tim's experiment

I am an enthusiastic amateur cook. After many years of managing with a variety of recipe books I discovered a great deal of inspiration on Youtube. Famous chefs here strut their stuff, and this brings us to the matter of the Michelin Guide, or if you pronounce it in French with the adjective after the noun, the Guide Michelin.

This dates back to 1900, when the owners of the Michelin tyre company, in an effort to increase demand for their product, started publishing an annual free guide to petrol stations, garages and hotels. In due course this became a paid-for publication, and developed a speciality in reviewing restaurants, which it still does today. The guide now comes out in the form of a little red book, and grades restaurants in three categories:

One star: “A very good restaurant in its category” (Une très bonne table dans sa catégorie)

Two stars: “Excellent cooking, worth a detour” (Table excellente, mérite un détour)

Three stars: “Exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey” (Une des meilleures tables, vaut le voyage).

The annual appearance of the guide now attracts, at least in France and the UK, the sort of industry and media attention which attends the Oscars. Chefs take very seriously their star status and in at least one case the constant struggle to keep three seems to have led to the suicide of the cook concerned. For a detailed video tour of the scenery there is an hour-long piece of BBC here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f-j1ctaQqw

Let us just say (for we have to get to the local angle soon) that the guide has attracted a certain amount of controversy. Some restaurants have asked not to have stars, either because a star produced a surge of demand which overwhelmed the successful chef, or because it led customers to expect a sort of “fine dining” to which the restaurant did not aspire. Marco Pierre White, who despite his exotic collection of Christian names comes from Yorkshire, tried to give his third star back. Explanation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-xCIstDBaI&t=5s at 44 minutes. Raymond Blanc (who has a whole Youtube channel to himself and deserves it — see https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRaymondBlanc) is quite happy with two. Jamie Oliver, a name to conjure with and the owner of a fleet of successful restaurants, has never had one (though he does have an MBE, and sundry other awards). The identity of the guide’s anonymous inspectors is a closely guarded secret, but one disillusioned former inspector went public with the complaint that some of the things the company claims – for instance that candidate restaurants and existing star-holders are reviewed repeatedly – are not true. Well French people take this stuff seriously.

And not only French people, it seems. A little row has been bubbling along in America about the coming and going of various cities which have had Michelin guides of their own, and then did not have them. It then emerged that to have a Michelin guide published about your city you pay the publisher a fee, which they politely call a commission. You do have to offer a reasonable number of restaurants for them to inspect, but they do not take the initiative. You cough up the money. No money, no guide. In the course of this miniscandal the Michelin people pointed out that “The guides in Seoul, Macau, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Singapore were all commissioned”. Were they indeed?

I don’t know what the people in Seoul, Macau, Bangkok and Singapore think about this, but it seems rather a curious use of Hong Kong’s public money, even allowing that the government has more of it that it knows what to do with. Also I seem to remember that when the Michelin guide to Hong Kong first appeared we were told, by people who should have known better, that this was a tribute to Hong Kong’s status as a culinary capital, an acknowledgement of the extraordinary quality and diversity of our food landscape. No it wasn’t. We just bought it.

According to a local food blogger called e_ting (get it?) he had some suspicions about this and specifically asked the Tourism Board in 2014 if it had any involvement in the genesis of the Hong Kong guide. The Tourism Board’s reply (which would have struck me as suspiciously detailed) said that the Board denied “any lobbying of Michelin to come to HK, any influence over restaurant selection, inspector and restaurant nomination, and rankings in any way”. The possibility that the Tourism Board had financed the whole enterprise was not mentioned. Mr ting now feels with some reason that this was not as illuminating an answer as it should have been, and wonders if – now that Michelin has let the cat out of the bag – we shall hear from the Tourist Board.

Perhaps we shall, Indeed I can practically write their answer now. “Encouraging Michelin coverage a legitimate activity to boost tourism … valuable publicity for Hong Kong … draws attention to a seductive local attraction etc. etc.” Well certainly the Board uses the Michelin material on a generous scale, as for example here: http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/dine-drink/dining-events-awards/michelin-guide-awards/index.jsp

You have to wonder two things, though. One is why, if this was such a good idea, the Tourism Board has been so slow to claim credit for it. The other is whether this is really a practical way of increasing tourist numbers. Hong Kong tourists generally come from a long way away. The more affluent, the further. We have six restaurants which are, apparently, “worth a special journey”. But that means an hour or two driving across the French countryside. Are people really going to fly into Hong Kong for the pleasure of paying spectacular prices for what is, after all, in the end only food?