0:01

Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production

0:04

of I Heart Radio. Hey,

0:11

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh

0:13

Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant.

0:15

Jerry's out there lurking like

0:17

an Internet weirdo, and this is

0:20

stuff you should know. Yeah,

0:24

I've got a question for you. Okay,

0:27

have you ever been to a Michelin starred restaurant?

0:31

Yes, I don't

0:33

know if I have or not. Surely you have, I

0:36

don't know. I mean I've never sought one out, sure,

0:39

but I may have accidentally done it. Uh,

0:42

yeah, it's possible. Um,

0:44

there's there's a decent there's enough one star

0:47

restaurants out there that that is entirely

0:49

possible. You've been to one one

0:51

star? Um? Actually,

0:54

I've been to a three three starred restaurant

0:56

once. Yes. Well it was for

0:58

a very special occasions in my engagement.

1:02

UM. I contacted

1:05

our friend Hodgeman, who

1:07

was kind enough to contact his friend Adam

1:09

Sacks, who was a restaurant critic, UM,

1:12

who pulled some strings to get me reservations

1:15

at Danielle in New York

1:17

City. And it was a

1:20

three star restaurant. It

1:22

was amazing. It was just totally

1:24

amazing. Yeah, I think,

1:28

I mean, I went to Atlanta's not

1:30

on and you'll you know, we'll go over all this in

1:33

this episode, but Atlanta is not covered

1:35

under the Michelin Guide, but

1:38

plains why back Inalia doesn't have a star.

1:40

Yeah, back Inalia or Staple House, I could see

1:42

having a star. I haven't been there. Staple

1:45

Houses the best meal I've ever

1:47

had in my life. What kind of food. It's

1:50

a tasting menu. Um,

1:52

just like wings, mostly wings,

1:56

ribs, other things you can taste. This sounds pretty

1:58

good. Uh, it's very renowned

2:01

Uh in Atlanta and around

2:03

the world, Like people fly to Atlanta to go

2:05

to Stable House. It's

2:07

that good, and it's it's

2:09

really something else. It's the best meal I've

2:12

ever had. And from

2:14

the food to the service and the ambiance,

2:16

it was just It's a five star night,

2:18

regardless of what Michelin

2:20

says. That's what my Yelp review is.

2:23

But doesn't that say everything about Michelin

2:25

That the highest honor you can get

2:28

his three stars. It's like everybody

2:30

else is going with four or five. Michelin's

2:32

like three tops, you know. Yeah,

2:34

But as as you'll see, this was their

2:37

star rating came out long before the

2:39

Internet existed exactly.

2:42

Um and so you

2:44

you might be like, Michelin, I've never

2:46

heard of that guy. But there's a tire company

2:49

called Michelan out there, and we

2:51

are here to tell you that they are one and the same

2:53

company. That the tire

2:55

manufacturer is also

2:58

the publisher of the world's

3:00

most renowned restaurant

3:03

guide of all time.

3:06

Yeah, and and once we explain it,

3:08

it's like it's one of those things that at the

3:10

same time you say, oh, well, now

3:12

I guess it makes sense, but also

3:15

still very weird. It

3:18

is, but it is

3:21

part of this guid Yeah, there's tire

3:23

cartoon, tire man. If you're like, oh,

3:25

you know, this is pretty haughty stuff. No, one

3:28

of their symbols is the Michelin man licking

3:30

his lips and making the okay symbol. So

3:33

let's all maintain a little bit of perspective

3:35

here, Okay. Yeah, absolutely so.

3:38

Um So with

3:40

the with the the

3:42

connection to the tired company, I think it's a

3:45

pretty satisfying explanation. But

3:47

all the way back in what was

3:49

it the nineteenth century, for sure, I believe

3:52

eight nine, um Andre

3:54

and Eduard Michelin started making

3:57

tires and this is you know, they're making

3:59

bicycle time tis I believe at first, Um,

4:02

but they ended up making tires for just about

4:04

everything, including trains. I

4:07

did not know that there were tires for

4:09

trains, but rubber

4:11

tires for trains. UM just

4:14

had no idea that that ever existed. Maybe

4:16

it's one of those things where they tried it and it failed

4:18

spectacularly, but it's still worth

4:20

remarking. I don't know if they're still around or

4:22

not, but these guys started making tires

4:24

at a really good time because UM,

4:26

around that time, Uh, in addition

4:28

to bikes, you also started to need tires

4:31

for your car, and the Michelin brothers

4:33

were there for it. Apparently

4:35

France was like one of the early

4:37

hot spots of um, the auto manufacturing

4:40

world around the turn of the last

4:42

century. Yeah, they built more

4:44

cars than anyone else between eighteen ninety

4:47

and sort of the mid to late nineteen forties,

4:50

and they sold a ton of tires, and

4:53

um, the Michelin man himself

4:56

debuted in eight which

4:59

is pretty remar parkable, and there was I

5:01

think, uh, I think it was Dave Ru's right, Yeah,

5:03

I believe so. Yeah, Dave can point you and

5:06

if you're in a place where you can look this up on the internet.

