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Iconic US chef Thomas Keller is to become a chevalier (knight) in the French Legion of Honour.

Keller, who is the only US chef to run two three-Michelin-starred restaurants (the French Laundry in California and Per Se in New York), is the first American man to have been deemed worthy of the title.

He joins an elite group of culinary French ambassadors to the USA: TV cook and author Julia Child and Alice Waters, chef patron of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.

Keller was nominated by fellow three-Michelin-starred chef and friend Daniel Boulud, with written support by chefs Jacques Pépin, André Soltner and Paul Bocuse as well as wine writer Robert Parker.

Bocuse, a commodore (commander) of the Legion of Honour, will pin the rosette on his lapel at Per Se on 29 March, according to the LA Times.

The French Legion of Honour was first established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 and is the highest decoration in France. It is divided into five various degrees: Chevalier (Knight), Officier (Officer), Commandeur (Commander), Grand Officier (Grand Officer) and Grand Croix (Grand Cross).

The opening of Heston Blumenthal's eagerly awaited London restaurant has been delayed.

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, which was set to open at the five-star Mandarin Oriental hotel in Knightsbridge on 1 December, will now not open until the end of January.

Booking lines, which were meant to open today, have also been delayed and the restaurant will now start taking reservations from 1 December on 020 7201 3833.

Dinner is Blumenthal's first restaurant venture outside Bray, where he runs the three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck and the Hind's Head and the Crown pubs.

The kitchen will be headed up by the Fat Duck group executive chef Ashley Palmer-Watts, with the menu celebrating the best of British produce and inspired by recipes dating back to the 16th century.

Dishes will include bergamot cured mackerel salad; slow cooked short rib of beef; and scallops with cucumber ketchup and peas; with a set lunch menu priced £25 for three courses and dinner starting from £55 for three courses à la carte.

Blumenthal's restaurant will be housed in the space formerly occupied by the Mandarin Oriental's Park and Foliage restaurants with expansive windows offering views over Hyde Park.

Interiors will be developed by US-based designer Adam D. Tihany, who said the restaurant will reflect the chef's modern take on tradition. Features will include floor to ceiling glass walls between the kitchen and dinning room as well as a pulley system modelled on a 16th century design for the Royal British Court's kitchens resembling an oversized watch, mechanically rotating a spit over an open fire.

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal will be the second high profile opening at the Mandarin Oriental, which earlier this year opened renowned US-based French chef Daniel Boulud's Bar Boulud.

Michelin has awarded 10 restaurants in New York with new stars bringing the total of Michelin-starred establishments in the city to 57.

The 2011 Michelin guide to New York awarded six restaurants their first star including Marlon Abela's second A Voce restaurant in the city, which launched at the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circus last autumn.

There are now 42 starred restaurants in New York offering 15 different types of cuisines ranging from Austrian to Thai, from Greek to Persian, from steakhouses to gastropubs.

Michelin promoted four restaurants in New York to two-star status including Japanese restaurant Kajitsu which serves "shojun" vegetarian dishes, prepared in the tradition of ancient Buddhist monasteries.

Other restaurants celebrating their second star were Chef Table at supermarket Brooklyn Fare; Italian seafood restaurant Marea, and Japanese eaterie Soto.

Gordon Ramsay's eponymous restaurant at the London hotel in Manhattan's Midtown retained its two stars, despite recent reports over unpaid supplier bills and food hygiene problems.

The number of restaurant's holding Michelin's top accolade of three stars remained unchanged at five: Daniel, Jean Georges, Per Se, Masa and Le Bernadin.

The 2011 Michelin guide to New York also identified 21 new restaurants as Bib Gourmands (offering two courses and a glass of wine or dessert for less than $40), bringing the total to 95. It also selected 127 restaurants offering a meal for less than $25.

Heston Blumenthal has unveiled the name of his highly anticipated London restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental hotel which will be called Dinner by Heston Blumenthal.

The restaurant, which is set to open at the luxury Knightsbridge hotel in November, will serve a menu centred on contemporary British food based on historical concepts.

The kitchen will be headed up by the Fat Duck group executive chef Ashley Palmer-Watts, who will showcase some of the dishes at Italian chef congress Identità London next week.

Blumenthal said the name Dinner reflects the concept the restaurant is based on. "I wanted to find a name that encapsulated the concept, which has a strong focus on dishes inspired by historic British gastronomy, but was also a bit of fun," he said.

"There has always been confusion in the UK over the names of our midday and evening meals and their origins, so researching this, I discovered the word dinner comes from the old 13th century French word disner, which initially stood for breakfast, and developed to the main meal of the day."

