You have probably seen the famed Michelin stars that are used to rate the quality of restaurants and other entertainment venues here and there, but what do they really mean, and where do they come from? Let’s find out, shall we? In the year 1900 the French Michelin tyre company published the first in a very long series of guidebooks that continue on to this very day, the Michelin Guides. At that time the automobile was still new, with only 3,000 cars out and about on French roads.
The tyre company’s founders, Édouard and André Michelin hatched a plan to increase that number, and thus increase the number of tyres they could sell! They created the Michelin Guide and gave away all of the first edition’s 35,000 copies for free to the existing motorists and potential car purchasers of France. The guide included useful info for motorists like the locations of petrol stations, car repair shops, and hotels and restaurants.
The guides proved popular, and editions were written for nearby countries, beginning with the 1904 Michelin Guide to Belgium, soon followed by guides to other parts of Europe as well as North Africa. Now there are guides for countries spanning the globe on all of the inhabited continents! if you want to find a 2 Michelin star restaurant in Singapore it’s easy, the guidebook will have it listed, and much more! The restaurant stars have become particularly well-known and revered, with food aficionados counting on the system to reveal the very best cuisine on offer!
The Michelin Guide can award up to three Michelin stars to a small number of the world’s highest-quality restaurants. The stars awarded can actually be as infamous as they are famous, while the gaining of a star is cause for great celebration, the loss of one or more stars can spell disaster for the unfortunate restaurant’s ongoing success!
So, how does the star system actually work? Michelin secretly sends out inspectors, expert gourmets who are carefully trained to understand the complex nuances of fine foods and recognize when the cuisine they are testing is of the highest quality, or not! The identity of these inspectors is a closely guarded secret, they are advised to reveal themselves to no one, even immediate family members if possible! The position is strictly anonymous, and the inspectors never, ever speak to journalists, in fact even most of the company’s top officials don’t know who they are, such are the lengths taken to guarantee that they are influenced by nothing but the honesty of their own taste buds!
In order to maintain its unwavering reputation for utter neutrality, Michelin has a strict policy of paying for all of their Inspectors’ meals and expenses, there is never any compensation whatsoever from the restaurant that is undergoing review. At the end of each year, the inspectors make their reports. The rankings are as follows:
1 star – “High-quality cooking, worth a stop”
2 stars – “Excellent cooking, worth a detour”
3 stars – “Exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey”
So, wherever you are, be it Thailand or Tanzania, you can look for the Michelin star to guide you to the very best dining to be found there!