Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant. Jerry's out there lurking
Speaker 1: like an Internet weirdo, and this is stuff you should know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got a question for you. Okay, have you ever
Speaker 1: been to a Michelin starred restaurant? Yes, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I have or not. Surely you have, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I've never sought one out, sure, but I
Speaker 1: may have accidentally done it. Uh, yeah, it's possible. Um,
Speaker 1: there's there's a decent there's enough one star restaurants out
Speaker 1: there that that is entirely possible. You've been to one
Speaker 1: one star? Um? Actually, I've been to a three three
Speaker 1: starred restaurant once. Yes. Well it was for a very
Speaker 1: special occasions in my engagement. UM. I contacted our friend Hodgeman,
Speaker 1: who was kind enough to contact his friend Adam Sacks,
Speaker 1: who was a restaurant critic, UM, who pulled some strings
Speaker 1: to get me reservations at Danielle in New York City.
Speaker 1: And it was a three star restaurant. It was amazing.
Speaker 1: It was just totally amazing. Yeah, I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: I went to Atlanta's not on and you'll you know,
Speaker 1: we'll go over all this in this episode, but Atlanta
Speaker 1: is not covered under the Michelin Guide, but plains why
Speaker 1: back Inalia doesn't have a star. Yeah, back Inalia or
Speaker 1: Staple House, I could see having a star. I haven't
Speaker 1: been there. Staple Houses the best meal I've ever had
Speaker 1: in my life. What kind of food. It's a tasting menu. Um,
Speaker 1: just like wings, mostly wings, ribs, other things you can taste.
Speaker 1: This sounds pretty good. Uh, it's very renowned Uh in
Speaker 1: Atlanta and around the world, Like people fly to Atlanta
Speaker 1: to go to Stable House. It's that good, and it's
Speaker 1: it's really something else. It's the best meal I've ever had.
Speaker 1: And from the food to the service and the ambiance,
Speaker 1: it was just It's a five star night, regardless of
Speaker 1: what Michelin says. That's what my Yelp review is. But
Speaker 1: doesn't that say everything about Michelin That the highest honor
Speaker 1: you can get his three stars. It's like everybody else
Speaker 1: is going with four or five. Michelin's like three tops,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, But as as you'll see, this was
Speaker 1: their star rating came out long before the Internet existed exactly.
Speaker 1: Um and so you you might be like, Michelin, I've
Speaker 1: never heard of that guy. But there's a tire company
Speaker 1: called Michelan out there, and we are here to tell
Speaker 1: you that they are one and the same company. That
Speaker 1: the tire manufacturer is also the publisher of the world's
Speaker 1: most renowned restaurant guide of all time. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: once we explain it, it's like it's one of those
Speaker 1: things that at the same time you say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: now I guess it makes sense, but also still very weird.
Speaker 1: It is, but it is part of this guid Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's tire cartoon, tire man. If you're like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: this is pretty haughty stuff. No, one of their symbols
Speaker 1: is the Michelin man licking his lips and making the
Speaker 1: okay symbol. So let's all maintain a little bit of
Speaker 1: perspective here, Okay. Yeah, absolutely so. Um So with the
Speaker 1: with the the connection to the tired company, I think
Speaker 1: it's a pretty satisfying explanation. But all the way back
Speaker 1: in what was it the nineteenth century, for sure, I
Speaker 1: believe eight nine, um Andre and Eduard Michelin started making
Speaker 1: tires and this is you know, they're making bicycle time
Speaker 1: tis I believe at first, Um, but they ended up
Speaker 1: making tires for just about everything, including trains. I did
Speaker 1: not know that there were tires for trains, but rubber
Speaker 1: tires for trains. UM just had no idea that that
Speaker 1: ever existed. Maybe it's one of those things where they
Speaker 1: tried it and it failed spectacularly, but it's still worth remarking.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're still around or not, but
Speaker 1: these guys started making tires at a really good time
Speaker 1: because UM, around that time, Uh, in addition to bikes,
Speaker 1: you also started to need tires for your car, and
Speaker 1: the Michelin brothers were there for it. Apparently France was
Speaker 1: like one of the early hot spots of um, the
Speaker 1: auto manufacturing world around the turn of the last century. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they built more cars than anyone else between eighteen ninety
Speaker 1: and sort of the mid to late nineteen forties, and
Speaker 1: they sold a ton of tires, and um, the Michelin
Speaker 1: man himself debuted in eight which is pretty remar parkable,
Speaker 1: and there was I think, uh, I think it was
Speaker 1: Dave Ru's right, Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, Dave can
Speaker 1: point you and if you're in a place where you
Speaker 1: can look this up on the internet. Um, just type
Speaker 1: in bibendum b I b E N d U M,
Speaker 1: which was the original name of the Michelin Man, which
Speaker 1: comes from a Latin toast attributed to Horace uh Nun's sbendum.
Speaker 1: Now is the time to drink and just look up
Speaker 1: the poster. Type in bibendum poster and you'll see what
Speaker 1: is exactly a very creepy poster of an early Michelin
Speaker 1: entire man. It's um it is very creepy and sort
Speaker 1: of it is it's like, what is wrong with all
Speaker 1: the people at the table. There's something terribly wrong with everybody.
Speaker 1: But apparently be Bendam is still his name in Europe,
Speaker 1: or Bibbs affectionately. But um so the be bendum debuted
Speaker 1: a little actually before the time of the guide. The
Speaker 1: guide for made its appearance in nineteen hundred. And the
Speaker 1: reason why the guide ever existed as far as the
Speaker 1: Michelin Company's concerns, because they're the Michelin brothers were looking
Speaker 1: for a way to um sell more tires by getting
Speaker 1: people to drive more, and they figured, well, if we
Speaker 1: make a guide book saying hey, you gotta check out
Speaker 1: this place in Leone or Burgundy or Champagne Um or
Speaker 1: sparkling Wine, like all these different places in France. Um.
