The little Red Guide 107 years on
The Michelin Guide has had extraordinary success. This year it will celebrate it's 107th birthday. Originally distributed as a free guide, it was written for the adventurous french motorists of the time, to point out where they could get their often broken car repaired and which hotel to stay at in the meantime.
It was distributed free for a full 20 years. Later from 1926 onwards it carried a new star category system to highlight the best restaurants 'en route', and in 1933 the 2 and 3 star system was introduced.
Fast forward to modern times, and the guide just sold 100 Million copies last year, in 15 seperate publications, covering 21 countries.
André and Edouard, the original Michelin brothers, would be bemused by the modern attention paid to the guide; critical to an establishment owner where the presence, or lack of an extra star can mean a huge gain or loss of revenue. So vital for an ambitious Chef anxious to build or maintain a reputation.
Critical or irrelevant ?
2007 is no exception, each year we see a flurry of activity in the press around who got a new Michelin star and who lost one. Is it really that relevant to us as restaurant goers ? Is the system blind towards cuisines other than French, as some have claimed ?
To a consumer most of us have no clue how the star rating is arrived at, or who is behind this heavily publicised and broadly trusted system. As Michelin pushes out into new territories these issues become increasingly urgent to answer. The recent furore over the launch of the new San Francisco guide is a case in point, where local Restaurateurs have accused the guide of being unadventurous and irrelevant to local tastes.
Michelin Stars explained
The system is not as intuitive as you might think, and often gives rise to confusion, many times amongst Chefs and Restaurateurs.
Restaurants are judged relative to others in the same Category. This means that a small rustic Bistro earns the same level One Star as the Ritz-Carlton, both having been judged "A very good restaurant in its own Category"
Rating system:
One Star:
"A very good restaurant in its own Category"
Two Stars:
"Excellent cooking, worth a detour"
Three Stars:
"Exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey.
One always eats extremely well here, sometimes superbly"
Criteria for award of Stars
Commonly misunderstood, criteria like: table setting, number of waiters, quality of facilities or equipment are NOT taken into account.
There are only five criteria considered in awarding a Michelin Star;
1) Quality of ingredients
2) Skill in preparing them and in combining flavours
3) Level of creativity
4) Consistency of culinary standards
5) Value for money
Continued in part ll
We continue in part ll by shedding some light on who the judges are, and their strict code of anonymous activity.
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Further reading;
Guide Michelin
http://www.viamichelin.com
Bay Area stars fail to make Michelin cut
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/03/MNGSULH7QL1.DTL&type=food