The Truth Behind All Those Michelin Stars

I'm often asked by people what it is that makes Michelin three-star restaurants so special. Well, I can give you the official answer. As you probably know, the Michelin Guide, sponsored by the tyre company of the same name, sends anonymous reviewers to restaurants in cities where it has an edition. (The reason why there are no Michelin starred restaurants in, say, Dubai or Delhi, is not because there are no good places, but because Michelin does not have an edition in these cities.)

To get into the Guide, a restaurant must be good. To get one star, it must be very good. To get two stars, it must be exceptional. And if it gets three stars, well then, it must be one of the world's best restaurants.
Michelin claims to have an objective standard that cuts across continents. So a Michelin three-star place can't just be the best restaurant in a particular city. A three-star restaurant in say, Hong Kong, must be as good as a three-star restaurant in Paris or New York. This is an elite club of the best restaurants in the world.
Nor is Michelin swayed by trendiness. For instance, it took a while to give El Bulli three stars even when others called it the best restaurant in the world. Even today, when the Adria brothers run Ticket, the hottest restaurant in Barcelona with a waiting list of three months, Michelin refuses to give it three stars. Instead it reserves its top accolade for the much lesser-known Sant Pau. In Chicago, the hottest restaurant is Alinea (three months to get in) but Michelin rates Grace (with three stars) just as highly.
In theory, Michelin stars have nothing to do with anything other than the food. In practice, Michelin will not give three stars to a down-market place, no matter how good the food is. So, if you go to a three-star restaurant, expect to pay through the nose. The food will (usually) be excellent. But it will also be a very fancy restaurant.
How reliable are the star ratings? Usually, they are very accurate. But there are gaps. Michelin is French in origin and does not understand other cuisines as well. So there is not a single Indian restaurant with more than one star anywhere in the world, which can't be right. Some of the starred Indian restaurants clearly don't deserve their stars. So Michelin is no indicator of quality when it comes to Indian food.
In some cities, the Guide can be dubious. In Hong Kong, I've eaten at three restaurants with the top accolade. Of the three, Lung King Heen, the Chinese restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel was very nice (it was the first Chinese restaurant anywhere in the world to get three stars) but I was not overwhelmed. (That could be because I don't know enough about Chinese food.)
Two of the other three-star restaurants were disappointments. I thought the L'Atelier by Joel Robuchon was like all the L'Ateliers in the great man's chain and could not, for the life of me, figure out why it deserved three stars. Bo Innovation, by Alvin Leung, a local celebrity chef, was such gimmicky rubbish that I don't think it deserved a single star.
In France, Michelin is much more reliable. All the three-star restaurants I've eaten at (Guy Savoy, Alain Ducasse and Michel Guerard, etc) have been amazing, though I do believe that Paul Bocuse retains his three stars in Lyon only out of sentiment. If the restaurant was not owned by Bocuse, it would struggle to get even a single star.
The tricky one for Michelin has been New York, where it has never quite matched up to the local sensibility. (In terms of commercial success, Michelin counts for nothing in America. The New York Times is much more powerful in New York.)
Many people discount Michelin and argue (fairly, I think) that it is biased towards Japan and France. Even so, at the absolute top end of the market, I find it a more reliable indicator than most other guides.
Last month, on a quick trip to Chicago, I was too late to get into Alinea, but I did go to Grace, only because I reckoned the three stars were a guarantee of quality.
I was not disappointed. The nature of the experience, the quality of the service, the sourcing of the grape (not one from America!), and the ambience were all astonishing.
But what did it for me for the exceptional quality of the food. A Thai/Vietnamese beef salad was deconstructed and put together masterfully with Japanese Miyazaki beef. Expensive beef is an easy ingredient to play with, but more humble cuts, like the ones that would normally be thrown away, was as outstanding as the high quality ones.
The food was from no recognisable cuisine (French with Japanese influences doesn't even begin to capture it) but sprung mostly from the chef's imagination. It was a one-of-a-kind experience.
Which, I guess, is what Michelin three-star cooking should be about. It shouldn't be about traditional food cooked well (that will not get you more than two stars). It should be about the genius of a chef who cooks you meals you will never forget!

Did you know?

There are only 118 Michelin three-starred restaurants in the world!