Speaker 1: Then they'll actually go out and take road trips to
Speaker 1: these places. And that was the origin of the Michelin Guide,
Speaker 1: was to tell people about all these different spots and
Speaker 1: to make you know, to let you know about them,
Speaker 1: and maybe you should go check this out. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: um it was first given away for free when it debuted. Um, they,
Speaker 1: like he said, we're just sort of listing restaurants where
Speaker 1: you could go. But eventually in ninety six they started
Speaker 1: recommending restaurants and uh, in nineteen thirty one is where
Speaker 1: the star system was finally debuted, which is one star
Speaker 1: a very good restaurant in its category, two stars excellent
Speaker 1: cooking worth a detour, or three stars exceptional cuisine worth
Speaker 1: a special journey. And uh, I really think they missed
Speaker 1: a big opportunity by not rating these one to four tires. Uh.
Speaker 1: Instead they did one to three stars. But as Day
Speaker 1: points out, if you'll notice, what they're saying is, hey,
Speaker 1: this restaurant, you should really drive to your Michelin tires
Speaker 1: a lot, right, Yeah, maybe lay some rubber and do
Speaker 1: some donuts on the way totally. So that language is
Speaker 1: still in use today. Like those are the current explanation
Speaker 1: for stars as well, even though the point isn't to
Speaker 1: get you to use up your tires, Uma, but they
Speaker 1: do still signify the same thing, where like a three
Speaker 1: star restaurant to the to the Michelin the editors of
Speaker 1: the Michelin Guide is it's with a trip in and
Speaker 1: of itself, like it's worth getting in a plane and
Speaker 1: flying to a different country to eat this meal at
Speaker 1: this restaurant and then getting on a plane and flying back.
Speaker 1: That's basically what a three star Michelin rating means. That's right. Um.
Speaker 1: The first one outside of France was in Belgium in
Speaker 1: nineteen o four. Uh, and then it kind of spread
Speaker 1: through Europe with other guides North Africa. Um. They did
Speaker 1: publish an English language version in nineteen o nine, but
Speaker 1: it was just for France. Still. Um, America didn't get
Speaker 1: its first guide and this is very surprising to me
Speaker 1: until two thousand five when they started their guide to
Speaker 1: New York City, because you know, they were like the
Speaker 1: only good food in Americas in New York. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and not only that, only good French restaurants are in
Speaker 1: are what is in New York, in New York and
Speaker 1: in America. You know, they took a lot of flak
Speaker 1: for that first one. UM. In its defense, they didn't
Speaker 1: they hadn't put together a team of American inspect or.
Speaker 1: They had they had used some of their existing European
Speaker 1: inspectors to go over and they have no idea what
Speaker 1: they're doing aside from French cuisine apparently, so they did
Speaker 1: just basically put an American guide book out to the
Speaker 1: best fresh French restaurants in New York. That was the
Speaker 1: first American guide. But they have since as we'll see,
Speaker 1: like really kind of um kept pace a lot more
Speaker 1: since then. Yeah, they've tried to. Uh. The modern guide
Speaker 1: has more than forty restaurants in thirty four countries here
Speaker 1: in the States. You have New York. Uh, they cover
Speaker 1: the state of California, and then the cities of Chicago
Speaker 1: and Washington, d C. And that's all as far as
Speaker 1: the US goes so far. Uh. And they sell these
Speaker 1: things now they sold um they've sold thirty million of
Speaker 1: them over the last hundred years. Uh. And then next
Speaker 1: year they are going to hit in Moscow. Um. They
Speaker 1: have them for Tokyo, Hong Kong, uh, sort of other
Speaker 1: places all over the world. Now, like you said, because
Speaker 1: they're trying to I think shed and we'll talk more
Speaker 1: about this, but shed a little bit more of that
Speaker 1: stag snooty only French kind of thing, right, which is
Speaker 1: why they're releasing a guide book on Topeka next year
Speaker 1: as well. So, um, if you uh, if you open
Speaker 1: up one of these Michelin guides or go online, that's
Speaker 1: all online as well too. Um. When you when you
Speaker 1: hear about three stars, like that must be you know,
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of detail explaining why and all that.
Speaker 1: That is not how a Michelin guides work. There's a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of work and effort and thought that's put
Speaker 1: into um, the kind of rating or symbol that a
Speaker 1: restaurant gets in the Michelin guide. But the guide itself
Speaker 1: is basically like just trust us. Here's one star or
Speaker 1: two stars or three stars or no stars. Here's a
Speaker 1: little right up about the restaurant, what you can expect, um,
Speaker 1: the chef and what the chef's known for. And in
Speaker 1: a couple of paragraphs they they make or break a
Speaker 1: restaurant around the world old. Yeah, and they have UM
Speaker 1: very I mean, if you don't know anything about it
Speaker 1: and you just pop it open, like you said that,
Speaker 1: you could get confused by all the weird symbols that
Speaker 1: it uses to convey their qualities. UM. We'll get into
Speaker 1: some of those in a minute. But UM, the star is,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously the highest honor you can get. UM.
Speaker 1: The criteria, there are five criteria to judge um these
Speaker 1: restaurants for stars. It's not it's only about the food.
