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Times Online - World:

“Michelin knows just the place for the real gourmand: a building site
By Charles Bremner and Marie Tourres”

This story is fascinating for me because I do know a little about the way Michelin works.

The story is about the guide withdrawing all 50,000 copies of its 2005 Benelux Red Guide because they gave an accolade to a restaurant that seems to be behind in its building work and has not even opened its doors.

The guide said that it wanted to give a helping hand to a new restaurant, that seems to be general for its operating principals, which on the face of it is not a bad thing especially if they know the chef, except that by giving a helping hand to one restaurant they are intentionally or not causing problems for another. This instance show clearly that they decide who to and who not to support on some arbitrary measure that has nothing to do with the food on the plate.

The effects of the guide can be both devastating if you are not amongst the chosen ones, or exhilarating if you are, I know of one restaurant that Michelin decided to honour who quadrupled their business overnight of course draining business from all those other restaurants in the area.

It is almost impossible to describe the pressures this guide causes in 2003 Bernard Loiseau, a celebrity chef, committed suicide in a state of depression, fuelled in part by fear that Michelin was about to remove one of his three stars. That is not an understatement after Christmas each year a chef will start to become nervy and not be able to settle, as the time for publication draws near this intensifies until it is almost impossible to sleep. On the day before publication if you have any contacts in the press you are awaiting their calls to tell you have won or lost gained or not, an accolade.

Because if it falls right you have in essence won the lottery, it is not the accolade, although that is nice, but the press associated with it that affects the business. This can be intense, if this happens to be the big story, I was involved in two big Michelin stories, on the first occasion I got to my restaurant at 9.15 am and there were 21 messages on the answer phone all from the media, frantic calls from film crews heading up the motorway to film the story. On the second I had the pleasant job of phoning a young chef that I know, to tell him he had been awarded a star he had no idea that he even had a chance and was literally dumb struck. I warned him that this was the big story and he should batten down the hatches for the media storm to come, by lunchtime he had five film crews on his doorstep. Yes the effects of Michelin can be dramatic.