Back in 1900, when André Michelin published his first guide to France’s restaurants, his aim was simple: to tell drivers of the newfangled motor cars that sported his firm’s tyres the best places to stop for a spot of déjeuner. Over the years, this vision proved so successful that when Le Guide Michelin celebrated its centenary it could confidently claim that its system of awarding restaurants up to three stars was the most influential scheme of its kind in the world: feared by chefs, respected by restaurateurs and slavishly followed by diners.
But recently, many feel, the guide’s star has been on the wane, as the strait-laced cooking styles that Michelin accreditation seems to suggest have fallen from favour. Instead, chefs are becoming more independent, expressing their own creativity rather than producing food designed to appeal to the guide’s inspectors. In Paris, for example, chefs have been leaving Michelin-starred establishments in droves to set up their own gastro-bistros. Restaurants such as Les Papilles, Le Repaire de Cartouche and Chez L’Ami Jean are fun to visit, specialise in fine, regional cooking and invariably attract huge queues of diners.
“What we represent is popular culture, not cuisine de snob,” says Yves Camdeborde, whose bistro Le Comptoir is a fine example of this nouvelle vague. “But despite our high standards and 12-month waiting list, we’re of no interest to Michelin.”
It’s a similar story here in the UK, where the little red book has been rating restaurants since 1974. “Michelin used to stand for the highest standards,” says restaurateur Marco Pierre White, who, in 1999, renounced the three stars he had been awarded for the Oak Room. “Now its top places have become too big for their boots, which is why the likes of Rick Stein, Raymond Blanc, Nico Ladenis and Simon Hopkinson don’t really care about it and went their own way long ago.”
Michelin has also run into trouble in the US since it launched its New York guide – its first outside Europe – in 2005. Its critique of the Big Apple’s restaurant scene was accused of being poorly organised, too narrow in scope, and of awarding too few stars, in the wrong places – a charge it also faced when it set up in San Francisco the following year. “The only way Michelin could make an impact was in rating American restaurants lower than they should,” says chef Gary Danko, despite the fact that his own Bay Area restaurant was one of those feted with a star.
“I knew Michelin was not equipped to review American restaurants. It has no business here. It is judging American culture using French standards.”
When Michelin’s guide to Tokyo, published for the first time last November, attracted similar criticism, it looked like the writing might be finally on the wall. Nevertheless, the Michelin men are bullish, not least since the Japanese guide sold 120,000 copies in its first three days of publication. “Let the readers be the judges – if they are buying, we are happy,” argues Michelin director Jean-Luc Naret. “Chefs are, broadly speaking, supportive of our judgments, even though they may not always be happy with them. But they respect us.”
All the same, Michelin might be advised to pause before it considers setting up shop in South Africa, say, or Australia. As Sydney restaurateur Tony Bilson warns, “the old standards by which restaurants were judged no longer apply, which is why Michelin has found it hard to categorise what’s going on in Japan or the US. It would find the same in Australia.”
‘In my opinion, Michelin no longer has anything to do with André Michelin’s original philosophy of supplying a service to his customers’ Marco Pierre White.