Speaker 1: It's not the decord, it's not the service or the
Speaker 1: ambiance or where it is. It's literally just the food
Speaker 1: on the plate. Uh. And these five criteria, which are
Speaker 1: quality of the ingredients, mastery of flavor and the cooking techniques, UH,
Speaker 1: personality of the chef, UM, the harmony of flavors, and
Speaker 1: then the consistency between the visits. UM. I also saw
Speaker 1: value for money? Is that not one? I didn't see
Speaker 1: that anywhere except in this thing that we were given.
Speaker 1: Did you see that elsewhere? Now? I saw that that
Speaker 1: would make much more sense for the bib rmand, which
Speaker 1: we'll talk about. Yeah. I mean this was taken Uh.
Speaker 1: I got mine from an interview within actual New Yorker. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I missed that part. So um, when you put all
Speaker 1: those criteria together, and again, like you said, it's just
Speaker 1: they're just talking about the food. But they're talking about
Speaker 1: the food too, the point where a three star rating
Speaker 1: means that that restaurant puts out consistently, over time, technically
Speaker 1: scientifically perfect food no matter what you order, and no
Speaker 1: matter what time of day, no matter what day of
Speaker 1: the year, no matter who you are, you're going to
Speaker 1: go in and get a perfect meal every time. That's
Speaker 1: what a three star rating is. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of criticism of those criteria, as we'll see, but it
Speaker 1: really is a remarkable, a remarkable thing that they're they're
Speaker 1: basically saying, like, this is a perfect meal no matter
Speaker 1: what you order. That's that's kind of hard to find
Speaker 1: in other industries. You're not just like well like, um,
Speaker 1: you know this is a this is a perfect shoe
Speaker 1: that I'm wearing. You know, if it fits this This
Speaker 1: is weird. You know, five boxes of criteria that are
Speaker 1: being checked off no matter what what shoe model, shoe,
Speaker 1: the shoe is going to be perfect, no matter what
Speaker 1: that's You don't find that everywhere else. You know that
Speaker 1: I really love that symbol or that analogy. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Uh So, there are only a hundred three stars worldwide.
Speaker 1: There are four hundred and fifty nine two stars and
Speaker 1: two thousand, four d and eighty six one star restaurants.
Speaker 1: A man, very famous man um chef name Elaine Dukasa.
Speaker 1: How do you pronounce that? I think it's Ellen. I
Speaker 1: think there's so much French in here that I'm gonna murder.
Speaker 1: But um, he has the He has thirty six restaurants
Speaker 1: in between them, twenty Michelin stars, including three three star restaurants,
Speaker 1: which is quite an accomplishment. Um And I think we
Speaker 1: should take a break maybe, and then we'll talk about
Speaker 1: some of those more weird symbols in the guide. Does
Speaker 1: that sound good? Lallah learn it's too with Joshua John. So,
Speaker 1: the Michelin Guide is most well known for the stars
Speaker 1: that it gives, right, um and, we should say, even
Speaker 1: being mentioned in the Michelin Guide, it's not like a
Speaker 1: comprehensive listing of restaurants in It's like, these are the
Speaker 1: most noteworthy restaurants in New York and then the starred
Speaker 1: ones are the best of the most noteworthy. Um So,
Speaker 1: just being in there is is an honor um, but
Speaker 1: they I guess it's kind of like recognition that there
Speaker 1: are some restaurants out there there are still really good
Speaker 1: and that you should still go check out. They just
Speaker 1: don't necessarily check the boxes of the five criteria of
Speaker 1: the perfect meal every single time, but it's still definitely
Speaker 1: worth checking out. They came up with other criteria and
Speaker 1: they found um. The first one, I believe, which it
Speaker 1: came out in nineteen, was the Bib Gourmond that we
Speaker 1: we mentioned a minute ago. Um and Bib being again
Speaker 1: Bi Bendam or the Michelin Man. Yeah, this is like
Speaker 1: his faves totally, as evidenced by him licking his lips.
Speaker 1: Give me the okay symbol? Yeah, so um, you're right.
Speaker 1: It started in the fifties as uh. The original symbol
Speaker 1: is a little red are which stood for our E
Speaker 1: p a s French for meal. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: pronounce it, but it's basically Gorman means good little restaurant,
Speaker 1: and it actually comes out it's it's in, it's the
Speaker 1: regular guy, but it also comes out as its own
Speaker 1: separate guide, Um, the Bib Gourman Guide after the Michelin Guide,
Speaker 1: is published, and these are good quality, good value cooking.
Speaker 1: And the idea is that you can go to a
Speaker 1: bib Gourman restaurant and you can get what they say
Speaker 1: is a three course meal. I also saw one of
Speaker 1: the inspectors say like a main course, a dessert, and
Speaker 1: a glass of wine, but like kind of like three
Speaker 1: things for about forty dollars per person, which they consider
Speaker 1: a good value. And that is if you're talking like
Speaker 1: really really good stuff. Um and three thousand three six
Speaker 1: restaurants right now are listed as bib Gourmand's. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's a kind of like anybody can pick that up
Speaker 1: and be like, let's see where we're gonna go to
Speaker 1: dinner tonight. Basically, you know, um, forty dollars. You could
Speaker 1: you can drop forty dollars a person at like um
Speaker 1: out back pretty easily. So that that is pretty that
Speaker 1: is pretty remarkable that they I guarantee it's eleven or
Speaker 1: twelve bucks. You think, sure, let's look right now you talk.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look up how much a bloomen onion is.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, I haven't been to an outback steakhouse since, uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, probably two decades but um, that bloomin
Speaker 1: onion is bloom and delicious. Uh yeah, yeah, for sure
Speaker 1: and delicious. You made a joke while we were on
Speaker 1: UM on the road the other day about how we
Speaker 1: should go to out Back and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: blue an onion would be pretty good. But it turns
Speaker 1: out it was just a joke and we didn't end
Speaker 1: up there. Mm hmm. How's that for an anecdote? It's
Speaker 1: good until the part where you didn't go and get
Speaker 1: one of those bluemen onions on your road trip, right,
Speaker 1: so you can get yourself bluemn onion for eight dollars
Speaker 1: and nine cents I stay corrected, all right? That sounds
Speaker 1: about right with tax though you're approaching ten. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: if you want a regular size cheese fries it's eleven bucks.
