar, built around a provocative question: how Cuban culinary tradition might unfold if seen through freedom, dialogue with other cultures, and creative abundance.
Far from literal interpretation, Emelina reimagines Cuban cuisine through a contemporary, open, and global language, in which its foundational flavors are refined, connected with other influences, and presented within a fine-dining narrative without losing emotion or memory.
“Every restaurant must have its own soul. Emelina was not created to resemble anything that came before, but to express a different sensibility, with its own language, rhythm, and way of hosting. When you work with conceptual honesty and rigor, recognition comes as a result, not as an artifice,” Pérez Miranda said.