5:09

Um, just type in bibendum

5:12

b I b E N d U M, which was the

5:14

original name of the Michelin Man, which

5:17

comes from a Latin toast attributed

5:20

to Horace uh Nun's

5:23

sbendum. Now is the time

5:26

to drink and just look up the poster.

5:28

Type in bibendum poster

5:31

and you'll see what is exactly

5:34

a very creepy poster of an early

5:36

Michelin entire man. It's um

5:38

it is very creepy and sort of it is it's

5:41

like, what is wrong with all the people at the table.

5:43

There's something terribly wrong

5:45

with everybody. But apparently be Bendam

5:47

is still his name in Europe, or Bibbs affectionately.

5:51

But um so the be bendum

5:54

debuted a little actually

5:56

before the time of the guide. The

5:59

guide for made its appearance

6:01

in nineteen hundred. And the reason

6:03

why the guide ever existed as far as

6:05

the Michelin Company's concerns, because they're

6:08

the Michelin brothers were looking for a way

6:10

to um sell more tires

6:13

by getting people to drive more,

6:16

and they figured, well, if we make a guide book

6:18

saying hey, you gotta check out this place in Leone

6:21

or Burgundy or Champagne

6:24

Um or sparkling Wine,

6:26

like all these different places in France. Um.

6:29

Then they'll actually go out and take road

6:31

trips to these places. And that was the

6:34

origin of the Michelin Guide, was to

6:36

tell people about all these different spots and to make

6:38

you know, to let you know about them, and maybe

6:41

you should go check this out. Yeah.

6:43

So um it was first given

6:45

away for free when it debuted. Um,

6:47

they, like he said, we're just sort of listing

6:50

restaurants where you could go. But eventually

6:52

in ninety six they started recommending

6:55

restaurants and uh,

6:57

in nineteen thirty one is where the

7:00

star system was finally debuted, which

7:03

is one star a very good

7:05

restaurant in its category, two

7:07

stars excellent cooking worth a detour,

7:10

or three stars exceptional cuisine

7:12

worth a special journey. And

7:15

uh, I really think they missed a

7:17

big opportunity by not rating these one

7:19

to four tires. Uh.

7:21

Instead they did one to three stars. But as

7:24

Day points out, if you'll notice, what they're

7:26

saying is, hey, this restaurant,

7:28

you should really drive to your

7:31

Michelin tires a lot,

7:34

right, Yeah, maybe lay some

7:36

rubber and do some donuts on the way

7:39

totally. So that language

7:41

is still in use today. Like those are the current

7:44

explanation for stars as well, even though

7:46

the point isn't to get you to use up your tires,

7:49

Uma, but they do still signify

7:51

the same thing, where like a three star restaurant

7:55

to the to the Michelin the editors

7:57

of the Michelin Guide is

7:59

it's with a trip in and of itself, like it's

8:01

worth getting in a plane and flying to a different

8:04

country to eat this meal

8:06

at this restaurant and then getting on a plane and flying

8:08

back. That's basically what a three star Michelin

8:11

rating means. That's right. Um.

8:14

The first one outside of France was in

8:16

Belgium in nineteen o four.

8:19

Uh, and then it kind of spread through Europe with other

8:21

guides North Africa. Um.

8:23

They did publish an English language version

8:26

in nineteen o nine, but it was just for

8:28

France. Still. Um, America

8:31

didn't get its first guide and

8:33

this is very surprising to me until

8:35

two thousand five when they

8:37

started their guide to New York City, because you

8:40

know, they were like the only good food

8:42

in Americas in New York. Yeah,

8:45

yeah, and not only that, only good French

8:48

restaurants are in are what is

8:50

in New York, in New York and in America. You

8:52

know, they took a lot of flak for that first one.

8:55

UM. In its defense, they didn't they hadn't

8:57

put together a team of American inspect

9:00

or. They had they had used some of their existing

9:02

European inspectors to go over and they

9:04

have no idea what they're doing aside from French

9:06

cuisine apparently, so they did just

9:09

basically put an American guide book out

9:11

to the best fresh French restaurants in New York.

