This past week, the Michelin Guide announced its 2009 starred restaurants for New York and San Francisco. The Michelin Guide, Europe's best-known restaurant guide, is released annually in the form of a series of books organized by city. The red books award restaurants zero, one, two, or three stars, and the stars are arguably the most well-regarded rankings in the global restaurant industry, with three being an extraordinary honor.
Every year since the Michelin Guide debuted stateside in 2006, there have been shakeups over restaurants that gain stars and others that are stripped of stars. For instance, Tom Colicchio's restaurant Craft was stripped of its sole star in a big upset last year; this time, the big surprise was David Chang's new restaurant Momofuku Ko receiving the honor of two stars. Do these designations affect your dining selections in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Las Vegas?
Soul Cal
Lascana
Forzieri
It doesn't have any bearing because I can't afford any of the starred restaurants. I love hearing about it and fantasizing, but the practical effect is minimal at best.
1if i'm going to be spending the money, i'm more likely to go with a restaurant with a higher michelin rating. and good, that they took away craft's star...their food was garbage repackaged. have yet to try momofuku ko but i'm DYING to. chef crush on david chang!
2The stars help me find new restaurants that I may not have heard of. If I go to a new town, they're a good place to start, then talk to the staff to see what else is worth hitting up.
3Never heard of them, and it doesn't matter because we don't eat anywhere that fancy anyway.
4michelin ... just testing...
5to be honest, they don't make any difference on where i choose to go. i know that for chef's it's like the OSCARS and it's really hurtful to them when they lose out, but i think that for someone like me who just likes good food and good ambiance, a star doesn't make a break a place for me.
6Why would I care what a tire company has to say about restaurants?
7They help me narrow down selections, so I do pay attention to the ratings.
8I'm with Shoneyjoe - I can't afford them anyway, so they really don't help with my daily decision making.
9lol, I agree with Le Luxe. I've only heard of Michelin stars from watching Gordon Ramsay shows. In Aus we have The Age's Good Food Guide which awards chef hats in a similar way, but I don't think it's quite the same level of prestige.
10Have any of you ever eaten at The French Laundry?
11Kia: Although I interviewed Thomas Keller, I have yet to dine at the French Laundry. However, Yum has and she shared her experience with us. You should check it out!
12No. I use Yelp.com to find out about restaurants. I don't really care what the so-called "experts" think about an eatery; I'd rather read reviews from people like me.
13God Michelin arent you huge from going and eating in all these places? and no love for Tom?
14Kia - I've eaten there... it's amazing.
While they aren't really *that* different than Zagat ratings, Michelin isn't swayed by trendiness, etc., so it's more solid on the food and overall experience. I've eaten at a few of them and they've all been standouts.
15What is best about the Michelin Guide is that it does not only include Michelin starred restaurants but also ratings like Bib Gourmand which rate restaurants based on great food for a good value. Michelin also rates restaurants that are "Places With Charm" which doesnt necesarily mean that it has charm, but rather an excellent dining experiance. These ratings are displayed by having 1 or 2 sets of forks and knives.
16But on the contrary, being a Gastronomer, I do believe that Michelin is biased toward french or contemporary french cousine. This is not more evident than when Alain Ducasse won 3 Michelin Stars in 7 months of his new restaurant opening. But of course it makes perfect sense that Michelin would be biased toward french cousine, because, well, they are French!!
Sorry folks the Bib Gourmand is the same thing as the forks and knives rating. The forks and knives rating also varies from 1 to 5, 5 being almost a 1 michelin star restaurant.
17Delighted the Michelin came to town. It has finally seperated the wheat from the chaff and brought with it
a fresh unbiased perspective on whats really excellent , excellent and Just plain old good. The local rating experts
hated this critic coming to town as it showed up a lot local
critics bias toward good but not great restaurants. Forget not that a local critic while must preserve their expert opinion still has to live in this great town and at the same time pick up their wages from the same company that makes money from the restaurants they are writing about.
Personally if I owned a restaurant the only rating I would ever display would be a Michelin , the rest are cheap tacky self appointed imposter's that reek something fishy.
Long Live the Michelin Guide for setting the record straight
18and ripping open the SF foodies cocoon to realistic setting.
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