![]() Why do you think restaurants in Japan were suddenly given a surfeit of rosettes? Because Doughboy (aka Bibendum) wants to sell tires to Japanese car manufacturers! In Spain, France’s next door neighbor, who competes with them for gastro-tourism Euros, Michelin gives a miserable number of rosettes, about a fifth of what France has. ![]() Gerry Dawes - Spanish food expert, guide, raconteur, writer, etc., (and a fellow so curmudgeonly he makes me look like Dora the Explorer) - had these insights that are worth considering the next time you hear someone brag about their Michelin stars: A bought-and-paid-for scam trading on an outdated reputation to make money by duping restaurant consumers. In coming to light, these meretricious machinations confirm what I have long suspected: the Michelin Guides in America are a farce. In taking the money, Michelin has, in one fell swoop, defenestrated its credibility, and lifted its skirt faster than a forty buck hooker. Which will now have its own guidebook, paid for by the state, “recommending” its restaurants to unsuspecting tourists who will think it was “professionally researched” by a company without any skin in the game. ![]() It is paying for Michelin to come and “review” its restaurants, and include them in a published guidebook, so that more tourists will come to California and want to go to those restaurants. Which is just what the state of California has done. (This works better for places like San Francisco than it does for Fresno.) As a taxpayer-funded promotional arm of the community, it is charged with bringing as many tourists as possible to town (or a state) to increase the coffers of the community and its local businesses - like restaurants.Īnd when you have the most famous guidebook selling its services, what better way to increase those businesses coffers than by applying the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval….er….uh….I mean Michelin stars to as many of your restaurants as possible? Here’s how it works: a tourist board (much like Las Vegas’s LVCVA) decides that it wants to promote/advertise its restaurants. ( Because when we think “great restaurants,” we’re thinking Sacramento) Far from being a scrupulous, trustworthy consumer guide, it has now been exposed as nothing but an instrument of advertising. The Michelin Guide is now in the business of promoting restaurants, not objectively rating them. The fact is, Michelin’s clout may have been real in the past (although we’ll argue some of the points below), but you can now toss its good name straight out the window. Remember 2008? How proud we were that the Michelin Guide had come to Las Vegas to rate our restaurants?ĭo you recall how disappointed everyone was when it decided not to return after the 2009 guide?ĭo you know that, to this day, Las Vegas restaurants still trumpet their Michelin stars even though the accolades are a decade old?Įven today, does any guide in the world bestow more credibility on a city’s food scene? Even though it’s a worthless piece of public relations?
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