Is the Michelin Guide Relevant in the U.S.?
Posted on March 28, 2007 by Gary McCarty
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The famed Franco-tradition, the Michelin Guide, has sent out its inspectors to start judging restaurants in Los Angeles and Las Vegas for a November 2007 publication date.
What will the results be in these inaugural [tag]Michelin restaurant ratings[/tag], one wonders?
My guess is that they’ll find more restaurants to their liking in Las Vegas than Los Angeles, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Three Stars are the guide’s highest attainment, and just a handful of restaurants in New York and the San Francisco Bay area have earned that accolade. Surprise, surprise–all are traditional French restaurants and the one “exception” in Napa Valley is a French deriviative–the famed French Laundry.
Las Vegas has more lavish venues, which plays into the guide’s hands, and probably more traditional French haute cuisine establishments than my hometown of El Lay. Advantage: Lost Wages.
Also, the Michelin folk value service in the old-fashioned sense. I remember my one experience with a Three Star Paris restaurant back in the 1980s. My wife, three-year-old daughter and I had lunch at the famed Taillevent, which at the time was at the top of the Michelin Guide.
Other than savoring a nice fish dish, I can’t remember a thing about Taillevent except that the service was absolutely impeccable, even for three Americans who spoke no French.
That event set me back four bills, and that was in 1989 during the French Bicentennial. I checked out Taillevent’s Web site today, and it’s sporting lunch for 70 euros (about $100). I could save one bill for lunch for three.
However, I would now rather find a comfortable little Left Bank bistro and sample local wines and fares. If I want pretension, I can stay nearer to home and try one of the Vegas-based French restaurants, over which I’m sure the Michelin inspectors will go gaga.
Also, I think the service may actually be better in the Las Vegas upper-crust restaurants than in Los Angeles, which tends to value the casual approach. Advantage: Lost Wages once again.
But I get back to my original question:Â Does Michelin even matter in these two cities or on these shores?
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