Michelin Guide’s reputation takes a bite
March 13, 2005 - The Star-Ledger
PARIS—Every year around this time, all self-respecting Frenchmen gobble up the new Michelin Guide (a k a the Guide Rouge or Red Guide) - the restaurant bible that lists the top 9,000 restaurants and hotels in the country.
Careers are made and lost on its pages every year, and its release is anticipated by French foodies the way certain people in the United States might long for Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue.
Recently, however, things have taken a funny turn for the food-focused branch of the French tire company, causing some Gallic gastronomes to wonder if the Guide Rouge is all it’s cracked up to be.
The troubles began in February 2003, when superstar chef Bernard Loiseau committed suicide amid rumors he was about to lose his third star (Michelin’s highest rank) at his restaurant La Cote d’Or in Burgundy. People eventually learned Loiseau had many more problems than his rating, but it created an uproar among chefs, journalists and readers who thought the guides were too cryptic and too influential.
In 2004, one of the guide’s former inspectors, Pascal Remy, wrote “L’Inspecteur Se Met à Table” - “The Inspector Sits at the Table” or “The Inspector Spills the Beans.” In it, Remy did spill enough beans to cast further doubt on the honesty of the guides.
Then, this year, Michelin made the ultimate, unpalatable mistake by giving credence to its ex- inspector’s book. In the Benelux version of the Red Guide, which came out Jan. 26, it gave a very favorable review to a new Belgian restaurant called the Ostend Queen. The restaurant was so new, in fact, it hadn’t opened.
The press, starting with the Brussels daily that discovered the anomaly, Le Soir, had its fun, and Michelin recalled every guide that remained unsold from the edition’s 50,000 copies.
By the time a French bookstore in Corsica began selling the home country version of the new guide for the equivalent of about $32 a few days before its March 2 release date, it seemed little else could go wrong for Michelin.
Despite the past two years of unflattering hubbub, however, almost everyone in France still continues to refer and defer to the guide as “la référence” and there’s little change in sight.
“They have what France is all about, and that’s tradition,” says Patricia Wells, a well-known American food writer, cookbook author and teacher in France.
Tradition for the 100-year-old guide means simply printing “FRANCE” on the spine of its red book and everyone knows what’s inside.
Along with tradition, the guide also has the numbers to back it up. Their 2004 French Red Guide sold 415,000 copies in France, six times as many as their closest competitor, GaultMillau.
Asked what it would take for someone to knock Michelin’s mascot Bibendum (the Michelin Man’s real name) off his throne, Wells responds, “I don’t think anyone could. Everyone else is small business.”
And Michelin hopes to expand its realm of influence. This November, it will launch its first-ever Red Guide in North America, the Michelin Guide New York City 2006, which will review some 500 New York City restaurants and 50 hotels.
To its credit, Michelin has adapted to the demands of its customers, chefs and the press, albeit slowly.
Though Michelin spokeswoman Fabienne de Brebisson has a predictably terse response for Loiseau’s suicide - “That had nothing to do with us” - and Remy’s book - “false and phony” - her stance on the unrated Belgian restaurant is upstanding. “It’s regrettable. . . . It shouldn’t have happened. There was an error, and error is human.”
In his stint as director, Englishman Derek Brown and his successor, Frenchman Jean Luc Naret, also have made the guide and its rating system more transparent and understandable, even if critics still complain the rating system remains complicated.
Most write-ups get two or three short lines (five lines is rather chatty for chez Michelin) of rather non-revelatory text on the subject, such as Ernest Hemingway’s affinity for the Ritz or what you see when you look out the window.
These follow a few lines of what would look like Greek to the uninitiated - the symbols that are the meat of the review: the one, two and three stars that denote the establishments where only the happy few can eat on a regular basis, followed by the confusing symbols for the rest of us - multicolored crisscrossed utensils, smiling Bibendums, sleeping Bibendums, grapes, dogs and even exercise bikes. For the 2005 edition, they even added a classification for rising star chefs.
Despite the confusion and recent controversy, most chefs would kill to make it into the hallowed ranks of the three-star chef.
The attainment of a third star - there are only 26 such restaurants in all of France - automatically launches chefs into a revered red-carpet stratosphere Americans tend to save for the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Tom Cruise.
The third star also catapults the fortunate few into an all-new business territory.
A third star can mean a 30 percent increase in turnover, and the chef’s name becomes a household name. Spinoff restaurants are born, and lucrative contracts spill in for anything from television shows to frozen food to consulting for airline menus. Loiseau even had a French stock exchange listing.
As a result, burnout potential for three-star chefs is high, and they constantly battle to maintain their ranking. Some chefs even refuse their stars or give them back to take off the pressure.
“There might be a bit of bitterness toward them now, but it’s the reference,” says Paris chef Otis Lebert, who has worked in 10 starred restaurants, including three three-star eateries. “It’s the most important guide we have in Europe.”
Wells, the American food writer and cookbook author, agreed even though she concedes things have changed somewhat.
“(Stars in Michelin) used to be a sure bet to a stairway to heaven, and it’s less sure than it used to be,” Wells said, “but it still makes a big difference.”
Joe Ray is a freelance writer who lives in Paris.
