Florida’s Green
Revolution
Chef Osmel Gonzalez, right, at French Farms
Five Florida Restaurants Won a Michelin Green Star, Helping Prove That Sustainability Is Finally Sexy
By Eric Barton | April 21, 2025
A decade ago, if you asked a chef about sustainability, you’d get a head nod, a line about local carrots, and then the real business of slinging ingredients largely bought from Sysco would resume.
But something shifted—maybe it was COVID, maybe it was climate doom, or maybe it was just the creeping realization that fine dining can’t keep burning through resources like a Vegas casino buffet. Whatever it was, Florida restaurants are now making compost bins look cool.
The Michelin Guide just handed out its latest round of stars, and nestled among the glittery accolades were two green ones—Michelin’s nod to restaurants that not only cook well, but do it responsibly. Miami’s EntreNos and Stubborn Seed earned Green Stars this year, joining the short but slowly growing list of five Florida restaurants, and 35 across the United States, that Michelin considers climate-forward.
Treasure Coast oysters at EntreNos
Let’s be clear: the Green Star isn’t about swapping out plastic straws. It’s about building an entire restaurant around the idea that the planet matters. EntreNos is a 20-seat Miami Shores pop-up within Tinta y Café, run by chefs Evan Burgess and Osmel Gonzalez, is basically a dinner party with a conscience. They buy “primal cuts,” the large, initial sides of meat separated from an animal, leading to less waste. EntreNos also partners with South Florida farmers, helping serve what’s in season at the moment. “We have this zero waste mentality. Everything that we bring in, we try to use multiple ways,” Gonzalez explained to the Michelin Guide. “We bring fruit for desserts, we take the pulp to make ice cream, and then the skin, we turn that into vinegar.”
Chef Jeremy Ford at Ford’s Farm
Stubborn Seed, on the other hand, is what happens when a Top Chef winner turns restraint into high art. Chef Jeremy Ford could have gone full foie gras and wagyu with his star power. Instead, he’s running a restaurant where the tasting menu might start with pickled radishes and end with beet sorbet. Behind the scenes, Ford has taken sustainability a step further by establishing his own farm. “We have a three-bedroom house on the farm, so I have one of my kitchen crew living there and helping take care of the farm,” Ford told the Guide. “We made a cold plunge on the farm using—nothing fancy—we use trash cans from Home Depot.”
Ford creates a full-circle from farm-to-table and then back to the farm by saving the scraps from his restaurant. Thousands of pounds of what would be trash in most commercial kitchens are then recycled by Compost for Life, which then helps enrich the farm’s soil.
Chris French and Osmel Gonzalez
It would’ve been easy for Florida’s Michelin scene to mirror its more showy neighbors—Vegas, L.A., the glossy parts of New York—where truffles and tasting menus rule the roost. But these Green Stars suggest something more interesting is happening here. It’s Florida’s version of the revolution: less performative, more practical. These are places where the staff actually knows the farmer, where leftover citrus rinds become kitchen cleaner, and where the fish is local because the chef called the guy on the boat that morning.
Stubborn Seed’s Jackie Rey at Ford’s Farm
There’s a cynical way to read all this, of course. Green Stars are still new enough that they’re often treated like the participation trophy of the Michelin Guide. But the truth is, they’re harder to get. It’s not just about technique—it’s about overhauling your entire kitchen system, retraining your staff, and often turning down more profitable (and less responsible) choices. You can’t just slap “sustainable” on the menu and hope for the best. Someone actually checks.
Stubborn Seed features Ford’s Farm produce
That’s what makes EntreNos and Stubborn Seed worth paying attention to—not just because they’re cooking beautiful food, but because they’re redefining what ambition looks like in Florida’s culinary scene. Unlike plenty of Miami restaurants, this isn’t about the number of disco balls in the dining room, no thousand-dollar steak briefcases, no Daniel Craig statue in the bathroom. Just quietly radical restaurants doing the hard thing: making the future edible.
So yeah, Florida got more Michelin Stars this year. That’s truly great news. But these two little green ones? They’re ones that truly point the way to something special.
Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who splits his time between Asheville and Miami. He’s on a constant hunt for the best pizza, best places to bike, and for his next new favorite destination. Email him here.