9:13

That was the first American guide. But they

9:15

have since as we'll see, like really kind

9:17

of um kept

9:19

pace a lot more since

9:22

then. Yeah, they've tried to. Uh.

9:24

The modern guide has more

9:26

than forty restaurants in thirty four countries

9:30

here in the States. You have New York. Uh, they cover

9:32

the state of California, and then the cities

9:34

of Chicago and Washington, d C. And that's

9:36

all as far as the US goes so far.

9:39

Uh. And they sell these things now they sold um

9:42

they've sold thirty million of them over the

9:45

last hundred years. Uh. And then

9:47

next year they are going to hit in Moscow.

9:50

Um. They have them for Tokyo, Hong

9:52

Kong, uh, sort of other

9:55

places all over the world. Now, like you said, because

9:57

they're trying to I think shed and we'll talk

9:59

more about this, but shed a little bit more of that

10:02

stag snooty only French

10:04

kind of thing, right, which

10:07

is why they're releasing a guide book on Topeka

10:09

next year as well. So,

10:12

um, if you uh,

10:15

if you open up one of these Michelin

10:17

guides or go online, that's all online as

10:19

well too. Um. When

10:21

you when you hear about three

10:23

stars, like that must be you know, a tremendous

10:25

amount of detail explaining why and all that.

10:28

That is not how a Michelin guides work. There's

10:30

a tremendous amount of work

10:33

and effort and thought that's put

10:35

into um, the kind of rating

10:37

or symbol that a restaurant gets

10:39

in the Michelin guide. But the guide

10:41

itself is basically like just trust us.

10:43

Here's one star or two stars or three

10:45

stars or no stars. Here's a little right

10:48

up about the restaurant, what you can expect,

10:50

um, the chef and what the chef's

10:53

known for. And in a couple of paragraphs

10:55

they they make or break a

10:58

restaurant around the world old.

11:00

Yeah, and they have UM very I mean,

11:03

if you don't know anything about it and you just pop

11:05

it open, like you said that, you could get confused

11:07

by all the weird symbols that it uses to

11:10

convey their qualities. UM. We'll get into some

11:12

of those in a minute. But UM,

11:14

the star is, you know, obviously the highest

11:17

honor you can get. UM. The criteria,

11:20

there are five criteria to judge um

11:23

these restaurants for stars. It's

11:25

not it's only about the food. It's

11:27

not the decord, it's not the service or

11:29

the ambiance or where it is. It's

11:31

literally just the food on the plate. Uh.

11:33

And these five criteria, which are quality of

11:35

the ingredients, mastery

11:38

of flavor and the cooking techniques,

11:40

UH, personality of the chef, UM,

11:43

the harmony of flavors, and then the consistency

11:45

between the visits. UM.

11:48

I also saw value for money? Is that

11:50

not one? I didn't see that

11:52

anywhere except in this thing that we were

11:54

given. Did you see that elsewhere? Now?

11:56

I saw that that would make much more sense

11:59

for the bib rmand, which we'll talk about.

12:02

Yeah. I mean this was taken Uh.

12:04

I got mine from an interview within actual

12:06

New Yorker. Okay, yeah,

12:08

I missed that part. So um,

12:11

when you put all those criteria together, and

12:13

again, like you said, it's just they're just

12:15

talking about the food. But they're

12:17

talking about the food too, the

12:19

point where a three

12:21

star rating means that

12:24

that restaurant puts out consistently,

12:27

over time, technically

12:30

scientifically perfect

12:32

food no

12:34

matter what you order, and no matter

12:36

what time of day, no matter what day of the year, no

12:38

matter who you are, you're going to go in and

12:40

get a perfect meal

12:43

every time. That's what a three star

12:45

rating is. And there's a lot of criticism of

12:47

those criteria, as we'll see,

12:50

but it really is a

12:53

remarkable, a remarkable

12:55

thing that they're they're basically saying, like, this

12:57

is a perfect meal no matter what

12:59

you order. That's that's kind of hard to find

13:02

in other industries. You're not just like well

13:04

like, um, you know this

13:06

is a this is a perfect shoe

13:09

that I'm wearing. You know, if it fits

13:11

this This is weird. You know, five

13:13

boxes of criteria that are

13:15

being checked off no matter what what shoe

13:18

model, shoe, the shoe is going to be perfect,

13:21

no matter what that's You don't find

13:23

that everywhere else. You know that

13:26

I really love that symbol or

13:28

that analogy. Thank you. Uh

13:31

So, there are only a hundred three stars

13:33

worldwide. There are four hundred

13:35

and fifty nine two stars and two

13:39

thousand, four d and eighty six one star restaurants.

