Stars and Inspectors

The Michelin Guide

Course 1 · Chapter 3 · The Stars and the Inspectors

A star is a judgement made by people the public cannot name, using a method that the guide describes only in general terms. This chapter sets out what the guide says its stars measure, how it says its inspectors work, what is known and what is not, how the secrecy has been questioned, and how other ways of rating restaurants compare. It describes the system as the guide presents it, flags where independent evidence is thin, and does not rate any restaurant. Names, dates and figures are from general knowledge and flagged "check".

What a Star Is Said to Measure

The five criteria

The guide has said that the inspectors judge five things on the plate: the quality of the ingredients, the mastery of cooking technique and flavour, the harmony of flavours, the personality of the chef as expressed in the cuisine, and consistency over time and across the menu (check the current wording).

What is left out

The guide says that stars are not awarded for the decor, the service, the comfort or the price. Those are shown separately by the knives-and-forks symbols and by the text (Chapter 1). A star therefore rates one aspect of a restaurant.

The restaurant, not the chef

A star belongs in principle to the restaurant and its kitchen, not to a person. When a chef leaves, the restaurant may keep or lose its star, depending on what the next visit finds (check). Chefs speak of "their" stars all the same.

A judgement with no published scoring The guide does not publish marks, scoring sheets or the reasons for a decision. Where a rival such as Gault & Millau gives a mark out of 20 (Chapter 4), Michelin gives a symbol and a few lines. This makes the stars easy to understand and hard to challenge. Everything below about how the inspectors work comes from Michelin's own statements, from interviews with people who have worked or dealt with it, and from a small number of books (check).

How Inspection Is Said to Work

Employees. The inspectors are salaried staff of Michelin, many with a background in hotel and restaurant management, who work full-time on the guide. The company has not published an exact number, and figures of around a hundred worldwide are sometimes given (check).
Anonymity. Inspectors are said to book under other names, to pay their bills in full and to dine without announcing who they are. The guide presents this as essential to a fair judgement, since the restaurant cannot prepare a special meal.
Repeat visits. A restaurant is said to be visited several times, by more than one inspector, before it is awarded or loses a star, to test consistency (check).
Revealing themselves. The guide has said that an inspector may identify themself after a meal to ask to see the kitchen or to ask questions, so strict anonymity does not apply to every visit (check).
The decision. Awards are decided by discussion among inspectors and editors, and a third star is said to need agreement at a senior level of the guide (check).
The announcement. The new edition is announced once a year at a ceremony or press event, and restaurants often learn their results only then or shortly before (check).

What Is Known and What Is Not

Question (check each)	State of the evidence
How many restaurants do inspectors visit?	Not published. The guide covers a large number of places each year, and the number of visits per restaurant is not known.
Are inspectors always anonymous?	Claimed by the guide, with the exception noted above. Chefs and staff say that they can often recognise inspectors, and the claim is hard to test (Exercise 2).
Do inspectors pay their bills?	Stated by the guide. It cannot be checked from outside.
Why was a restaurant promoted or demoted?	Not published. The restaurant can ask, but the guide does not give detailed reasons in public.
Can a restaurant appeal?	There is no formal public appeal, though restaurants can ask for a review of a decision (check).
Is the process consistent across countries?	The guide says it applies the same criteria everywhere. Independent tests of this are rare and disputed (Chapter 6).

A former French inspector published a memoir in 2004 criticising how the guide worked and was dismissed, and Michelin disputed his claims (check). It is one of the few insider accounts, and should be read, like the company's statements, as an interested account.

Rival Ways of Rating

System (check each)	Method
Michelin	Anonymous salaried inspectors; stars and symbols; secret process.
Gault & Millau	French guide founded in 1969; marks out of 20 and chef's hats (toques); named critics with a more open and opinionated style (check).
The Good Food Guide (UK)	Based on reports from readers, checked by inspectors, in the British guide begun in 1951 (check).
Online review sites	Open to everyone; large numbers of opinions; hard to verify and open to manipulation.
Critics' columns	A named writer's view, in a newspaper or magazine; personal and open to challenge.

Researchers have studied how chefs respond to ratings and how French cooking changed under the influence of critics and guides. A well-known academic article of 2003 on nouvelle cuisine as a movement among French chefs is an example (check). It shows that the guide's influence is a topic for serious research as well as for gossip.

A British comparison The British guide most often compared with Michelin is the Good Food Guide, which relies on readers' reports, and the AA gives rosettes through its own inspectors (check). In the 1950s the Hungarian-born writer Egon Ronay published a British guide with inspectors, whose aim was to challenge the poor standard of British restaurants (check). In Scotland, the newspapers' restaurant critics and the guides have followed Edinburgh's rise as a restaurant city. Edinburgh's first Michelin stars date from the 2000s, a late arrival compared with Lyon or Paris (check).

Check the details The guide's statements about its inspectors are a company's account of itself. The number of inspectors, the number of visits and the decision process are not independently verified, and former employees' accounts are contested. Check any claim here against the guide's current pages and independent journalism, and say whose account you are using.

Exercises

Exercise 1

List the five criteria, give an example of what each could mean on a plate, and say two things a diner might care about that the criteria leave out.

→ Solution

Exercise 2

Test the claim "Michelin inspectors are always anonymous" with the six questions.

→ Solution

Exercise 3

Compare inspector-based and reader-based rating systems in a short table (strengths, weaknesses, who can check them) and say which you would trust for which purpose.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

Criteria: ingredients, technique and flavour, harmony, the chef's personality, consistency (check)
Method: salaried, anonymous inspectors; repeat visits; a collective decision
Limits: no published scores or reasons; claims cannot be checked from outside
Rivals: Gault & Millau, the Good Food Guide, online reviews