The Michelin Guide: A Tired Obsession with Perfection

When the name “Michelin” is whispered in the culinary world, chefs, restaurateurs, and foodies alike hold their breath. As founders of the Michelin tire company, the Michelin brothers developed a humble list of the best restaurants to visit while on the road — hoping it would boost the company’s tire sales. 135 years later, Michelin stars are universally known to be the trademark of excellence in the world of fine dining.

The Michelin Guide — an organization that awards up to three stars to restaurants that make a lasting contribution to food culture — is the ultimate accolade that restaurants can achieve. Bestowed onto institutions themselves, chefs have to work hard not only to earn a star for their restaurant, but to maintain it. To do this, chefs cannot get too comfortable. Every item on the menu has to exist in a constant state of evolution and innovation.

This perpetual search for perfection can be exhausting, and many are frustrated with Michelin’s control over the standards of fine dining. Nevertheless, the Michelin Guide retains its reputation for excellence — even one star can put a restaurant on the map. Currently, there are only 145 restaurants in the world that have three stars.

As a result, these restaurants are regarded as the epitome of fine dining — and there is a level of status given to those who eat at these restaurants as well. With individual meals costing hundreds of dollars, if not more, many diners who eat at Michelin Star-awarded restaurants treat the experience like a status symbol. Indirectly, restaurants that have not been awarded Michelin Stars are less prestigious — and thus, in the public’s eye, they are perceived as less committed to quality.

In the United States, the Michelin Guide exists only in certain regions. While it is slowly expanding, there are mixed feelings about the guide’s expansion among up-and-coming chefs. Its presence in a specific area inspires restaurants to open there, creating hotspots of fine dining around the world. However, this leaves locations where the Michelin Guide does not exist less connected to the world’s standards for food culture.

This exclusion may not necessarily be a bad thing. The Michelin Guide’s very specific set of criteria for awarding stars generalizes the fine dining experience, standardizes cuisine and techniques, and essentially makes all three-star restaurants the same — according to Julia Moskin in the New York Times. In many chefs’ quests for the stars, they lose what makes them original; the spark that they once had is manipulated to fit these criteria.

Boston has a strong food scene. It’s not New York or L.A., but it does boast an impressive repertoire of restaurants. Boston is the home of many James Beard Award recipients and dozens of boutique restaurants that follow a local philosophy. Unlike New York and L.A., on the other hand, the Michelin Guide does not yet exist in Boston. However, without the constraints that come with appealing to the Michelin Guide, many chefs may find the freedom to innovate freely and express themselves in different ways.

Yes, there are fewer fine dining establishments in Boston than there are in cities where the Michelin Guide exists, but the city is unforgivingly innovative, expressive, and free from the pressure imposed by the Michelin Guide.

This lack of the Michelin Guide in Boston allows restaurants to thrive. Typically, if a restaurant is awarded a star, its size is increased to balance the increased demand to eat there as well. While these restaurants may not be pilgrimage sites for foodies around the world, they still pursue innovation and quality in the food that they serve.

Even in Cambridge, there is a commitment to excellence among local, boutique restaurants. Michael Pagliarini and Pam Ralston, for example, own both Moëca and Giulia in Cambridge. These two fashionable restaurants maintain an astonishing devotion to their food, and their overarching ambience, quality, and atmosphere draw diners in throughout the year.

Without the looming presence of the Michelin Guide, restaurants like these don’t have to be unforgivingly avant-garde, institutional, or world-famous. They can simply offer a fine dining experience that doesn’t fit the mold created by the Michelin Guide. And, to be honest, it’s refreshing.

—Staff writer Thomas A. Ferro can be reached at thomas.ferro@thecrimson.com.