13:42

A man, very famous man um

13:44

chef name Elaine Dukasa.

13:47

How do you pronounce that? I think it's Ellen.

13:52

I think there's so much French in here that I'm gonna

13:54

murder. But um, he has

13:56

the He has thirty six restaurants

13:58

in between them, twenty Michelin stars, including

14:01

three three star restaurants, which

14:04

is quite an accomplishment. Um

14:07

And I think we should take a break maybe, and then

14:09

we'll talk about some of those more weird

14:12

symbols in the guide. Does that sound

14:14

good? Lallah learn

14:29

it's too with Joshua

14:31

John. So,

14:49

the Michelin Guide is most well known for

14:52

the stars that it gives, right, um

14:54

and, we should say, even being mentioned in the

14:56

Michelin Guide, it's not like a comprehensive

14:58

listing of restaurants in It's

15:01

like, these are the most noteworthy restaurants

15:03

in New York and then the starred ones are

15:05

the best of the most noteworthy.

15:08

Um So, just being in there is is an

15:10

honor um, but they

15:13

I guess it's kind of like recognition that

15:17

there are some restaurants out there there are

15:19

still really good and that you should still go

15:21

check out. They just don't necessarily check

15:23

the boxes of the five criteria

15:26

of the perfect meal every

15:28

single time, but it's still definitely

15:30

worth checking out. They came up with other criteria

15:33

and they found um. The first one, I believe,

15:35

which it came out in nineteen, was

15:38

the Bib Gourmond that we we mentioned

15:41

a minute ago. Um and Bib being again

15:43

Bi Bendam or the Michelin Man. Yeah,

15:46

this is like his faves

15:49

totally, as evidenced by him

15:51

licking his lips. Give

15:53

me the okay symbol? Yeah,

15:55

so um, you're right. It started in

15:57

the fifties as uh. The original symbol is a little

15:59

red are which stood for our

16:02

E p a s French for meal. I'm

16:05

not going to pronounce it, but

16:12

it's basically Gorman means

16:14

good little restaurant, and it actually

16:16

comes out it's it's in, it's the regular

16:18

guy, but it also comes out as its own separate guide,

16:21

Um, the Bib Gourman Guide after

16:24

the Michelin Guide, is published, and

16:26

these are good quality, good

16:28

value cooking. And the idea is that you can

16:30

go to a bib Gourman restaurant

16:33

and you can get what they say

16:35

is a three course meal. I also saw one

16:38

of the inspectors say like a main

16:40

course, a dessert, and a glass of wine,

16:43

but like kind of like three things for about forty

16:45

dollars per person, which

16:48

they consider a good value. And that is if you're

16:50

talking like really really good stuff. Um

16:52

and three thousand three six

16:55

restaurants right now are listed as

16:57

bib Gourmand's. Yeah, so it's

16:59

a kind of like anybody can pick that up and

17:01

be like, let's see where we're gonna go to dinner tonight.

17:03

Basically, you know, um, forty

17:06

dollars. You could you can drop

17:08

forty dollars a person at like um

17:10

out back pretty easily. So

17:12

that that is pretty that is pretty

17:14

remarkable that they

17:17

I guarantee it's eleven or twelve bucks.

17:20

You think, sure, let's look right

17:22

now you talk. I'm gonna look up how much a bloomen

17:24

onion is. I gotta say, I haven't

17:26

been to an outback steakhouse since,

17:28

uh, I don't know, probably two

17:31

decades but um,

17:33

that bloomin onion is bloom and delicious.

17:36

Uh yeah, yeah, for sure and delicious.

17:38

You made a joke while we were on UM

17:41

on the road the other day about how we should go

17:43

to out Back and I was like, yeah, blue

17:45

an onion would be pretty good. But it turns out it was

17:47

just a joke and we didn't end up there. Mm

17:49

hmm. How's that for an

17:52

anecdote? It's good

17:54

until the part where you didn't go and get one of those bluemen

17:56

onions on your road trip, right, so

18:00

you can get yourself bluemn

18:02

onion for eight dollars and nine cents

18:05

I stay corrected, all right? That sounds about right

18:07

with tax though you're approaching ten. Yeah,

18:09

and if you want a regular size cheese fries

18:11

it's eleven bucks. So but

18:14

you gotta get some extra sauce with that bluemen

18:16

onion, so that probably pushes it over ten unless

18:19

that's a freebe I don't know how they were gallon

18:21

size? Uh

18:24

were you? Were you thinking the bluemen onion was

18:26

going to make an appearance in this episode

18:28

on Michelin Stars and did

18:30

not? Um? I give

18:32

that four tires though? All

18:34

right? So another symbol

18:37

they have is the plate to Michelin. How are

18:39

you gonna pronounce that in French? Uh?

