The Michelin guide remains one of the world’s leading authorities on restaurants and fine dining. Although the judges' criteria are a closely-guarded secret, the techniques they praise are well-known – and the good news is that many are easily replicated at home. Discover our top tips to achieve restaurant-quality cooking in your own kitchen.

What’s in season depends on where you are in the world. But wherever you are, using ingredients that are being harvested that month always makes sense. Produce at its peak tastes better, has much more flavour, supports local farmers, has travelled fewer miles and, often, is cheaper.

Your local farmers' market is a great spot to buy seasonal produce. Look for a certified market which has rules about what can be sold – you want to buy produce fresh from the fields, not from an individual who has bought from a wholesaler to sell on. Talk to the producers about how their food is grown and what’s coming into season. Michelin-starred chefs swear by the relationships they have with their suppliers. A vegetable box subscription is also a good option.

Use your eyes and nose to spot the best stuff on offer. Choose tomatoes that are fragrant and not wrinkly; avocados that are free from cracks and dents; lettuce that’s crisp, not slimy; kale that has deep-coloured, small leaves; white cauliflower with tightly packed florets (avoid yellow or flowering cauliflower); plump, heady garlic; and carrots without rootlets.

You might have to spend a bit more but meat from a good-quality butcher is worth it – ethical, traceable meat is important to them. They can give you advice on how to cook different cuts and will slice or debone meat for you. They can also cater to more obscure requests such as chicken bones for stock, a suckling pig or an ox heart. It’s also worth visiting your local fishmonger for fish, or check out online delivery schemes.

You don't need access to a balcony or garden to grow your own food – and you can't beat the flavour of fresh herbs. Many Michelin-starred restaurants have small veg patches for this reason. You could start with a simple basil plant or grow microgreens to use as a fancy garnish.

There's no point in investing in beautiful ingredients if you don't store them with care. You might be surprised how many ingredients should never be kept in the fridge such as avocados, garlic and onions. Simple hacks like storing herbs upright in water, like flowers, will make them last much longer.

One thing Michelin restaurants get spot on is sauces and it's easy to get them right at home. At culinary school, students are taught five classic, French 'mother' sauces which form the foundations of many other sauces and dishes. They are béchamel, velouté, espagnole, sauce tomat and hollandaise. Master these five and from there you can make scalloped potatoes (with béchamel), creole sauce (with sauce tomat), and eggs benedict and béarnaise sauce (from hollandaise).

Much of the time, the secret to great-tasting food worthy of a Michelin star is simple: use an almost unreasonable amount of butter in your cooking. The secret to the perfect steak, for example, is to add a knob of butter and a sprig of herbs to the pan halfway through cooking.

The importance of seasoning is greater than you might expect. Keep salt and pepper on the kitchen worktop during food preparation. Each individual component of a meal needs to be seasoned separately. It's also about balance: taste regularly as you go and adjust accordingly. However, add a little at a time so you don't ruin a dish by over-salting it.

Don't just season well, choose quality oil too – and make sure you use the right type for your dish. Use extra-virgin olive oil for dressings and vinaigrettes rather than for cooking. Higher heats demand a sunflower or vegetable oil.

Great presentation starts with how you prep ingredients. Julienned carrots (cut into thin strips) and onions sliced and diced with consistency are visible in the final dish. Get yourself a decent set of sharp knives, a mandoline, a peeler and a hand-held grater (for shaving and fine grating). You could even splash out on getting your knives professionally sharpened once a year.

Mise en place is a French culinary phrase, roughly translating to everything in its place. It refers to preparing your equipment and ingredients before you start cooking: from cleaning the surfaces and locating knives, pots and pans, to chopping onions and measuring out flour. It’s vital to the smooth execution of complicated dishes and means you won't be scrabbling for the next ingredient during cooking.

Michelin inspectors love attention to detail and while some techniques are best left to the restaurants, making elements of a meal such as a salad dressing, mayonnaise or bread at home is a nice touch.

Ingredients were not all created equal and there are a handful of store cupboard saviours which have transformative qualities. A drizzle of balsamic vinegar can add sweet and sour notes to a dish; anchovies make a wonderful salty sauce; chilli flakes infuse dishes with warmth and spice; honey adds floral, sweet notes and sticky glazes to roast meat; a squeeze of lemon balances rich dishes; and umami-rich miso elevates both sweet and savoury dishes.

Michelin-star cooking means adding flavour at every stage, even before you start to cook. It’s not unusual to marinate meat for up to two days, to tenderise and flavour the produce. But more than meat can be marinated. Infusing fish, tofu and vegetables with flavour does wonders too.