Speaker 1: So but you gotta get some extra sauce with that
Speaker 1: bluemen onion, so that probably pushes it over ten unless
Speaker 1: that's a freebe I don't know how they were gallon size?
Speaker 1: Uh were you? Were you thinking the bluemen onion was
Speaker 1: going to make an appearance in this episode on Michelin
Speaker 1: Stars and did not? Um? I give that four tires though?
Speaker 1: All right? So another symbol they have is the plate
Speaker 1: to Michelin. How are you gonna pronounce that in French? Uh?
Speaker 1: Las yet? Yeah? Las yet? That sounds about right. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a symbol of a dinner plate flanked by
Speaker 1: a knife and a fork. This debuted in and this
Speaker 1: is just good cooking. Uh it is not. It means
Speaker 1: it doesn't have a star. It's not a bib gourmon.
Speaker 1: But they call it quote simply good food. I'm not
Speaker 1: entirely sure what the distinction is between the plate in
Speaker 1: the bib gourmand rating it. I think it's money. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this could still be expensive or is it cheaper
Speaker 1: than the bib gourmand. No, no, I think the bib
Speaker 1: gorman is specifically cheap, and the plate to Michelin can
Speaker 1: be pricey but just not good enough for a star,
Speaker 1: just not good enough. It's like a substar rating. I
Speaker 1: guess substar, but more expensive than forty bucks a person. Okay,
Speaker 1: otherwise it would be a big gormant. They also one
Speaker 1: other way to kind of understand the bib gourmand is um.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about the inspectors a little bit um in
Speaker 1: a in a minute, but um, apparently the ratings are
Speaker 1: they used a hive mind kind of thing where they'll
Speaker 1: have different inspectors go to see what they think about
Speaker 1: an inspector's rating of a restaurant, and then they kind
Speaker 1: of pull them all together and the average is what
Speaker 1: the what the restaurant gets. Um, that was one explanation
Speaker 1: I saw, and by proxy, the bib Gourmand is say,
Speaker 1: like one inspectors like, if you happen to be talking
Speaker 1: to a Michelin inspectrum and said, what's your what's your
Speaker 1: real favorite restaurant in this town, they'd probably give you
Speaker 1: a big Gourmand recommendation. Not necessarily everyone in the Michelin
Speaker 1: organization would would agree that it deserves a star three stars,
Speaker 1: But this one inspectors like, this is really honestly the
Speaker 1: best restaurant in town. Right, And then they would take
Speaker 1: you into an alley and strangle you to death because
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to know who I am write exactly.
Speaker 1: You am so sorry, but you know too much like
Speaker 1: the talent to Mr Ripley at the end, Oh spoiler?
Speaker 1: Uh was it? No? It doesn't matter? Okay? Uh. You
Speaker 1: have the Green Star, which debut just last year that
Speaker 1: has restaurants and chefs who are practicing sustainable gastronomy UM,
Speaker 1: sourcing locally, reducing waste, renewable energy in the restaurants. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then you have the covert or covers uh. And that
Speaker 1: is based I think. I mean, the food's got to
Speaker 1: be good too, but it's really has to do with ambiance.
Speaker 1: You can get one to five covers um, which means
Speaker 1: like if you really want to go to a like
Speaker 1: a special, like a romantic dinner or something, you might
Speaker 1: want to look under the cover section. Yeah. And and
Speaker 1: to make it even more arcane and obscure that you
Speaker 1: can have five covers, but if it's in black ink,
Speaker 1: it's not as good as a few covers in red ink. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a little confusing. So if you have if there's a
Speaker 1: place that has five covers in red ink, it's their
Speaker 1: most charming, splendid um atmosphere of any restaurant they've ever encountered. Um.
Speaker 1: But yet it does surely it has to do. It
Speaker 1: takes the food into account to they're not going to
Speaker 1: send you like a slop bucket that's really charming, but
Speaker 1: they the whereas the stars are just the food. This
Speaker 1: kind of takes into account the ambiance more. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then they started. You can see symbols for different specialties
Speaker 1: in different regions, Like in Spain they'll have a little
Speaker 1: toothpick and wine symbol for tapas like the best tapas places,
Speaker 1: and the UK and Ireland they'll have beer mugs for
Speaker 1: the best pubs. If you see little grape symbols, that
Speaker 1: means someone might have a really good wine list, or
Speaker 1: a cocktail glass obviously for good cocktails, or a sake bottle,
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So if you see all these little symbols, obviously,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a uh, what do you call it?
