5 ms·
Michelin Star restaurants, in my 6 or 7 different experiences, are as much about the title as the food. Indeed the service is more formal, to the point of bein
by blunte 5y ago
Michelin Star restaurants, in my 6 or 7 different experiences, are as much about the title as the food. Indeed the service is more formal, to the point of being a bit ridiculous in some cases. But the food itself was not so much more special than a really good unknown restaurant.
It's really a bit silly, a status symbol that allows pomp and circumstance to satisfy people who need something "special" to talk about.
I have had food from street vendors and family restaurants that blew my mind - unique flavors and textures that I had never experienced before, and which were so magnificently balanced that they surpassed any expensive meal I ever had. And I've had expensive meals which were truly excellent. But my few MS experiences were not markedly better than my best other experiences.
It reminds me of the studies of wines and wine tasting. People just like to believe they're getting something special. And if you give it a special award, charge more, and have 4 servers per table, the guests love it.
- ska 5y ago> But my few MS experiences were not markedly better than my best other experiences. This is just as you would expect, given sufficient samples, from any classification process that really doesn't want false positives but isn't too concerned about false negatives.
- satellite2 5y agoPerfectly on point. I feel the question that might have missed in this interview is what kind of coverage do they manage yearly. And by region. I expect France should comme much closer to 100% than say, any south Asian country.
- ska 5y agoI think their evaluation method and need for repeat visits means they can't have very good coverage anywhere (there are what, 20-30k in NYC alone?). I doubt any region/city has more than a handful of reviewers. If they were uniformly sampling this would be a disaster, but presumably they have a (probably opaque) system for funnelling down to a manageable number.
- tayo42 5y ago> have had food from street vendors and family restaurants that blew my mind Do you have some examples to share?
- blunte 5y agoI'm trying desperately to remember specifics. I love to travel, and food is my #1 or #2 focus when I travel. So I try a lot :). Places and be hit or miss, or at least vary in experience over time or depending upon various factors. But here are some of the ones I can think of, in no particular order. desmaakvanafrika.nl in Rotterdam, NL kuarestaurant.nl in The Hague, NL www.die-kueche-bamberg.de in Bamberg, DE Aum Vegitarian in Chiang Mai, Thailand - https://g.page/AumVegetarianRestaurant?share https://g.page/AumVegetarianRestaurant?share Lots of street vendors in Chiang Mai. Try a bit of everything, as it's very cheap and often very nice. Elevation Pizza in Fraser, CO, US - www.elevationpizzaco.com It doesn't matter that I list places though. If you read reviews or talk to locals, and you try a lot of places, you will find so many good restaurants... usually... unless you're in Netherlands where most people don't care about food, in which case you have to work harder to find the good ones ;)
- tayo42 5y agothanks, im hoping to get to thailand soon, one of my lockdown covid hobbies was learning thai cooking
- bserge 5y agoFunny how they all have websites. Best food I've had was from small places that seem to survive on foot traffic lol Could be that the bigger they get, the more people they try to please so the food is kinda less unique.
- arp242 5y agoNot the previous poster, but probably the best meal I ever had was in Ísafjörður, a small fishing village in the north of Iceland. A wife-and-husband team does the cooking, their son is the server. It serves traditional Icelandic fish dishes in an unassuming old wooden hut (previously used to store manure, or so they told me) on long tables/benches. Everything about it looks about as unpretentious and plain as you can imagine, but it's amazing if you enjoy fish.
- lmm 5y agoI've had great meals at places that weren't in the Guide. But I've never had a bad meal at a restaurant that was in the Guide. Given that there are far more restaurants in the world than one person could visit in a lifetime, that makes the Guide pretty useful.