18:41

Las yet? Yeah? Las yet?

18:43

That sounds about right. Uh. This is a symbol

18:46

of a dinner plate flanked

18:48

by a knife and a fork. This debuted

18:51

in and this is

18:53

just good cooking. Uh

18:55

it is not. It means it doesn't have a star. It's

18:57

not a bib gourmon. But they call

18:59

it quote simply good food. I'm not

19:02

entirely sure what the distinction is between

19:04

the plate in the bib gourmand

19:07

rating it. I think it's money.

19:09

Okay, so this could still be expensive

19:13

or is it cheaper than the bib gourmand.

19:16

No, no, I think the bib gorman is specifically

19:18

cheap, and the plate to Michelin

19:20

can be pricey but just not

19:22

good enough for a star, just not good

19:24

enough. It's like a substar rating. I guess

19:27

substar, but more expensive

19:29

than forty bucks a person. Okay, otherwise

19:32

it would be a big gormant. They also

19:35

one other way to kind of understand the bib gourmand

19:37

is um. We'll talk about the inspectors a little

19:39

bit um in a in a minute, but um,

19:43

apparently the ratings are they

19:45

used a hive mind kind of thing

19:47

where they'll have different inspectors go

19:50

to see what they think about an

19:52

inspector's rating of a restaurant, and then

19:54

they kind of pull them all together and

19:56

the average is what the what

19:58

the restaurant gets. Um, that was one

20:00

explanation I saw, and by

20:03

proxy, the bib Gourmand is say,

20:06

like one inspectors like, if you

20:08

happen to be talking to a Michelin inspectrum and said,

20:10

what's your what's your real favorite restaurant

20:12

in this town, they'd probably give you a big Gourmand

20:15

recommendation. Not necessarily everyone

20:18

in the Michelin organization would would agree

20:20

that it deserves a star three stars, But

20:22

this one inspectors like, this is really

20:25

honestly the best restaurant in town. Right,

20:27

And then they would take you into an alley and strangle you to

20:29

death because you're not supposed to know

20:31

who I am write exactly. You am

20:34

so sorry, but you know too much

20:37

like the talent to Mr Ripley at the end,

20:40

Oh spoiler? Uh

20:43

was it? No? It doesn't matter? Okay?

20:46

Uh. You have the Green Star, which debut just

20:49

last year that has restaurants

20:51

and chefs who are practicing sustainable

20:54

gastronomy UM, sourcing locally,

20:57

reducing waste, renewable energy

20:59

in the restaurants. Uh. Then

21:01

you have the covert or covers

21:04

uh. And that is based I

21:07

think. I mean, the food's got to be good too, but

21:09

it's really has to do with ambiance. You can

21:11

get one to five covers um,

21:14

which means like if you really want to go to a like

21:17

a special, like a romantic dinner

21:19

or something, you might want to look under the cover section.

21:21

Yeah. And and to make it even more

21:24

arcane and obscure that you can

21:26

have five covers, but if it's in black

21:28

ink, it's not as good as a few

21:31

covers in red ink. Yeah, a little

21:33

confusing. So if you have if there's a place

21:35

that has five covers in red ink, it's

21:37

their most charming, splendid um

21:40

atmosphere of any restaurant they've ever encountered.

21:43

Um. But yet it does surely

21:45

it has to do. It takes the food into account to they're

21:48

not going to send you like a slop bucket that's really

21:50

charming, but they the

21:53

whereas the stars are just the food.

21:55

This kind of takes into account the ambiance more.

21:58

Yeah, and then they started. You can see

22:00

symbols for different specialties

22:03

in different regions, Like in Spain

22:05

they'll have a little toothpick and wine symbol

22:07

for tapas like the best tapas places,

22:09

and the UK and Ireland they'll have beer

22:12

mugs for the best pubs. If

22:14

you see little grape symbols, that means someone

22:17

might have a really good wine list, or a cocktail

22:19

glass obviously for good cocktails,

22:22

or a sake bottle, stuff like that. So if

22:24

you see all these little symbols, obviously,

22:26

I'm sure there's a uh, what

22:29

do you call it? A legend?

