Restaurant Guides and Rankings: Are We Overfed?
With contributions from Alice Huang.
Picking off from the shores of Zhuhai, I continue to ponder about the question of why my friends ask me for where to eat when there is a plethora of easily accessible, authoritative restaurant guides just a click away.
I have a feeling I am getting a glimpse of a future in which these guides might have to change substantially to meet new needs in order to stay relevant. But before looking forward, let’s look back at how restaurant guides came about, and the effect they have had on the restaurant industry and the customer.
The world’s first
The first ever restaurant guide was invented over 100 years ago by two brothers, André and Edouard Michelin, who wanted to sell more car tyres.
The brothers’ idea was to publish a guide with useful information for the motorists as a marketing tool to help them during their travel. The logic was the more often motorists travel, the more they will have to change their tyres. With this simple but ingenious thought, the MICHELIN Guide was born.
The first edition of the guide which came out in 1900 covered France and listed information such as how to change a tyre, the location of petrol filling stations and hotels.
The first stars were awarded to restaurants in 1926, and the system extended to one, two or three stars in 1931. The guide has since grown into one of the most pre-eminent and influential restaurant guides in the world, with over 28 titles covering over 25 countries.
It is the gold standard for those who regard food as more than just lining the stomach but an experience to savour, and it is for some restaurant owners and chefs a lifetime pursuit and achievement to be considered and included in the guide.
Controversy
Since the birth of the MICHELIN Guide, countless guides and rankings have been created. Each of them tries to appeal and respond to different needs and habits, thanks to the vastly different sets of criteria and assessment methodologies.
Critics say these guides are more confusing than helpful and they do nothing but make money with their accompanying advertising. Some award winners say being awarded causes such long queues to their restaurants that they have trouble coping, some chefs have even returned their stars to the MICHELIN Guide. Just recently, the famous Sébastien Bras, chef owner and heir of three generations of chefs asked the MICHELIN Guide to take his three-star restaurant, Le Suquet, out of their future selections.
But in my view, it would be wrong to think that guides and ratings are much to do about nothing and have little value beyond the razzle dazzle. Quite the contrary, I think they have been invaluable to the industry and to diners in many ways, and here, I highlight three.
Spurring industry growth
At their most fundamental, rankings, ratings, mentions and inclusions are all a form of recognition.
They recognise excellent work, high standards, and unwavering commitment and cast light on an industry in which people who work in it and become successful, are hardworking, dedicated and passionate.
This kind of recognition entices today’s young people to join the industry, and some individuals with bachelor or master degrees even give up a potentially lucrative career in finance to start and run restaurants or become chefs.
Much like what the Oscar Awards has done for the film industry, where people flock to watch the award winners, restaurant guides and rankings have served to bring customers into restaurants and often times attracting those travelling from afar to eat at restaurants in remote places.
For example, French chef Paul Pairet’s frequently and highly ranked restaurants, Ultraviolet and Mr & Mrs Bund in Shanghai are always fully booked and Ultraviolet has a waiting list of several months long. Both restaurants are equally famous in China and internationally.
And I ask myself, how much has the World 50 Best Restaurants contributed to the fame of Noma in Denmark or El Bulli in Spain and the latest intrigue with South American cuisine?
Relatedly, I wonder if Le Suquet would be so well known internationally if Mr Bras’s father was not awarded the ultimate three-star from Michelin?
For the record, Le Suquet is located in a beautiful but remote region of France, and we could legitimately doubt that many would have heard about it let alone attract a popular following.
And who knows if the Bras would have had the opportunity to open a branch in Hokkaido, Japan were it not because restaurant guides brought curious and sophisticated diners from places as distant as Japan?
Elevation and extension of a profession
Apart from bringing the industry to the fore of people’s mind, restaurant guides and rankings have also lifted the status of chefs and restaurants owners to celebrity level.
For instance, Taiwanese chef André Chiang was first noticed and acclaimed in 2013 by the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants for his restaurant, André in Singapore. In 2016, the restaurant was confirmed with two MICHELIN stars. Mr Chiang, who handed back his stars last year and recently closed André, is now rising to the status of an internationally renowned chef from Asia, standing him in good stead as he kicks off new food ventures in Taipei and Chengdu.
More interestingly, celebrity status has allowed chefs to go beyond cooking.
Fame has taken some chefs out of the kitchen to campaign for meaningful causes, like the late Paul Bocuse who worked tirelessly to elevate the social status of chefs, Massimo Bottura who transforms leftover food into delicious meals in an effort to fight against food waste and hunger, and Chefs for a Cause in Singapore, led by 12 local chefs, which helps raise funds for education for children with special needs.
In other words, guides and ranking systems have given chefs position and vested in them power as renowned stars to act as ambassadors for their countries, pioneers of new practises, and active cause champions.
An educated public
As guides and ratings systems set the bar of what excellence is, consumers soon learn by the criteria these guides use, the standard by which good food, good service, good experience and so on should be measured.
With time, the general public has become more discerning, which in turn has encouraged a healthy competition in the industry for restaurants to stay atop its game and to constantly innovate in order to meet new and sophisticated demands.
A more sophisticated palate among the general public has the effect of stirring up a more vibrant dining scene in cities.
Take London, a city where one could not have placed on the global map of gastronomy 20 years ago is now absolutely one of the top food destinations. Today, London’s food scene is worldly, fascinating and imaginative. Classic ingredients, established cuisines and authentic cooking is widely accessible as is exotic ingredients, new cuisines and experimental cooking.
Explosion of information
In the short course of writing this piece, the 2018 restaurant rating issued by Opinionated About Dining was released and is gaining much momentum on China’s social media, WeChat, prompting me to find out how many restaurant guides and rankings now exist around the globe.
By my count, it is more than 550.
With this amount of information available, it is not a surprise that people are beginning to find it all mind-numbing, even paralysing — and I dare even say that the world of guides and rankings is at risk of commoditising itself to such a point that it could become irrelevant.
In fact, one friend, a consummate leisure and business traveller, told me she makes a point of not referring to any guides or rankings. I asked her how then does she go about finding good food in a new city she is visiting? She said she would ask a friend. I was puzzled and told her that no one would know about good food everywhere. She looked at me with her piercing eyes and said: “Florent, I am not looking for good food, I am looking for food that a friend who knows me think I would like.”
Where does the future lie?
My friend might be slightly extreme, but she is definitely not alone. With the rise of more guides and rankings, and in different guises — such as instagrammers, foodie bloggers professional and layman alike, the future is set to be more fragmented, and more mind-numbing for the users. I suspect we might see a return in favour of influential food critics, known for their biases (not objectivity) and appreciated for their opinionated (not scientific) advice?
In my next article, I will discuss what such an outlook would mean to the business of traditional restaurant guides and rankings and how they might avoid becoming irrelevant. I will also attempt to answer the question why my friends prefer to consult someone they know than to click on a link or an app for an answer.
In the meantime, do you think that guides and rankings are still useful in guiding your dining choices? Or, like my friend, have you all but given up on guides and just rely on others for advice? I am all ears.
