Are Michelin stars now an economic must, not just a culinary honor?
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
By MEGHAN MCCARRON
Since leading the kitchen as chef de cuisine at Alinea in Chicago in the late 2000s, Dave Beran has had a long history with Michelin, making him an obvious fit for the new Apple TV show “Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars,” which premiered on Oct. 10. Instead of focusing on Beran’s tweezered pursuit of transcendent cuisine, however, his story line puts something much more prosaic center stage: the money.
Specifically, how much money his Santa Monica, California, restaurant, Pasjoli, was bleeding after losing its Michelin star in 2022. In one scene, his chief operating officer, Ann Hsing, tells him the restaurant is in the red, even though they’re charging $65 for a single entree. In another, he says losing a star cost Pasjoli 30% to 40% of its business.
At the end of his episode, Beran decides to pivot Pasjoli away from Michelin and toward being a neighborhood restaurant. “It was becoming a restaurant I frankly couldn’t afford to go to on a regular basis,” Beran said in an interview.
“Knife Edge” follows chefs in regions around the world, including New York, Chicago and California, as they pursue recognition from Michelin during a single awards cycle. The influence of Michelin has been expanding across North America at a punishing time for independent restaurants, in a number of American cities, and slowing growth nationally. Increasingly, winning — and retaining — Michelin stars is one of the few guaranteed paths for restaurants to attract new diners.
“We were the same restaurant the day after we got a star that we were the day before,” said Bryce Gilmore, chef and owner of Barley Swine in Austin, Texas. “But as soon as we got a Michelin star, everything changed.”
A leader in farm-to-table cooking in the city, Gilmore’s tasting menu restaurant had been open since 2010. There were too many slow Thursdays and off Fridays; Gilmore was stressed trying to cut costs on everything from ingredients to the types of paper towels in the bathroom.
In 2024, the Michelin Guide came to Texas, and awarded Barley Swine a star in its inaugural guide. In terms of direct financial benefit, of all the accolades Gilmore has racked up, including being a James Beard finalist several times, “It was not comparable to anything.”
Jesse Burgess, known as the face of the U.K.-based Instagram sensation Topjaw, hosts “Knife Edge,” and said that one of the things that excited him about the show was the chance to bust myths about Michelin.
Burgess has seen chef friends struggle as they fail to receive stars, but he believes the awards’ power derives from the perception that they are stringent but fair. “They’re not a charity. They’re not handing them out.”
A famously secretive organization, Michelin gave “Knife Edge” unprecedented access, including interviews with anonymized inspectors. Burgess said the inspectors only spoke via phone, and then actors were filmed as stand-ins.
But even though he did not meet the inspectors, Burgess did learn a few things about their general profile, including that they are paid. For one, they have to prove they’ve had 1,000 restaurant meals, he said, and Michelin likes employing lawyers as they “have this real vision of black and white. And they’re quite happy not getting emotionally involved.”
He added, “Basically, they don’t want inspectors going in and getting emotionally invested and being like, ‘I don’t think they’re worth a star but they’re really, really sweet.’”
In the United States, Michelin’s recent expansions have been financed by local and state tourism boards. The guide’s unique ability to attract visitors from across the world, and to pack lucky winners’ reservation books, makes it an appealing proposition.
After the 2024 closure of the ambitious tasting menu restaurant Okta in Oregon’s wine country, some local boosters in nearby Portland are advocating for a Michelin guide. The most prominent food destination in the U.S. without Michelin, the city’s tourism market has been experiencing an extended slump.
Some local chefs are concerned Michelin won’t address the city’s deeper problems. Carlo Lamagna of Magna Kusina would love to compete for a star. But not yet. “We have so many underlying issues that throwing Michelin in here is going to be like — pardon my rudeness — throwing whipped cream on a piece of [excrement],” he said, using a more vulgar expression.
Fellow Portland chef Gregory Gourdet, who won a James Beard Award and a flurry of other accolades for his Haitian-inspired fine-dining restaurant Kann, agrees that Portland doesn’t need Michelin. But at Maison Passerelle, his recently opened New York City restaurant that serves French cooking with African and Asian inflections, he is pursuing Michelin-level ambitions, even if he sees flaws in the guide’s approach.
“A lot of cultures and cuisines are severely underrepresented at a Michelin level,” he said. “For me, someone who’s cooking the food of the diaspora, that inspires me to possibly get a star in New York.”
Gourdet believes Michelin has also become more important to ambitious chefs as other opportunities have dried up. “A way to make your mark for a long time was: I need to be on TV, I need to be on competitions or judging,” he said. But he says there are fewer of those opportunities these days. “Maybe as that’s faded, chefs are going back into their kitchens.”
Mary Attea, the chef of Musket Room in New York, is also featured on “Knife Edge,” which depicts her quest to retain a star for the restaurant while expanding to two more projects (spoiler: she succeeds). The restaurant group has focused on opening restaurants without the bells and whistles Michelin privileges, and Attea describes Michelin as only “one part” of making a restaurant successful. But it would be more vital to a more high-end restaurant.
“The creative part of the brain and ambitious part of the brain, the idea of a 12-seat tasting counter seems fun and a cool way to express myself,” she said. “I do fantasize about that.”
Since filming “Knife Edge,” Beran has gone on another loop of his “roller coaster” with Michelin, when his new tasting menu restaurant, Seline, failed to win a star in June.
Of stars, Beran said, “The times we’re not trying to get one, we do. When I say it’s the only thing that matters, we don’t.”
And if Seline doesn’t get a star next year, would it have to close? “Oh yeah, probably,” he said.
Comments