22:31

Yeah, legend It explains

22:33

all this stuff. But we're here to do that for

22:35

you. Yeah, from what I can tell,

22:38

you have to be basically a trained Michelin inspector

22:40

to decipher some of this stuff once it gets real

22:42

deep. You know. Well,

22:45

we've been seeing this word inspector without explaining

22:47

that, and people are probably going, why do they keep talking

22:50

about detectives,

22:54

But we're not talking about detectives. We're talking about inspectors,

22:56

which is their word for reviews.

23:01

Yeah. Actually I don't even think they call them that. They call

23:03

them um anonymous restaurant.

23:06

Oh no, they do call them inspectors. I'm sorry

23:08

I misread um so

23:11

well. And that makes a lot of sense too, because

23:13

there is this definite haughtiness to

23:15

this whole thing. But at the same time,

23:18

from what Michelin has finally

23:20

started to choose to reveal about its inspectors,

23:23

UM, they do seem to actually

23:26

be worthy of such a kind of haughty

23:29

title. UM. They are

23:32

typically trained in and

23:34

having like real life experience in the hospitality

23:37

industry, the restaurant industry, UM,

23:39

hotel industry, UM.

23:42

And they will train

23:45

uh and actually go through this

23:47

kind of um vetting process for

23:50

about a year basically that also includes

23:52

an apprenticeship because this is not

23:54

the kind of thing where you can be like, oh, these

23:57

are the five criteria. I totally understand

23:59

this. It's a lot more nerve racking

24:02

than that. And also, if

24:04

you ask me, the best way to lose

24:06

love of food would

24:09

be to become a Michelin restaurant

24:11

inspector because it sounds like a lot

24:13

of not fun work. Yes,

24:16

I would much rather just go, uh,

24:18

you know, enjoy a meal

24:21

at a restaurant than have to review it

24:23

any day of the week. Yeah, there's

24:25

a cool article I read from Forbes from

24:27

twenty nineteen by Carla Allen

24:30

Do called the Secret Life

24:32

of an Anonymous Michelin Restaurant

24:34

Inspector, where they

24:36

talked to this woman who was an inspector

24:39

and they remain anonymous even when they're

24:41

interviewed, which um, as we'll

24:43

talk about in a bit, is happening a little bit more over

24:45

the past, like ten to twenty years. But

24:48

um, you know, she talks about

24:50

the rigors of the process,

24:53

and you know how you

24:55

know, some of them are trained Somalia. Some of them

24:57

were chefs, but they were

24:59

They're all all in the restaurant industry

25:01

at some point. Uh. And they get

25:04

there obviously their travel and hotel and their

25:06

food all covered. I was trying

25:08

to find the pay. I saw some guesses

25:10

that it was maybe close to a hundred thousand

25:13

dollars a year. Uh to

25:15

eat about three hundred meals

25:18

a year in these restaurants. UH.

25:20

To not be allowed to eat with your at

25:23

least if you're reviewing the restaurant, um

25:25

too with a spouse or any other friend, like you're supposed

25:27

to be in there alone. Um, you gotta

25:30

take these pictures, which

25:33

um, you know people do that a lot now any day, so that's

25:35

not gonna make you stand out. But uh,

25:38

the thing that I saw was that the hardest

25:40

part, at least from the point of

25:42

view of this one inspector, was maintaining

25:44

your anonymity, because I

25:46

think they said you're allowed to tell your closest family

25:49

members, but really no one else.

25:51

And in this day of social media, it's

25:54

I don't know how much of a social media presence you can

25:56

even have. It

25:58

would be a giveaway if you were, like, you know,

26:00

in in New York. Again, these

26:03

ten meals out this week, right,

26:05

Uh, you know, I'm in Paris, now, I'm in Los

26:08

Angeles, now, I'm in Chicago, I'm

26:10

in Tokyo. Like people would kind of catch on. I

26:12

think, yeah, you just yeah,

26:15

I think you're supposed to just be a lot more

26:17

kind of playing Jane or playing

26:20

James. I guess I've never heard of put that way,

26:22

but I think I just came upon something to

26:24

where you're just kind of unremarkable and not really

26:27

noticeable. Um, but at the same

26:29

time, you're not sticking out because you're so unnoticeable,

26:32

and you just kind of have to live a life of anonimity,

26:34

anonymity, not just at work, but in general, like

26:36

you're saying, like it's a good grind, it

26:39

sounds like a big grind, like ten meals

26:41

a day or ten

26:44

meals a week, UM

26:46

very frequently you know, launch

26:48

and dinner and we're talking like,

26:50

like you said, tasting menus or you know,

26:52

prefixed menus where

26:54

they're eating like multiple course meals.

