Among the seven are 400-year-old Japanese restaurant Hyotei and the chief eatery in Arashiyama of Kyoto Kitcho, also a Japanese restaurant, both in Kyoto, as well as French restaurant hajime in Osaka.

The Michelin guide for Kyoto and Osaka, which will hit the stands Friday, awarded five-level ratings not only to restaurants but also to Japanese-style "ryokan" inns.

The guide gave a top rating to Kyoto's Hiiragiya Ryokan, famed for accommodating literary masters including Nobel prizewinner Yasunari Kawabata.

Michelin said it gave two-star ratings to 25 restaurants and ryokan inns and one-star ratings to 118 in Kyoto and Osaka.

A total of 150 restaurants and accommodation spots were given ratings of one star or above -- 85 in Kyoto and 65 in Osaka. Japanese restaurants accounted for 97 percent of those in Kyoto and 82 percent in Osaka.

Michelin guide director Jean-Luc Naret said the guidebook shows the richness of food in Kyoto and Osaka as it covers a variety of cuisines ranging from traditional Japanese "kaiseki" to sushi, "soba" buckwheat noodles, "oden" hotchpotch, "kushiage" fried and skewered food, and dishes at "izakaya" Japanese-style pubs.