Blumenthal's restaurant will be housed in the space currently occupied by the Mandarin Oriental's Park and Foliage restaurants with expansive windows offering views over Hyde Park.

Interiors will be developed by US-based designer Adam D. Tihany, who said the restaurant will reflect the chef's modern take on tradition. "It will be relatively classic - wooden floors and coffered ceilings - but it'll have some quirkiness to it, too, to give a sense of Blumenthal's creative way of thinking," he said.

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal will be the second high profile opening at the Mandarin Oriental, which last month opened renowned US-based French chef Daniel Boulud's Bar Boulud.

French-born US chef Daniel Boulud's first European venture, Bar Boulud at London's Mandarin Oriental hotel, is the focus of the weekend's restaurant reviews. And luckily for the chef, the restaurant does not disappoint the critics.

Writing for The Sunday Times, AA Gill finds the best burgers at Bar Boulud, which he otherwise considers a mediocre restaurant albeit with excellent service.

"Burgers, for all their mythology, are monoglot food," he says. "These ones manage to retain their oafish, redneck muscle, but have an added French je ne sais quoi. A bit of wit. A good pick-up line."

Meanwhile John Walsh of The Independent experiences faultless flavoursome cooking at Bar Boulud and says both the chef and his bar are "hugely welcome in the metropolis".

And although The Observer's Jay Rayner gets annoyed during the booking process at Bar Boulud, once he dines there he is impressed with the menu and value for money it offers.

Meanwhile in The Independent on Sunday Toby Young is impressed with Michel Roux Junior's co-venture with Compass' Restaurant Aossociates, Roux at Parliament Square. He declares the restaurant, where former Roux Scholar Daniel Cox is head chef, more of a classy coalition than culinary compromise.

Matthew Norman, writing in The Guardian, discovers a menu of inconsistent quality at Viajante, where Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes is fighting an "internal battle between technical excellence and plain foolishness".

Jasper Gerard of The Daily Telegraph says Paramount atop London's Centre Point building, which last month opened to the public, is tough on prices and tight on portions but the view is worth stomaching the food.

In The Times Giles Coren is experiencing the post-honeymoon-blues but says former Roussillon chef Alexis Gauthier's new restaurant at Lindsay House in Soho offers unarguably great cooking worth two Michelin stars.

So it was true after all. Following months of speculation and denial, Mandarin Oriental has finally confirmed that three-Michelin-starred French chef Daniel Boulud will open a restaurant at the luxury hotel.

The announcement follows that of fellow three-Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal opening his first London restaurant at the Knightsbridge hotel next autumn.

Boulud will launch French restaurant Bar Boulud in the space of the former Grill restaurant of the luxury hotel. It will be modelled on the Bar Boulud in New York and will offer a French bistro menu with signature terrines and pâtés made on site under the direction of acclaimed charcutier Gilles Verot.

Located at street level with a separate entrance, the 165-seat restaurant's interiors will be developed by renowned designer Adam Tihany and will feature contemporary references to French wine making culture.

Interiors will include a bar lounge, red leather banquettes and chairs, a bar topped in zinc with a cork panel coating and an open kitchen as the focal point of the main dining space. There will also be a charcuterie bar featuring a glass counter displaying the restaurant's signature terrines and a selection of cheeses.

French chef Daniel Boulud's flagship restaurant in New York has been awarded the top accolade of three stars in the city's 2010 Michelin guide.

His restaurant Daniel on Manhattan's Upper East Side has joined Jean Georges, Le Bernardin, Masa and Per Se in the guide's list of top eateries bringing New York's three-star restaurants to five.

With speculation mounting that Boulud is planning a restaurant in London next year, the accolade reinforces his status as one of the world's most renowned chefs.

Meanwhile the fortunes were reversed for fellow French chef Alain Ducasse's Adour restaurant at Manhattan's St Regis hotel, which has lost a star and dropped from two- to one-Michelin-star status.

The development is particularly bitter as the restaurant, which opened in spring last year, replaced Ducasse's previous New York eaterie at Essex House which held the top accolade of three Michelin stars until its closure in 2006.

Gordon Ramsay's eponymous restaurant at the London hotel in Manhattan's Midtown retained its two stars, despite recently reported problems of food hygiene. 

The 2010 Michelin guide to New York awarded a record 20 new stars including one new three-star; two new two-star; and 17 new one-star restaurants. New York now has a total of 78 Michelin-starred restaurants, compared with 69 in Paris and 49 in London.

The guide identified 31 new restaurants as Bib Gourmands (offering two courses and a glass of wine or dessert for less than $40), bringing the total to 85. It also selected 109 restaurants offering a meal for less than $25.