Everything you wanted to know about the Michelin Guide before spending half your salary on a meal at an amazing restaurant

The Michelin restaurant guide is a little red book, and being included in it is the dream of millions of chefs around the world. The “Michelin Star” seal is associated with ultra-sophisticated dishes, as well as exorbitant prices for lunch or dinner and reservations several months in advance. A visit to a restaurant that appears in the Michelin guide it is something that happens perhaps only once in the life of the average person, but it is an event that is impossible to forget.

Recently, the awesome.club told the story of a young man about his visit to a Michelin-starred restaurant in Sweden. And today we decided to find out why people are willing to pay between 10 and 20 times more than usual for dinner in an establishment like this and we will also tell you what chefs do to get those precious stars.

The Michelin Guide is published by a company with the same name, specialized in the production of tires since 1900. It was designed as a guide for drivers. in France and was delivered free of charge along with the tyres. The restaurant section appeared in 1926 and turned out to be the most popular. Soon the Michelin brothers had to hire appraisers and publish their guides for other countries. The publication ceased to be free in 1922, after one of the brothers, André, saw that his magazine served as support for a bench in a mechanic shop. Then the Michelin brothers took out all the ads in the guide and started selling it for $2 each. To date, there are no ads. In the guide there are several types of symbols: “economic restaurant”, “establishment with a good view”, “bar service”, etc. But readers are primarily interested in the stars. 1 star means it’s a good restaurant. twoexceptional cuisine, so it makes sense to change the route a little. 3magnificent work by the chef that justifies the trip.

Michelin stars are given just for the quality of the food🇧🇷 The interior decoration, service, atmosphere and location of the restaurant do not influence. To evaluate these aspects, other symbols are used: knife and fork. The more the better, especially if they are red. Restaurants may not use information about their star status for promotional purposes. Michelin believes that the mention of an establishment in your guide is, in itself, good advertising🇧🇷 Violators may be excluded from qualifying. One of the most frequent criticisms of the Michelin Guide relates to a clear preference for French chefs and French cuisine in general. More than once the publication has been accused of being partial to new recruits and of favoring old friends like Paul Bocuse. However, the editors deny all allegations.

To become a Michelin appraiser, it is I need to go through a 6 month training🇧🇷 Then the person works together with an experienced professional. And only after that, she begins to visit restaurants on her own and prepare reports. By the way, almost anyone can apply for this vacancy. Michelin is willing to do whatever it takes to maintain the anonymity of its raters. Even few company managers know them. During the meal, the evaluator cannot write anything down to avoid giving himself away. They are prohibited from communicating with journalists, and it is recommended to be imprecise, answering questions from friends and family about work, for example: “I work in a publishing company”. However, the reviewer is allowed to photograph the food: it is unlikely to be found out, as people often take pictures of their meals and dinners, and there is nothing suspicious about that. Rebecca Burr, editor of the Michelin Guide for England and Ireland, shared how reviewers look for restaurants that might deserve the award. They study reviews on various tourist sites, read the local press, listen to other people’s conversations and ask for advice. To give the restaurant a rating (especially the first star), it is visited two or three times🇧🇷 In the first, the evaluator goes for lunch, in the next for dinner, and in the third, he orders a dish he has tried before: in this way, he verifies that the kitchen works stably.

It is not convenient to have problems with metabolism, since, at least twice a day, it is necessary to taste the food of a restaurant, and the evaluator is prohibited from trying only one piece and leaving the rest of the food on the plate. In general, evaluators choose dishes that reveal the chef’s potential: with a large amount of ingredients, a complicated way of making and an unusual way of serving. On very few occasions do they order salads and soups🇧🇷 Pascal Rémy, a former Michelin appraiser, who left the guide after 16 years with the intention of publishing his diaries, revealed that in France there were only five appraisers working with him. It was assumed that in a year they had to visit about 10,000 restaurants, which, of course, was impossible. At the same time, they earned approximately the same salary as a primary school teacher. In 2008, the German Julia Caspar became editor in chief of the French Michelin Guide. For the first time, this position was occupied by a woman and a person born outside France.🇧🇷 The German newspaper Die Welt wrote about this appointment: “Given the fact that in most parts of France German cuisine is considered a deadly weapon, this decision can be compared to the appointment of a Martian to the post of development director at Mercedes.” .

