Life is unfair — and then there’s the Michelin 2024 guide to New York City restaurants.
If MAGA-believers and far-left progressives could agree on banning one book, it should be the tire company’s red-jacketed travesty of culinary justice.
Twenty years after Michelin invaded the Big Apple with its ridiculously error-filled first edition, the publication remains influential enough to make or break a restaurant among high-spending foreign visitors – but not against anyone. There is no accountability.
Unlike critics who put their names on their opinions, Michelin fields anonymous “inspectors” who may or may not have been to the places they wish to judge. Their identity and how many trips they make and when they make them is a closely guarded secret.
Michelin’s international director, Paris-based Guendel Poulenc, fouled told Eater.com This week, “We do not share demographics or statistics [regarding inspectors] Because anonymity is the key to freedom.”
Of course, anonymity is also important for catching someone on an alley.
There is a lot of publicity surrounding the findings of the new book, announced on Monday. Jungsik is New York’s first new three-star restaurant in twelve years! Wow!
But very few people seem to have read the rest of the list, which makes it even more inaccessible than previous editions and makes the silly social media posts surprising by comparison.
Michelin awarded stars to at least fourteen Japanese and eleven Korean venues, many of them small counters with prices starting at $200. But only two Italian eateries received stars – Torrisi and Rezzadora each got one.
It’s in a city full of great modern and traditional Italian restaurants, including Maria’s, Il Gattopardo, Locanda Verde, Lilia and Roberto’s.
To put it another way: Japanese and Korean restaurants got a total of 36 stars and Italians got a total of two stars. Could there possibly be any bias here?
We have enjoyed a revolution in the great Chinese language, from high-end hutongs to a dozen wonderful Szechuan and Fukiennese places of the 30s in East and West to small Cantonese joints on Mott Street – all from chopped liver to Michelin till.
In a city with three large, distinct Chinatowns, Michelin gave a star to exactly one Chinese restaurant – Yingtao on Ninth Avenue, which is only “Chinese inspired” according to its website.
Tatiana is clearly and ignominiously missing from the ranks of star-holders. Bronx-founded Kwame Onwuachi’s Nigerian-influenced spot in Lincoln Center has been declared one of New York City’s greatest restaurants by the New York Post, The New York Times, and The New Yorker in rare agreement. It has received praise from the James Beard Foundation, Conde Nast Traveler, TimeOut New York, and Forbes, which It’s been called “the future of fine dining.”
But apparently, the tire company’s invisible judge knows a lot more about Nigerian-style short rib pastrami suya than us Big Apple ignoramuses.
Michelin tires slammed into Restaurant Daniel, one of the country’s most sophisticated modern-French restaurants, causing it to drop from two stars to one. Have eaten there twice in the last year. I can attest that this is a three-star place on every level and its high prices are worth it.
This disagreement will not matter to Daniels’ legions of fans in New York. But the star haircut could hurt it because many of Europe’s big spenders still consider the “Red Book” as gospel. Michelin’s deadly grip on French attitudes was particularly reflected in the suicides of two chefs in recent decades. One feared that its three-star rating would be reduced (but it did not), while the other lost its three-star rating.
Michelin’s three-star roster includes only five NYC restaurants, among them Per Se. Pete Wells of The Times famously downgraded it from four stars to two in 2016. The beatdown was so inspiring that chef Thomas Keller bought an ad in which he said, “We’re sorry we let you down.”
But it seems like things haven’t changed much. Last week, The Times’ interim critic Melissa Clark declared tuiles containing salmon morsels “as thick and thick as an oatmeal cookie” with a “grainy” custard. A signature oyster dish had “the briny texture of the tapioca pudding served at my great-aunt’s nursing home” and most of his meals were “that sticky, starchy thing.”
New Yorkers know that we have the largest restaurant collection in the world. We don’t need advice from a French tire company. They must hit the road before Michelin does them any more harm.