26:58

UM. I saw that that new worker

27:00

interview with UM maxim or

27:02

m is what they nicknamed her UM

27:05

the Michelin Inspector, And I

27:07

guess they order as many

27:09

courses as the restaurant offers, so

27:12

if they have you know, soup, salad,

27:14

appetizer, main, pasta,

27:17

dessert, like you would be expected

27:19

to order a dish off of each of those

27:22

courses for lunch and then go

27:24

do the same thing for dinner five

27:26

days a week, three weeks

27:28

out of the month, all year long. It

27:31

does sound like a grind for sure. Yeah, for by

27:33

yourself, eating by yourself,

27:35

it's it can be kind of liberating

27:37

in fun, but after a while that is

27:39

one of the loneliest things you can possibly

27:41

do. And the other thing too is if it's

27:44

if it's frowned upon for you to bring a friend

27:46

or a family member. Um,

27:49

I guarantee it's frowned upon for you to

27:51

just be sitting at your phone. So you're

27:53

just sitting there like a total

27:56

weirdo by yourself at

27:58

dinner, paying a tench to

28:01

the salt shaker. Basically is

28:03

what you're what you're doing, m Yeah, enjoying

28:05

your world class meal. It does not sound fun

28:07

to me at all. I just rather it's

28:10

just one of those things I'd just rather be at everyday person

28:12

and just enjoyed on that level. Like I feel

28:14

bad for people who are so into making movies

28:16

that they can't enjoy a movie anymore. It's

28:19

the same exact thing You're like, I just want

28:21

to be a regular guy at a three star restaurants

28:23

sitting there looking at my phone. Right.

28:26

I want to be able to be on Twitter the whole time.

28:29

All Right, I think we should take another break and then we'll

28:31

talk about this. All sounds rosy,

28:33

but we'll talk about some of the criticisms right after

28:36

this with

28:50

Joshua. All

29:10

Right, So we've talked about the

29:13

um kind of sun the prey, Well

29:15

did we sing praises? Well

29:17

though they are definitely well trained and

29:19

all that. But but the thing is with

29:21

their inspectors, Michelin has always

29:23

been the term is they're

29:26

famously anonymous, like they

29:28

really, like you were saying, go to great links

29:30

to hide their their people,

29:33

um and their their identities. And

29:35

a lot of people are like, well, who are these people? Are they actually

29:38

qualified? And that's kind of caused a lot of controversy

29:40

in itself. Yeah, and I kind

29:42

of more meant singing the praises of the guide itself.

29:44

But um, it's all become sort

29:47

of controversial over the years, and there's

29:49

been a lot of criticism levied. Um,

29:51

like you mentioned first of all of the inspectors.

29:54

Uh, there have been some things that have come out over the years.

29:57

Uh. There was a book written by

29:59

an inspect yere Um after they

30:01

left the job, called The Inspector

30:03

Sits Down at the Table by Pascal Remy,

30:06

where Pascal said, they're not

30:08

nearly enough of us. They're a way fewer.

30:11

Um, we're not going to these restaurants as much as we

30:13

should. There have been restaurants

30:15

that said, hey, I was knocked down a

30:17

star, and I know for a fact that no

30:19

one even came into the restaurant this past year.

30:22

Uh, no inspector came into our restaurant, So how

30:24

do we get not back a star? Uh?

30:27

And there's kind of a general I

30:30

think within the industry, there's a general feeling

30:33

of this thing has too much

30:35

importance over and too much

30:37

hold over us as

30:39

chefs and as restaurateurs,

30:42

and we're kind of beholden

30:44

to this book to

30:46

the point where people, Uh,

30:49

I mean, there was there was one chef who took his

30:51

own life, Bernard French chef

30:53

Bernard Lusseau, who lost a

30:55

star. He had famously said, if

30:58

I ever lose my stars, will

31:00

kill myself and uh, in two

31:02

thousand three that happened and he

31:04

he shot himself in the head with a shotgun. Uh.

31:07

He very much was suffering from depression.

