Does the Star Rating System Still Matter?

[VegasGuinness]

I am a culinary student writing a paper looking for opinions on the Michelin and Mobil Star Rating System. Does this system still "matter"? Is it a fair system or is it governed by a handful of individuals with an agenda? Are there checks and balances? I have no opinion one way or the other. I am looking for all viewpoints. Thank you in advance.

[bbally]

It can be used in your marketing strategy. But most people realize that it is a game. So with Michelin you are being compared to an old line of service. Anything new or inventive is discounted as it does not follow the ancient fine dining tradition.

The best is the newer local reviews online and in real time. Takes about ten minutes of going through them to figure out who knows what is up with food and who just always has their panties in a wad! Once you can search and drop off the panty wad crowd you can get a pretty good idea of where to go.

But is still is an aspect of marketing and probably will be for a while longer.

[lebelage]

A critic is nothing more than a customer with an audience and an agenda.

[KITDOG]

A critic is nothing more than a customer with an audience and an agenda.

Now THAT is a classic definition!

[mark1]

Michelin has much less credibility since last year's 'scandal', where a resto was rated without inspection and other irregularities, but it's still a force. Mobile and Zagat and any other books, range from a reasonable point of reference where you must be adept at reading between the lines, to a popularity contest a la Zagat.
And more on critics, allegedly attributed to Sibelius, "Nobody ever erected a statue to a critic"!

[bohica]

Obviously the rating system still has an effect on some chefs. Remember the one who killed himself because Michelin took away a star from his place?

[Chef Pietro]

Food Critics are like Movie Critics - it is their subjective view.
How many good films are trashed by the movie critic. We watch movies to entertain us, the critics always must read more into the film than what we care about. The same with the food critics. The real test of success is with the customers. They will sing your praise for you.

We all like to have publicity and of course a feeling of accomplishment and success but, it should not only come from the press but thru the bottom line as well.

Bottom line - customer satisfaction and profit.

I would rather be accepted by my peers. We are the "Band of Brothers" that work in the trenches and give our customers the best we can.

[RedBeansNRice]

Michelin Guide, Zurban Guide, La Routarde Guide, Maîtres Cuisiniers de France Guide, Carnet Gourmand-Tables Remarques, Zagats, AAA, Frommers, Foudars, Mobil, etc, all guides. I hear that the guide system is outdated, and Bbally has some good points. Chef Joel Rouebourn, completly butchered his name, his apprenti who has a 1 star restaurant of his own says when he, Joel, would gets his guide in the mail, with the stars he got he tosses it in the trash. He says he does not work for stars, which is funny because any of his restaurantts proudly display that ranking at the front of the door before you enter. When I was on vacation anywhere in the states in a town I didn't know I did one of 2 two things, if I had time to wander I did, and found a place, if I did not I would like into the guide from AAA or whatever ever travel guide I had purchased, an hour or two in advance, and gave it a try. In France, restaurants of any qaulity, and that does not mean necessarily stuffy places, rely on the guides to grow their businesses. In the US you have the crowd of people called Foodies, in France that scope of people is much larger. One of the things that inspired me to come over here, other then I had too, was the french people's pre occupation for finding that next great dining experience. You have no idea how many times I have been out, way out, in the country, where man has forgotten this land, and there is nothing but abandoned old crumbling stone farms etc. And here I am in the back of a car on my way, to one of thee most phenominal meals I will have in my life, seriously in the middle of nowhere. How do these people find these places? Guides. French follow guides and word of mouth. But you don't set up 40 miles from the nearest gas station, and offer great food and service, with out some sort of life line. I lived in Michigan, and while there are some good places scattered out in the rural parts of the state, a much higher concentration of the great ones are in the bigger towns. Where it's not the case here.

On the other side I worked at a place in Bagnolet, next to Paris, that was the opposite of stuffy fine dining, but we were featured in La Routarde and Zurban, and we had atleast 30 percent of our business from La Routarde, and after the Zurban article was written in their Zurban Best of Paris Guide, a 40 percent increase. And no, we didn't advertise in Zurban either. Every night some one came into anywhere I have worked here, there were tables that were there because of guides. I am not arguing anything about the star rated system specifically, but it would allow restaranteurs to raise their prices as stars increase.

I remember seeing something on CNN not too long ago about Zagats and Michelin, as Michelin for the first time was in New York. And it was funny how they only rated french fine dining restaurants as the best in New York, jaded, NOoooooo.

By the way that Chef that committed suicide, he didn't kill himself because he actually lost a star, he did it because he thought he was on the verge of losing one, he hadn't actually lost it. But this guy was a total fanatic. He was more interested in the prestige of the stars, then customers or anything else. He also suffered from severe depression, thought his food had turned to crap. Etc.

Everyone says it's about the customers, not the stars. But everyone can agree if you get any stars, you are about to get paid.

[Derek Cooks]

No guide, or critic, means anything to me until I find one who's taste and criticsm agrees with my own. I have a friend who raves about food at such-and-such a place - we know to avoid it like the plagues because these people have no taste at all. Other people recommend a place, I can't wait to get there.

Ditto movie critics. Or anyone. One man's caviar is another's overly-salty-dirty-socks.

Guides have a hard time here in the U.S. because we, as a whole, are pretty bland eaters. Food is a function of hunger, not an affair to be remembered and savored.

My favorite guides and critics? The average policeman on the street. Trust me on this. Stop a cop and ask them where to go to get "X" meal. Never been wrong yet.

And yes, chef Bernard Loiseau did not kill himself over a star. Long history of bi-polar/depression and his business was close to failure.

[mark1]

Re "To avoid it like the plague"
LOL-I have a very very good friend like that, who has great taste with anything but restaurants! We're now at the point where we 'never' take his suggestion when we are all going to dinner and have had to get increasingly creative as to why we should go somewhere else!

[L.Quinn]

Read "Burgandy Stars" if you can get it...it is a bio on Bernard Loiseau and has a good section about the history of Michelin Stars...

"Anything new or inventive is discounted"

I don't think that is fair....isn't what Thomas Keller doing at french laundry (one of his two 3 star restaurants) a little bit new or at the very least inventive?

L

[lobstergun1]

The chef who killed himself was named Bernard Loiseau, and he never actually lost a star. There were rumors about him perhaps losing one, but Redbeans is right, he was a fanatic, and he suffered from severe bi-polar disorder.
I would say that the Michelin system matters more in Europe than it does in the states. In San Francisco a restaurant named La Folie recieved one star, and the chef, Roland Passot was very upset when interviewed by the Chronicle. I will be working in a place this spring that "only" recieved one star, but you will never hear the Chef mention it, one way or the other.
And if I remember correctly, there was some controversy about Michelin awarding stars to restaurants they admitedly never inspected in New York.