Speaker 1: A legend? Yeah, legend It explains all this stuff. But
Speaker 1: we're here to do that for you. Yeah, from what
Speaker 1: I can tell, you have to be basically a trained
Speaker 1: Michelin inspector to decipher some of this stuff once it
Speaker 1: gets real deep. You know. Well, we've been seeing this
Speaker 1: word inspector without explaining that, and people are probably going,
Speaker 1: why do they keep talking about detectives, But we're not
Speaker 1: talking about detectives. We're talking about inspectors, which is their
Speaker 1: word for reviews. Yeah. Actually I don't even think they
Speaker 1: call them that. They call them um anonymous restaurant. Oh no,
Speaker 1: they do call them inspectors. I'm sorry I misread um
Speaker 1: so well. And that makes a lot of sense too,
Speaker 1: because there is this definite haughtiness to this whole thing.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, from what Michelin has finally
Speaker 1: started to choose to reveal about its inspectors, UM, they
Speaker 1: do seem to actually be worthy of such a kind
Speaker 1: of haughty title. UM. They are typically trained in and
Speaker 1: having like real life experience in the hospitality industry, the
Speaker 1: restaurant industry, UM, hotel industry, UM. And they will train
Speaker 1: uh and actually go through this kind of um vetting
Speaker 1: process for about a year basically that also includes an
Speaker 1: apprenticeship because this is not the kind of thing where
Speaker 1: you can be like, oh, these are the five criteria.
Speaker 1: I totally understand this. It's a lot more nerve racking
Speaker 1: than that. And also, if you ask me, the best
Speaker 1: way to lose love of food would be to become
Speaker 1: a Michelin restaurant inspector because it sounds like a lot
Speaker 1: of not fun work. Yes, I would much rather just go, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, enjoy a meal at a restaurant than have
Speaker 1: to review it any day of the week. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a cool article I read from Forbes from twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: by Carla Allen Do called the Secret Life of an
Speaker 1: Anonymous Michelin Restaurant Inspector, where they talked to this woman
Speaker 1: who was an inspector and they remain anonymous even when
Speaker 1: they're interviewed, which um, as we'll talk about in a bit,
Speaker 1: is happening a little bit more over the past, like
Speaker 1: ten to twenty years. But um, you know, she talks
Speaker 1: about the rigors of the process, and you know how
Speaker 1: you know, some of them are trained Somalia. Some of
Speaker 1: them were chefs, but they were They're all all in
Speaker 1: the restaurant industry at some point. Uh. And they get
Speaker 1: there obviously their travel and hotel and their food all covered.
Speaker 1: I was trying to find the pay. I saw some
Speaker 1: guesses that it was maybe close to a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year. Uh to eat about three hundred meals
Speaker 1: a year in these restaurants. UH. To not be allowed
Speaker 1: to eat with your at least if you're reviewing the restaurant,
Speaker 1: um too with a spouse or any other friend, like
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be in there alone. Um, you gotta
Speaker 1: take these pictures, which um, you know people do that
Speaker 1: a lot now any day, so that's not gonna make
Speaker 1: you stand out. But uh, the thing that I saw
Speaker 1: was that the hardest part, at least from the point
Speaker 1: of view of this one inspector, was maintaining your anonymity,
Speaker 1: because I think they said you're allowed to tell your
Speaker 1: closest family members, but really no one else. And in
Speaker 1: this day of social media, it's I don't know how
Speaker 1: much of a social media presence you can even have.
Speaker 1: It would be a giveaway if you were, like, you know,
Speaker 1: in in New York. Again, these ten meals out this week, right, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm in Paris, now, I'm in Los Angeles, now,
Speaker 1: I'm in Chicago, I'm in Tokyo. Like people would kind
Speaker 1: of catch on. I think, yeah, you just yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you're supposed to just be a lot more kind
Speaker 1: of playing Jane or playing James. I guess I've never
Speaker 1: heard of put that way, but I think I just
Speaker 1: came upon something to where you're just kind of unremarkable
Speaker 1: and not really noticeable. Um, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: you're not sticking out because you're so unnoticeable, and you
Speaker 1: just kind of have to live a life of anonimity, anonymity,
Speaker 1: not just at work, but in general, like you're saying,
Speaker 1: like it's a good grind, it sounds like a big grind,
Speaker 1: like ten meals a day or ten meals a week,
Speaker 1: UM very frequently you know, launch and dinner and we're
Speaker 1: talking like, like you said, tasting menus or you know,
Speaker 1: prefixed menus where they're eating like multiple course meals. UM.
Speaker 1: I saw that that new worker interview with UM maxim
Speaker 1: or m is what they nicknamed her UM the Michelin Inspector,
Speaker 1: And I guess they order as many courses as the
Speaker 1: restaurant offers, so if they have you know, soup, salad, appetizer, main, pasta, dessert,
Speaker 1: like you would be expected to order a dish off
Speaker 1: of each of those courses for lunch and then go
Speaker 1: do the same thing for dinner five days a week,
Speaker 1: three weeks out of the month, all year long. It
Speaker 1: does sound like a grind for sure. Yeah, for by yourself,
Speaker 1: eating by yourself, it's it can be kind of liberating
Speaker 1: in fun, but after a while that is one of
Speaker 1: the loneliest things you can possibly do. And the other
Speaker 1: thing too is if it's if it's frowned upon for
Speaker 1: you to bring a friend or a family member. Um,
Speaker 1: I guarantee it's frowned upon for you to just be
Speaker 1: sitting at your phone. So you're just sitting there like
Speaker 1: a total weirdo by yourself at dinner, paying a tench
Speaker 1: to the salt shaker. Basically is what you're what you're doing,
Speaker 1: m Yeah, enjoying your world class meal. It does not
Speaker 1: sound fun to me at all. I just rather it's
Speaker 1: just one of those things I'd just rather be at
Speaker 1: everyday person and just enjoyed on that level. Like I
Speaker 1: feel bad for people who are so into making movies
Speaker 1: that they can't enjoy a movie anymore. It's the same
Speaker 1: exact thing You're like, I just want to be a
Speaker 1: regular guy at a three star restaurants sitting there looking
Speaker 1: at my phone. Right. I want to be able to
Speaker 1: be on Twitter the whole time. All Right, I think
Speaker 1: we should take another break and then we'll talk about this.