Michelin-quality cooking is all about little techniques and small touches that add depth to dishes such as toasting nuts and spices before cooking with them. Toast nuts in a dry pan or in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes at 150–170°C  (350–375°F) until golden in colour – once cooled they’ll be crisp and refreshed. Cook whole and ground spices in a dry pan to unlock their aroma but watch carefully to ensure they don’t burn.

Deglazing pans is a French technique which ensures no flavour is wasted. Remove sautéed vegetables or browned meat from the pan, then pour in cold wine, stock or water to create a cloud of steam and help move any caramelised pieces of food that are stuck to the bottom. This flavourful jus can be used for gravy or just poured straight over your dish.

Cutting down on waste isn't just good sense from a financial and sustainability perspective, many of the things we regularly throw out can be used to create or enhance another dish. In top restaurants, you'll never see vegetable trimmings thrown in the bin but rather into a pot for stock. The same goes for meat bones and cheese rinds.

Create a steak with a charred surface and tender interior by searing it on a cast iron griddle pan – they’re the best at retaining heat. Make sure the pan is roaring hot before you begin and don’t add butter first. Add a knob before you finish cooking the steak for ultimate caramelisation. Resting the meat is also incredibly important. It should equal the time spent cooking so if you fried your steak for five minutes, let it rest for another five.

Ever had a delicious, unusual cut of meat in a restaurant that you'd never consider buying? The secret to the melt-in-the-mouth texture and rich flavour is likely to be slow cooking, which can turn even the most unpromising of cuts into something wonderful. The low and slow method does wonders to the likes of beef shin or lamb neck. Better still, just like in a restaurant, slow cooking can be done ahead of time with the dish warmed before serving.

Sous-vide is a classic high-end restaurant technique which produces perfectly tender food. Food is vacuum-sealed and placed in a temperature-controlled water bath to cook slowly on a low heat. You'll have to make a hefty investment in the kit but if you really want to push the boat out and you're set on replicating restaurant-style confit duck legs, tender fillets of fish and evenly-cooked sirloin steak, it’s worth considering.

Michelin-starred restaurants put as much thought into how they cook vegetables as to how they prepare meat. Blanch hard veggies to tenderise them and lock in colour, flavour and nutrients, instead of boiling them. After the vegetable is scalded in boiling water, remove and plunge into iced water to stop the cooking process.

Pickled vegetables will elevate any meal by adding acidity and crunch, plus a pop of colour on the plate. Make a quick 20-minute pickle with thinly shaved vegetables soaked in a bowl of white vinegar, salt and sugar.

 

Carpaccio is a traditional Italian dish of thinly sliced raw meat or fish served as a starter, however top chefs have applied the technique to fruit and vegetables. Make a beetroot carpaccio with a mixture of different coloured varieties for a visually appealing starter. Alternatively, try thinly sliced kohlrabi marinated in lime juice, balsamic, honey, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Flambé refers to the technique when alcohol is added to a hot pan to create a burst of flames, adding a rich flavour to the dish and some theatre in the kitchen. Have a go at home with a 40% proof alcohol that complements the dish. Be sure to use a large ladle with a long handle and warm the booze in a pot first – pouring straight from the bottle is a safety hazard.

 

Confit means to preserve through slow cooking in fat. Meat, fish or vegetables are poached in oil slowly, over a low heat, until they are tender and rich. A classic recipe is confit duck legs or turkey legs. To really go high-end, try confit egg yolks for the ultimate Michelin meal.

 

One of Michelin's criteria is creativity and pushing traditional rules. One example is Heston Blumenthal’s bacon ice cream (pictured) – it's an unusual flavour pairing that works. Experiment with different combinations that you might not usually put together and see if they taste good.

Create a dish that captivates by choosing a large white plate that showcases the food. Take the main element of the dish and switch up the proportions. For example, serve strawberry sorbet with button-sized meringue bites and dots of cream, instead of a traditional layered pavlova. Arrange components in odd groups (one, three or five); twirl pasta; serve rice or mashed potato in metal rings then remove to create towers; and artfully pour jus or gravy.

Finally, if your kitchen and dining space are the same room, try to prep as much as you can in advance and tidy as you go. Just like the theatre, people don't mind seeing the orchestra and lights but they don’t want to see the whole cast in the wings, or in this case, a load of dirty pans.

Now take a look at these top cooking tips from your favourite TV chefs