Podcast — Ep-8- Indian cuisine and the business of Michelin fine dining!
This podcast deals with the topic of Food. Specifically — Indian/Asian Cuisines and their near absence in the business of fine dining (specifically Michelin star ratings) in the US, Europe and non-Asian world. For this podcast, I will anchor on Indian cuisine purely as a matter of familiarity. Also, I focus on Michelin star ratings, however the point generally applies to how globally fine dining ratings operate.
Over the years, I have discussed this topic in many settings and broadly the discussion has followed a set question and answer format.
What is the issue all about?
Michelin Star rating started in 1926 as an extension of French Michelin Tyre company. Initially it was simply a single star rating of a good restaurant but then it quickly galloped to award 1,2 and 3 star ratings, something they continue to do till today. It started in France and quickly expanded to colonies of imperial France, followed by Belgium and then to many other countries around the world.
As of today, there are a net total of 12 Michelin starred Indian restaurants — 11 of them are Michelin single star and only 1 of them is a Michelin two star restaurant — namely Taj Campton in San Francisco.
So, how many of these Michelin star Indian restaurants are actually in India?
Zero, Zilch, None!
Next Question — Why so low?
Let us see!
Michelin is a French Tyre company and Michelin ratings largely operate in countries where Michelin is a leader in Tyre business in that country.
Moreover, Michelin is a french company and their food appreciation guide has “french” roots to it. The judges are french or french influenced and that has disproportionate impact on rating outcome
Out of 2635 Michelin star restaurants in the world as of 2020, 626 are located inside France + 232 restaurants that represent french cuisine outside of France. An astonishing 33% of restaurants are inspired by French genre.
In addition, Japanese cuisine is closer to french in its presentation, plating and preparation ideals and it shows its impact on the ratings. There are almost 400+ Michelin star rated restaurants just in Japan while there are 79 Japanese cuisine restaurants outside Japan.
Now if you combine Japanese and French cuisine themed restaurants, you are looking at 50% of restaurants out of Michelin overall list.
There are barely 10 Chinese restaurants and just 12 Indian restaurants out of 2635 Michelin rated restaurants.
35% of the world’s population has less than 0.8 % representation on Michelin rating.
May be, French cuisine is the greatest cuisine?
Hmm, that is subjective and answers are rooted in notions of “high culture” — something that defines the aspirational cultural aspects related to food, music, dance, art, fashion etc.
Historically and in the present times, the upper and ruling crust of any society sets the norms of “High culture”. Culture of the rulers is the high culture, what they propagate becomes the mission of the masses, what they appreciate becomes aspirational for the masses. To unpack the high culture aspect of french food, one has to step back into history.
Michelin ratings were born in 1926 in France. Before the second world war, all things french were indeed the high culture of ruling imperialists. Even if they were British or Spaniards, they looked towards French specifically for the nuances of art, cuisine and fashion. This was the context of birth of Michelin ratings and this is what it has reflected, so far. Post war, the European cultural elites continued to define the “high culture” of the west and by extension the world. And that remained true till late 1990s
In the beginning of early 2000s, the power center continued to move away from European/American led world to a world co-lived with the aspirations of Asians i.e. Indians and Chinese predominantly. While Asians historically did aspire for the high culture of the west specifically in the luxury segment, with the rising prosperity they began to travel/settle around the world and gradually started to form a high culture notion of their own, specifically in the area of fine dining or in general high culture cuisine.
What is “high culture” or fine dining for Indian Food?
To an Indian, plating, presentation of the cuisine is secondary. He or She is looking for the three formulations — Zayka, Aroma and Richness. His or her gastronomic influence comes from the richness and diversity of Indian cuisine. Contrast with French notions of fine dining could not be more different.
As an example, Indians are heavy on breakfast and have special cuisines just dedicated for break fast experience. For french, however, breakfast is usually the lightest food. French food is largely based on meats, Indian food has one of the largest diversity in the world of Vegetarian food. French keep their meats medium cooked or even eat raw, Indians will cook thoroughly and will aim for a gravy/spicy experience. French will keep the vegetable in original shape, Indians will go for finely cut vegetables. Indians will go for whole or grounded spices as the fundamental of the dish, while french will use aromatic herbs to add to the experience.
Indian food in fact breaks the almost the most sacrosanct of flavor theory rules of Western cooking. As per a research study conducted recently, Indian cuisine is designed with no matching molecular pairs causing the riot of taste and culinary experience, it is known for.
Ultimately, In my view, an Indian is always looking for the nostalgia of his/her roots, searching for the street, village and town of his childhood in his/her food experience , even if he/she is sitting thousands of miles away.
These are formative deep cultural experiences that are translating into the definition of high food culture for Global Indians, and if I may even Global Chinese. If you have been to China, you can distinctly see how Chinese break the “baked in” ideas of fine dining.
So what happens to the business of “fine dining” and ratings?
In practice, food ideals of a global Indian and a Michelin judge live in two different cultural contexts and it shows. If you pick up the crowdsourced ratings of Indian cuisine in any city on TripAdvisor, you would rarely find a Michelin star rated restaurant on the top list. Top rated Indian fine dining restaurant in New York City is “Indian Accent” while the top Michelin rated Indian restaurant fares below.
Even in London, 6 non-Michelin rated Indian restaurants were rated higher than the first Michelin star restaurant comes in (Ameya)
In general, an Indian finds Indian food in Michelin strongly “Frenchified” to impress the Michelin judge but losing out on that uniquely Indian aspect that is so much desired by the Indian audience.
Long story short, The Michelin ratings system and in general is fundamentally broken for Indian food experience and as far as I know even Chinese food experience.
Clearly a business opportunity exists for a new fine dining standard that caters to a world that is looking for cultures outside of European system.