Speaker 1: All sounds rosy, but we'll talk about some of the
Speaker 1: criticisms right after this with Joshua. All Right, So we've
Speaker 1: talked about the um kind of sun the prey, Well
Speaker 1: did we sing praises? Well though they are definitely well
Speaker 1: trained and all that. But but the thing is with
Speaker 1: their inspectors, Michelin has always been the term is they're
Speaker 1: famously anonymous, like they really, like you were saying, go
Speaker 1: to great links to hide their their people, um and
Speaker 1: their their identities. And a lot of people are like, well,
Speaker 1: who are these people? Are they actually qualified? And that's
Speaker 1: kind of caused a lot of controversy in itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I kind of more meant singing the praises of
Speaker 1: the guide itself. But um, it's all become sort of
Speaker 1: controversial over the years, and there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: criticism levied. Um, like you mentioned first of all of
Speaker 1: the inspectors. Uh, there have been some things that have
Speaker 1: come out over the years. Uh. There was a book
Speaker 1: written by an inspect yere Um after they left the job,
Speaker 1: called The Inspector Sits Down at the Table by Pascal Remy,
Speaker 1: where Pascal said, they're not nearly enough of us. They're
Speaker 1: a way fewer. Um, we're not going to these restaurants
Speaker 1: as much as we should. There have been restaurants that said, hey,
Speaker 1: I was knocked down a star, and I know for
Speaker 1: a fact that no one even came into the restaurant
Speaker 1: this past year. Uh, no inspector came into our restaurant,
Speaker 1: So how do we get not back a star? Uh?
Speaker 1: And there's kind of a general I think within the industry,
Speaker 1: there's a general feeling of this thing has too much
Speaker 1: importance over and too much hold over us as chefs
Speaker 1: and as restaurateurs, and we're kind of beholden to this
Speaker 1: book to the point where people, Uh, I mean, there
Speaker 1: was there was one chef who took his own life,
Speaker 1: Bernard French chef Bernard Lusseau, who lost a star. He
Speaker 1: had famously said, if I ever lose my stars, will
Speaker 1: kill myself and uh, in two thousand three that happened
Speaker 1: and he he shot himself in the head with a shotgun. Uh.
Speaker 1: He very much was suffering from depression. So we're not saying,
Speaker 1: you know, this is all at the hands of the
Speaker 1: Michelin Guide, but it just sort of hammers home the
Speaker 1: stress of trying to achieve and then maintain these stars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it goes both ways, right, Like, if you don't
Speaker 1: have the stars yet and you're just starting out, you
Speaker 1: want to get them or else people are gonna be like, well,
Speaker 1: I thought you were like an up and coming superstar
Speaker 1: where your Michelin stars, but then once you get them,
Speaker 1: it's like it's just this albatross around your neck trying
Speaker 1: to keep them. Um. And the guy who's restaurant you
Speaker 1: me and I went to for our engagement, Danielle um Boullard.
Speaker 1: I believe um he actually took uh or sorry ballued Um.
Speaker 1: He took a kind of a cool attitude to the
Speaker 1: whole thing. He had three stars and he got knocked
Speaker 1: down to two after I had been there. Um. But
Speaker 1: he he was basically like, look, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: we make a lot of changes to our menu, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it's stuff that we want to lock in and
Speaker 1: put on the menu. Anytimes it's us just messing around,
Speaker 1: but our customers seem to really like it. Um. And
Speaker 1: so if if that means that we're not putting out
Speaker 1: perfect food every single time, but we're being more creative
Speaker 1: and spontaneous, I'm okay with that. That was a very
Speaker 1: very rare attitude from what I saw. More likely, if
Speaker 1: you lose a star, you openly weep, like Gordon Ramsey
Speaker 1: did when one of his restaurants, The London in New
Speaker 1: York City. Um lost two stars. It had two stars
Speaker 1: and it lost them both from one guy to the
Speaker 1: next and he wept. Apparently he won't talk about it
Speaker 1: if you ask him about it. Um. That is much
Speaker 1: more the reaction to Michelin Stars than than Danielle's response,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like, you know, I'll take it
Speaker 1: or leave it. It just kind of ruined your life
Speaker 1: one way or the other. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people in the restaurant industry really resent that this
Speaker 1: anonymous group of people whose qualifications they're not even sure of,
Speaker 1: hold that kind of sway over their lives, over their
Speaker 1: entire careers. You know. Yeah, Actually, now that I think
Speaker 1: of it, Emily and I stayed at the London one time,
Speaker 1: and I think we ate breakfast there. There you go
Speaker 1: two stars. Yeah, I'm not sure when it was as
Speaker 1: far as his stars coming and going, but uh yeah,
Speaker 1: so we ate there. Another sort of rarity was when
Speaker 1: French chef Sebastian bra said, Hey, Michelin, guide, can you
Speaker 1: remove my stars and and take them out of there?
Speaker 1: And and there's a couple of interesting quotes. He said,
Speaker 1: after twenty years under the banner of three stars, I
Speaker 1: wanted to find serenity, freedom and independence, but three Stars
Speaker 1: represented a form of permanent and growing tension for me
Speaker 1: and today I only want to be accountable to my customers,
Speaker 1: so too much stress. And he was like, I want
Speaker 1: to I want to experiment, and I want to try
Speaker 1: different things, and I don't want to necessarily live my
Speaker 1: or spend the rest of my career just trying to
Speaker 1: maintain these stars. And by all accounts, it was a
Speaker 1: pretty liberating experience for him. Yeah yeah, yeah, so um
Speaker 1: that again, that also is very rare. For the most part,
Speaker 1: it's like your your career is about trying to get
Speaker 1: and then trying to keep those stars. Um, and just
Speaker 1: the kind of the frustration that goes along with it
Speaker 1: has has made a lot of people level accusations toward
Speaker 1: the Michelin Guide, um, including that you know, they hand
Speaker 1: out like that. One guy's expose said that they hand
Speaker 1: out stars or maintain stars amongst some of their friends,
Speaker 1: like very friendous French chefs. That is absolutely not fair.
