Michelin Guide through the years: the stars, the scandals and the recipe for success
Founded in 1900, the Michelin Guide grew in popularity despite wars, recessions and a fair amount of scandal. Worshipped by many and despised by a few, this little red book can make the fortune of the tiniest restaurant almost overnight. Let's dive into the lesser-known story of the world's most renowned restaurant guide.
It began in 1900 as a French tire company's marketing gimmick — literally a handbook to get more people driving, so they'd wear out more Michelin tires. Restaurants didn't even get stars until 1926. Today it's the most feared, most gossiped-about institution in fine dining, and Tokyo currently sits on the throne with 160 starred restaurants — Paris trails at around 123, even though it's the guide's hometown. Along the way, the Michelin Guide has collected some genuinely juicy stories.
From the most starred chefs to those who refused to be featured
French chef Joël Robuchon peaked at 32 Michelin stars in 2016, spread across restaurants on three continents — the most anyone has ever held. He died in 2018, and today's closest rival, Alain Ducasse, is still stuck at 18. Not even close.
Then there are the chefs who said no. Marco Pierre White became the youngest three-star chef in the world at 33 — and in 1999 handed all three stars straight back, saying he'd spent years cooking for anonymous inspectors instead of himself. Two decades later, Sébastien Bras asked Michelin to pull his restaurant Le Suquet from the guide entirely, exhausted by the pressure of maintaining three stars his whole family and staff lived under. Michelin actually agreed — a first. Then, two years later, they quietly put Le Suquet back in with two stars, without asking him.
In the Michelin Guide's universe, there was a "cheddargate".
Michelin's most memorable courtroom drama is "Cheddargate." In 2019, chef Marc Veyrat sued the guide after losing a star, insisting inspectors had wrongly detected English cheddar in his soufflé when he'd used local Reblochon, Beaufort and Tomme. He wanted Michelin's internal notes made public — which would have blown the doors off the guide's legendary secrecy. He lost, twice, but the case got closer to Michelin's black box than anyone ever had.
And the black box has leaked before. In 2004, a fired 16-year Michelin inspector, Pascal Rémy, published a tell-all claiming just five inspectors covered all of France, restaurants were visited every 3.5 years instead of annually, and some three-star places weren't visited at all. Michelin denied most of it — but the story stuck, and it's still the guide's biggest credibility scandal. (Not helping its case: a Benelux edition once famously awarded a star to a restaurant — the "Ostend Queen" — before it had even opened.)
The stars have a darker side, too. In 2003, celebrated three-star chef Bernard Loiseau died by suicide amid rumors — which Michelin denied — that his restaurant was about to be downgraded. It remains the reference point every time chefs talk about the psychological weight of the red book, and part of why figures like Bras have since pushed back.
And one very Michelin quirk to close on: Bib Gourmand, the "great food, fair prices" award every budget-conscious diner loves, existed informally since 1955 but wasn't given its own name and category until 1997 — Michelin took over 70 years to officially admit that cheap can be excellent too.
Do you like the world of gastronomy, or do you have a restaurant that would like to be featured in the Michelin Guide? Drop us a line!
Comments