Find the platform and exact drop time for the room you want, set up your account and payment method in advance, and be logged in and ready the second tables release. For the three-star rooms that sell out instantly, set a cancellation alert so you are notified when a returned seat reopens rather than refreshing by hand.
Benu, the three-star in San Francisco, releases on Tock at 10 AM as a prepaid ticket. Create a Tock account, save a card, and have your date and party size selected before 10 AM so you can confirm the instant the calendar opens. If the night you want is gone, watch for cancellations, since prepaid tickets are returned to the pool when plans change.
Le Bernardin, the three-star in New York, books on Resy and releases at 7 AM. Be logged into Resy with your party size ready at 7 AM, because the prime Friday and Saturday tables go within seconds. The early release hour means fewer people are watching, so waking up for it genuinely improves your odds.
The three-star tasting-menu rooms are the hardest, including Benu, Saison, and Quince in San Francisco and Le Bernardin and Per Se in New York. They seat few parties per night, most release as prepaid tickets at a fixed time, and prime weekend seats are claimed in seconds, so cancellations are often the only realistic way in.
Release times vary by room. Le Bernardin opens at 7 AM, Quince at 9 AM, and Benu, Per Se, Lazy Bear, and Cote all at 10 AM. Jungsik opens at 11 AM and State Bird Provisions at noon. Knowing the exact minute a specific restaurant drops is the most important part of booking one.
There is no single platform. The Michelin rooms we track are spread across Tock, Resy, OpenTable, and SevenRooms. Le Bernardin, Cote, and Gary Danko book on Resy, Saison on OpenTable, Quince on SevenRooms, and Per Se, Jungsik, Benu, Lazy Bear, State Bird Provisions, Angler, and Ju-ni on Tock.
Michelin-star restaurants do not release tables the way an ordinary popular restaurant does. The most sought-after tasting-menu rooms, including Benu, Saison, Quince, Lazy Bear, Per Se, and Jungsik, mostly release on Tock or a booking widget as prepaid tickets or deposits at one fixed time each day, rather than as free reservations you can grab and cancel casually. That changes the whole strategy, because you are buying a seat rather than holding one, and the inventory is gone the moment the drop clears.
Each room opens its calendar at a specific hour. Per Se releases at 10 AM, Jungsik at 11 AM, Benu and Lazy Bear at 10 AM, and Quince at 9 AM. State Bird Provisions releases at noon. Le Bernardin, which books on Resy, opens at 7 AM, and Cote, also on Resy, releases at 10 AM. If you show up an hour late, the prime nights are already claimed, so the release time is the single most important thing to know before you try.
The Michelin restaurants we track are spread across all four major booking platforms, not concentrated on one, which is exactly why they are hard to keep up with. A single app will only ever show you a slice of them. Here is where each room lives and, where we have confirmed it, the time it drops.
Le Bernardin (New York, three stars): books on Resy and releases at 7 AM.
Per Se (New York, three stars): books on Tock and releases at 10 AM.
Jungsik (New York, two stars): books on Tock and releases at 11 AM.
Cote (New York, one star, Korean steakhouse): books on Resy and releases at 10 AM.
Benu (San Francisco, three stars): books on Tock and releases at 10 AM.
Saison (San Francisco, three stars): books on OpenTable.
Quince (San Francisco, three stars): books on SevenRooms and releases at 9 AM.
Lazy Bear (San Francisco, two stars): books on Tock and releases at 10 AM.
State Bird Provisions (San Francisco, one star): books on Tock and releases at noon.
Gary Danko (San Francisco, one star): books on Resy.
Angler (San Francisco, one star): books on Tock.
Ju-ni (San Francisco, one star): books on Tock.
For the three-star rooms, preparation beats luck. Pick your target date before the drop, create your account on the right platform in advance, save a payment method, and be logged in and ready at the exact release minute. Benu opens on Tock at 10 AM as a prepaid ticket, so the moment the calendar turns over you should already have your party size and date selected and your card ready to confirm. Le Bernardin opens on Resy at 7 AM, an early hour that thins out the competition, but only if you are actually awake for it.
Two-tops on a Friday or Saturday are the first to vanish, so flexibility is your strongest lever. A weeknight, an early or late seating, or a party of three or four will often clear when the prime Saturday slot never appears at all. The tasting-menu format also means the room seats far fewer parties per night than a normal restaurant, so there is simply less inventory to go around, and the gap between success and failure is frequently a matter of seconds at the drop.
Sold out at the drop is not the end. Prepaid tickets and deposits get released back into the pool when plans change, and because a Benu or Per Se ticket costs real money up front, people cancel more deliberately and closer to the date than they do a free reservation. Those returned seats surface at random hours, which is exactly the kind of opening no human can catch by refreshing.
This is where a tracker earns its place. SnagRes watches every Michelin restaurant across Tock, Resy, OpenTable, and SevenRooms at once and alerts you the moment a table or ticket reopens, so you are not stuck guessing which of four apps to check. You can see every tracked New York room on our live Michelin page for New York and every San Francisco room on the live Michelin page for San Francisco, each one updated continuously.
How to book Michelin-star tables in NYC and SF: the platform and exact release time for Benu, Le Bernardin, Per Se, Quince, Saison and more.
Keep reading: Michelin-starred NYC restaurants · Michelin-starred SF restaurants · The four reservation platforms