Speaker 1: But and there are definitely plenty of people out there,
Speaker 1: um who just go to these restaurants so that they
Speaker 1: can brag about having gone to this restaurant, and that
Speaker 1: probably makes up a substantial part of the chef's clientell
Speaker 1: or the restaurant's clientele, and I would guess if you're
Speaker 1: a chef in this area, you probably hate people like that,
Speaker 1: even though you know they're coming to your restaurant. They're
Speaker 1: just being d bags. That's why they're there, is just
Speaker 1: show off what a d bag they are. Can we
Speaker 1: say that? Yeah? And I bet you half of those
Speaker 1: people say like, oh my god, what one of the
Speaker 1: best meals in half of them say I don't know
Speaker 1: why this thing is three stars right? Exactly exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there is that too it where people are like,
Speaker 1: there's too much sway, are these people even like being
Speaker 1: fair about this? And then the star system attracts people
Speaker 1: who are just just there to say that they ate
Speaker 1: at a restaurant and aren't actually enjoying the food. All
Speaker 1: that exists. But it really seems over the last century
Speaker 1: that the Michelin Guide has like it is legit Like
Speaker 1: if you go to a three starred restaurant, you're probably
Speaker 1: going to have the best meal that you've ever had
Speaker 1: in your entire life. Like that's probably true, and that
Speaker 1: in and of itself legitimizes it, or at least, you know,
Speaker 1: lends credence to the idea that generally it's a legitimate
Speaker 1: if not crushing um rating system. Yeah. Um, there's been
Speaker 1: some other controversies over the years. In twenty nineteen, that
Speaker 1: was a lawsuit filed by French chef Mark Verrat, who said,
Speaker 1: my restaurant and Maison de how do you pronounce that
Speaker 1: last part? Not boise Idaho, but I think boise boise,
Speaker 1: Maison de boise. Yes, all right, let's go with that. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was downgraded from three to two stars. He said, quote,
Speaker 1: it's worse than the loss of my parents, which I'm
Speaker 1: sure his parents were like Marcy for that. Uh. And
Speaker 1: apparently the word on the street was the inspector accused
Speaker 1: the kitchen of using just a very common English cheddar
Speaker 1: cheese in a souffle dish that he says he was
Speaker 1: sacar blue. He was really mad. He said, I demand
Speaker 1: to see that report. Michelin says, I don't know who
Speaker 1: you think you are, but you better watch it. You
Speaker 1: can lose all your stars, buddy, but you you can't
Speaker 1: see our reports. He filed the lawsuit. It became known
Speaker 1: as cheddar Gate, and then the case is thrown out
Speaker 1: when they couldn't produce evidence that actually hurt his business.
Speaker 1: It actually helped his business. Because all the publicity, so
Speaker 1: that report thing actually struck me as surprising. I saw
Speaker 1: that they will share their reports. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: really yeah, they won't They obviously it won't say what
Speaker 1: inspector came from or anything like that, but they that
Speaker 1: restaurants who want to improve or get a starback or
Speaker 1: whatever and want to know what happened, they will share
Speaker 1: the reports. So I didn't understand that maybe what I
Speaker 1: read was was wrong. But the Michelin Guide has responded
Speaker 1: to this kind of like criticism and bad publicity. Um
Speaker 1: you know, the suicide of um what was his last name? Yeah,
Speaker 1: uh in two thousand three was really a dark cloud
Speaker 1: that hung over the Michelin Guide. Um you know, the
Speaker 1: criticism for basically raiding the best French restaurants in New
Speaker 1: York and their first American guide, all this stuff really
Speaker 1: amounted some bad press for the Michelin Guide and it
Speaker 1: kind of evolved in the twenty one century to become
Speaker 1: a lot more um worldly, a lot less franco centric,
Speaker 1: a lot less stuffy, and to expand. And today actually
Speaker 1: the country for the city with the largest number of
Speaker 1: Stars among its restaurants is in Paris. It's tokyo. How
Speaker 1: about that right to say tokyo. I've been saying it wrong. Um,
Speaker 1: he says tokyo. Yeah, I've been saying it wrong for
Speaker 1: almost fifty years. Yeah, I'm catching up to you. Forty
Speaker 1: four for me because that was my first word. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been saying tokyo since I was in the womb.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's opened up to Asia. Um, it's
Speaker 1: expanded in the US market. Like we mentioned before, they
Speaker 1: they awarded their first ever start to a hawker stall,
Speaker 1: which is uh Singapore street food, which is really cool. Um.
Speaker 1: It was Hong Kong soya sauce, chicken, rice and noodle,
Speaker 1: which Man, that thing got a star and I just
Speaker 1: want to go there right now and eat it. The
Speaker 1: other thing I want to eat is in edition um
Speaker 1: to Taipei, they had a take out only street stall
Speaker 1: that has one thing on the menu, which is a
Speaker 1: steam pork bun with ground peanuts and cilantro. They've been
Speaker 1: serving this for sixty years and they gave that a
Speaker 1: bib gourman um whatever metal or the licking lips and okay,
Speaker 1: licking lips. Guy, I want to eat that pork bun
Speaker 1: more than anything. I can think of. The thing is chuck.