Famous French chef Bernard Loiseau, prototype of Chef Gusteau from the animated film Ratatouillesince the age of 15 dreamed of getting 3 Michelin stars🇧🇷 When your dream came true, their main task was to keep them🇧🇷 The pressure was so strong that Loiseau could not stand it, and due to rumors that he would lose one of them, he committed suicide before the publication of the guide, in 2003. In 1966, due to the loss of a star, another chef, Alain Zick, also committed suicide. suicide, and in 1990, Alain Chapel died of a heart attack: his restaurant lost 1 star out of the 3 it had. The news of Bernard Loiseau’s death spread around the world. Despite this, the restaurant that bore his name continued to operate and did not close its doors for a single day. By the way, for a few years, the establishment confirmed the 3 stars. The most starred chefs in the world are Joël Robuchon (deceased in 2018, aged 73) with 31 stars and Alain Ducasse with 21, both French. The famous Gordon Ramsayfrom England, ranks third, with 16. The most starred female chef is Carme Ruscalledafrom Barcelona, ​​which has a total of seven.

Chef Joël Robuchon at the Las Vegas Culinary Festival in 2014.

For many chefs around the world, obtaining and maintaining Michelin stars is becoming an obsession🇧🇷 They work 16 hours a day, do not sleep and live in constant nervous tension. Its employees struggle too: Verbal insults and assaults in the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants are commonplace. Every year, on the eve of the release of the guide, the management representative personally calls the chefs, whose restaurants received the third star, as well as those that lost it.

Gordon Ramsay confessed that started crying when he heard that his restaurant had lost a star🇧🇷 Nominally, the establishment no longer belonged to Gordon, although it still bore his name. On a talk showRamsay said that losing a star is like parting with your girlfriend and losing Champions League football at the same time.

The creators of the Michelin Guide constantly remind you that stars are awarded not to chefs, but to restaurants. Same if the chef leaves, the prize stays at the establishment🇧🇷 The star is not an Oscar statuette, it cannot be touched. This is a recognition that is relevant here and now. However, associating the name of a particular chef with a star is common practice, there are rankings of chefs with the most awards, and Michelin stars are called the “culinary Oscars”. The restaurant that keeps 3 stars for the longest time (since 1965) is that of Paul Bocuse in a suburb of Lyon. The chef was born in Collonge-o-Mont-d’Or in 1926 and died in the same room, on the top floor of his own establishment, in 2018.

One of the most expensive restaurants awarded with Michelin stars is SubliMotion in Ibiza. A three-hour show will cost $1,760 per person (around 7,500 reais) and includes a tasting of 20 dishes, in addition to a light and sound show, which should awaken the 5 senses. Michelin-starred restaurants pay a lot of attention to the unusual way of serving the food. Don’t be surprised if the “Noma” in Copenhagen brings you potato soup in a vase. But, perhaps, the absolute champion of serving dishes is “Quince”, from San Francisco. The dish called “Dog for Gold” is served on the iPad with the screen on, which is used as a common dish.

An employee of the Michelin-starred restaurant “Daniel” in New York said that the waiters listened to the conversations of the guests and googled any information about them in advance🇧🇷 For example, it helps to serve them better to know if the visitor is celebrating a date, if he is a local resident or a tourist, if he is connected to the restaurant business or if he has a family. And some establishments in the US are even trying to get the customer to be served by a waiter from the same state as him. “The fundamental principle of cooking is not to modify the recipe that works,” said Paul Bocuse, France’s most respected chef. Michelin-starred restaurants follow this rule without changing their menus for years, but few bosses are willing to work like machines🇧🇷 Anthony Bourdin commented, “Making the best fish dish in New York is one thing, but making it unchanged day after day, all your life, is another.” Michelin representatives do not rate restaurants in all countries. Recently, guide editors have focused on Asia and North America. But, for example, Eastern European countries and Russia are ignored by the publication’s editors🇧🇷 Reviewers do not go to these countries due to the inadequate quality of the roads, since the guide is aimed primarily at fans of road trips. They are also concerned about corruption. In addition, there is another difficulty: the French do not understand anything about Russian cuisine, considering it too simpleso they don’t know how to evaluate it.