The term "Michelin Star" is a hallmark of fine dining quality with restaurants around the world proudly promoting their Michelin Star status. Interestingly, this prestigious restaurant rating is from a tire company. Ándre and Édouard Michelin were French entrepreneurs who started a tire company in 1889. Eleven years later, it occurred to them that a ratings guide for hotels and restaurants would be a great way to inspire motor tourism, and therefore increase the need for people to buy tires more often.
When the Michelin Guide was first published in August of
1900, there were less than 3000 cars on the road in France. There wasn’t an
extensive road system and gasoline wasn’t found every couple of miles. The
Michelin brothers even went so far as to create handmade road signs. The
original guide listed the names and places of gas stations, mechanics, hotels,
and restaurants. Thirty-five thousand copies were distributed for free.
The first international copy of the Michelin Guide was
published in Belgium in 1904. The first British edition was published in 1911.
Today there are guides for Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong,
Italy, Japan, Macau, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain,
Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The first American
guide was published in November of 2005 and concentrated on New York. The
Michelin Guide was free until 1922 when the brothers charged seven francs for
each guide. The story goes that Andre Michelin visited a garage that was using
the guide to prop up a workbench and realized, “Man only truly respects what he
pays for.”
Though there was advertising when the guide was originally
published, the Michelin brothers removed all ads when they decided to start
charging for it. It remains ad-free to this day. The guide didn’t cover fine
dining until 1926, which is when it started sending out anonymous reviewers to
eat at restaurants and giving out one “dining star.” 1931 is also the year the
blue cover was changed to the recognizable red color it is today.
To this day,
Michelin relies entirely on its full-time staff of anonymous restaurant
reviewers. The anonymous reviewers generally are very passionate
about food, have a good eye for detail, and have a great taste memory to
recall and compare types of foods. A reviewer has said that they must be a
"chameleon" who can blend in with all of their surroundings to appear
as if they are an ordinary consumer. Each time a reviewer goes to a restaurant,
they write a thorough memorandum about their experience and then all of
the reviewers come together to discuss and decide on which restaurants will be
awarded the stars.
Michelin awards 0 to
3 stars on the basis of the anonymous reviews. Michelin reviewers are referred to as “inspectors” and are
completely anonymous. They are allegedly told not to tell anyone other than
their spouse what they do for a living, including their parents. Many top
executives at Michelin have never met an inspector and the inspectors have
never been allowed to speak to journalists about what they do. There are said
to be between 80 and 120 full-time inspectors, all of who must have highly
discerning palates, receive six months of training, and work with an
experienced inspector before being trusted to dine alone and write reports.
Inspectors always visit restaurants anonymously as ordinary
diners and most often they eat alone. This is because they do not receive free
meals and paying for dining companions would be too expensive. It’s said the
average inspector evaluates 240 restaurants a year. They don’t take notes at
the table, so as not to give themselves away, which means they must have good
concentration and an excellent memory and be okay with being on the road three
out of every four weeks. Since
1931, the reviewers award the stars as follows:
- One star: A very good restaurant in its category to stop at on
your journey, offering cuisine prepared to a consistently high standard. (“Une très bonne
table dans sa catégorie”)
- Two stars: A restaurant
worth a detour, indicating excellent cuisine and skillfully and
carefully crafted dishes of outstanding quality. (“Table
excellente, mérite un détour”)
·
Three stars: A restaurant worth a special journey,
indicating exceptional cuisine where diners eat extremely well, often
superbly. Distinctive dishes are precisely executed, using superlative
ingredients. (“Une des meilleures tables, vaut le voyage”)
“One of the great awards from a
chef's point of view are Michelin stars. The ultimate is three Michelin stars.
For example, Gordon Ramsey has three Michelin stars. Having one Michelin star
is a big deal, two is incredible and having three puts you in a bracket of
maybe 30 chefs worldwide.” (Paul Rankin) [i]
[i] Sources used:
·
“15 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About the
Michelin Guide” by Daisy Barringer
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