Speaker 1: Is the thing that I hate almost as much as
Speaker 1: waiting at a red light when there's no cars coming
Speaker 1: from the other direction, is standing in line for food.
Speaker 1: I hate that. I feel like such a chump, such
Speaker 1: a sucker, and after X number of minutes, it is
Speaker 1: not worth it. It doesn't matter how good the food is,
Speaker 1: it's not worth it. Because I also usually don't like
Speaker 1: the people I'm standing in line with, you know, like
Speaker 1: a certain kind of like food fan or kinds that
Speaker 1: will stand in line for an hour and a half.
Speaker 1: They're They're also probably the ones that brag about the
Speaker 1: number of stars or whatever. Um. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: I don't like about that. And it turns out Michelin
Speaker 1: has has heard my concerns. And Jiro Sushi um, the
Speaker 1: the the sushi place that that they did the documentary about.
Speaker 1: After that documentary, you could not still to this day,
Speaker 1: I think that documentary is from like two thousand nine
Speaker 1: or ten. To this day, you cannot get into Juro's.
Speaker 1: It's a ten seat sushi bar that's probably the best
Speaker 1: sushi in the world, um, and you just can't get in.
Speaker 1: It's sorry, t s. You have to basically be ahead
Speaker 1: of state or a celebrity these days. And it was
Speaker 1: a ten seat, three star, three Michelin star sushi restaurant
Speaker 1: in a train station in Tokyo um and Michelin took
Speaker 1: its stars back because they say, the guide is meant for,
Speaker 1: you know, any person to be able to go to
Speaker 1: these restaurants, the restaurants they recommend anybody should be able
Speaker 1: to get into. Like, yes, some people are going to
Speaker 1: spend a much more substantial portion of their annual salary
Speaker 1: than other people, but you should be able to get
Speaker 1: into this place one way or another. And with Jero's
Speaker 1: you just can't do that anymore. So they actually took
Speaker 1: their stars back. They said, Jero, we wish you the
Speaker 1: best of luck, not that you need it, but you
Speaker 1: don't need these stars and you can't really have them
Speaker 1: because you can't the average person can't get a seat
Speaker 1: in your place anymore. Yeah, you know what this episode
Speaker 1: has really made me want to do eat eating a restaurant. Yes, dude, yes,
Speaker 1: this is very cruel to to put this one out
Speaker 1: right now in retrospect, because all I want to do
Speaker 1: is eat in a restaurant. Man, so bad. Just a
Speaker 1: good multi course meal, starting out with like Martinier drink, Yes,
Speaker 1: a bluemen onion in there somewhere, maybe a side of ranch.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, yes, I cannot wait. It will happen
Speaker 1: again one day, man, I know for sure. Okay okay, uh, Well,
Speaker 1: since Chuck said for sure, that means, of course, everybody,
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this. And
Speaker 1: we've gotten a few of these lately, but this one
Speaker 1: I tagged about a month ago from people who have
Speaker 1: who finished their stuff. You should know Journey and listen
Speaker 1: to all the episodes. Hey, everybody, I've done it. It
Speaker 1: took me two years of listening anytime I was driving,
Speaker 1: and I have to drive a lot for work, but
Speaker 1: I finally gotten through the entire back catalog, going all
Speaker 1: the way back to how Grassoline works. Those first episodes
Speaker 1: were so not very good. I don't know what I'll
Speaker 1: do in between new episodes now, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: say thanks for the many, many hours of learning and
Speaker 1: laughing and what has to be hundreds of Simpson's references.
Speaker 1: At least my favorite episode was either nuclear Semiotics or
Speaker 1: the uh the at Loft Pass mystery. But but I
Speaker 1: need to thank Josh for introducing me to Teddy the Beaver.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Teddy the baby beaver. He's the one that
Speaker 1: built like the damn at that in the doorway of
Speaker 1: the bedroom. Right. Oh was that? I think? So? He
Speaker 1: was so cute, so cute. The greatest moment in the show, however,
Speaker 1: was during what I recall uh to be the Beagle
Speaker 1: Brigade episode, when Josh predicted COVID nineteen by talking about
Speaker 1: someone's getting a disease by eating a bat. Yeah. A
Speaker 1: lot of people say I predicted that. I called out
Speaker 1: a magazine article that I read that predicted it. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I particularly predicted it, but thank you
Speaker 1: for that. And I don't even know if that's the
Speaker 1: origin of COVID. Now, isn't that sort of a dispute?
Speaker 1: I don't know. The last thing I heard was that
Speaker 1: it was either a pangolin or a bat. I've heard
Speaker 1: bat more than anything. You know what I'm saying, Well,
Speaker 1: you're going to the wrong websites, buddy, so you need
Speaker 1: to find the truth. That's right. Oh God, cartoon sweat,
Speaker 1: He says. Also, sorry, Chuck, but shark Nato can suck it.
Speaker 1: I wish you know, for sure, but my mind was
Speaker 1: blown away when Josh said it. Thanks again for all
Speaker 1: the hard work and I look forward to twelve more
Speaker 1: years worth of episodes. And that is from Kyle in Phoenix, Arizona,
Speaker 1: who I guess went to our live show there. He's
Speaker 1: a great live show on Kellogg by the way, arm
Speaker 1: of that Phoenix show. That was a good one. That
Speaker 1: was a good show. I think that's the one where
Speaker 1: we got Lasso's. Oh it absolutely was. I still got
Speaker 1: that thing, Kathy with a K. That's right, I love
Speaker 1: that lasso. H. Well, if you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us, you can send us a email to
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know is a production of I Heeart Radio. For more
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