I remember watching a video on how Michelin Stars started out as a travel guide brochure for the best restaurants in France as a sort of advertisement for Michelin branded tyres (look at all these restaurants you could go to with Michelin tyres!).

How did the Michelin stars become so sought after by top restaurants and chefs? Was the head of the Michelin tyre company also a renowned food connoisseur or something? What about other tyre companiee, why didn’t they do something similar? Are Michelin Stars still given by the tyre company, or has it been spun off into its own thing?

    • 9point6@lemmy.world
      5·
      4 days ago

      It’s pretty global, anywhere with a good restaurant culture will probably have at least one or two. I believe Tokyo is the city with the most stars for example, I would have assumed it was Paris or somewhere else french before I found that out

      • MCHEVA@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 days ago

        It’s not global, Michelin stars aren’t a thing in Australia atleast. I imagine there’s a lot of places where people don’t get food recs from a tyre company.

        • 9point6@lemmy.world
          2·
          3 days ago

          Oh that’s interesting, you’ve got me curious. I looked into it and some other company has already established a similar system involving “chef hat” ratings apparently. I guess maybe they didn’t want to bother competing with it.

          Apparently Michelin seems to focus on Europe, the Americas and South East Asia. Africa and the rest of Asia seem to be left out, though they seem to be expanding every year (the Philippines got their own guide this year for the first time apparently), so I guess it’s probably just a matter of time before other places are covered.

    • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      21·
      4 days ago

      I’ve eaten in US restaurants that rival restaurants in Paris.

      I’d say the average restaurant in France is definitely better than the average in the US - but this is comparing apples and oranges.

      New Yorkers would actually take offense at this question: they believe they have the best restaurants in the world (I don’t agree, but they have an argument given the great variety of immigrants that settled there since before the US existed).