31:09

So we're not saying, you know, this is all

31:11

at the hands of the Michelin Guide, but

31:14

it just sort of hammers home the

31:17

stress of trying to achieve and

31:19

then maintain these stars. Yeah,

31:22

it's it goes both ways, right, Like, if

31:24

you don't have the stars yet and you're just starting

31:26

out, you want to get them

31:28

or else people are gonna be like, well, I thought you were like

31:31

an up and coming superstar where your Michelin

31:33

stars, but then once you get them,

31:35

it's like it's just

31:37

this albatross around your neck trying to

31:39

keep them. Um. And the guy who's

31:41

restaurant you me and I went to for our engagement,

31:44

Danielle um Boullard.

31:46

I believe um he actually

31:48

took uh or sorry ballued Um.

31:51

He took a kind of a cool

31:53

attitude to the whole thing. He had

31:56

three stars and he got knocked down

31:58

to two after I

32:00

had been there. Um. But

32:03

he he was basically like, look, you know, I

32:05

mean, we make a lot of

32:07

changes to our menu, and sometimes

32:10

it's stuff that we want to lock in and put

32:12

on the menu. Anytimes it's us just messing

32:14

around, but our customers seem

32:16

to really like it. Um. And so

32:18

if if that means that we're not putting out

32:21

perfect food every single time, but

32:23

we're being more creative and spontaneous,

32:26

I'm okay with that.

32:28

That was a very very

32:30

rare attitude from what I saw.

32:33

More likely, if you lose a star, you

32:36

openly weep, like Gordon Ramsey did

32:38

when one of his restaurants, The London in

32:40

New York City. Um lost

32:42

two stars. It had two stars and it lost

32:44

them both from one guy to the next and

32:47

he wept. Apparently he won't talk about it

32:49

if you ask him about it. Um.

32:51

That is much more the reaction to Michelin

32:53

Stars than than Danielle's

32:56

response, which is kind of like, you know, I'll

32:58

take it or leave it. It just kind of

33:00

ruined your life one way or the other. And

33:03

I think a lot of people in the restaurant

33:05

industry really resent that this anonymous

33:07

group of people whose qualifications

33:09

they're not even sure of, hold that kind

33:12

of sway over their lives,

33:14

over their entire careers. You know. Yeah,

33:16

Actually, now that I think of it, Emily and I

33:18

stayed at the London one time, and I think

33:20

we ate breakfast there. There you go two

33:23

stars. Yeah, I'm not sure when it

33:25

was as far as his stars coming and going, but uh

33:28

yeah, so we ate there. Another

33:32

sort of rarity was when

33:36

French chef Sebastian bra said,

33:39

Hey, Michelin, guide, can

33:41

you remove my stars and

33:43

and take them out of there? And and there's a couple of

33:45

interesting quotes. He said, after twenty years

33:48

under the banner of three stars, I wanted to find serenity,

33:50

freedom and independence, but three Stars

33:53

represented a form of permanent and growing tension

33:55

for me and today I only want

33:57

to be accountable to my customers, so

34:00

too much stress. And he was like, I want to I

34:02

want to experiment, and I want to try different things, and I don't

34:04

want to necessarily live

34:07

my or spend the rest of my career just

34:09

trying to maintain these stars.

34:11

And by all accounts, it was a pretty

34:13

liberating experience for him. Yeah

34:15

yeah, yeah, so um

34:18

that again, that also is very rare. For the

34:20

most part, it's like your your career is about

34:22

trying to get and then trying to keep those

34:25

stars. Um, and

34:27

just the kind of the frustration that goes

34:29

along with it has has made

34:31

a lot of people level accusations toward

34:34

the Michelin Guide, um,

34:37

including that you know, they hand

34:39

out like that. One guy's expose said

34:41

that they hand out stars or maintain stars

34:43

amongst some of their friends, like very friendous

34:46

French chefs. That is absolutely not

34:48

fair. But and there are definitely

34:50

plenty of people out there, um

34:53

who just go to

34:55

these restaurants so that they can brag about

34:57

having gone to this restaurant, and that probably makes

34:59

up a substantial part of

35:01

the chef's clientell or the restaurant's

35:03

clientele, and I would guess

35:06

if you're a chef in this area,

35:08

you probably hate people like that, even

35:10

though you know they're coming to your restaurant. They're

35:12

just being d bags. That's

35:15

why they're there, is just show off what a d bag

35:17

they are. Can we say that? Yeah?

35:19

And I bet you half of those people say

35:22

like, oh my god, what one of the best meals in half

35:24

of them say I don't know why this thing is

35:26

three stars right? Exactly exactly.

35:29

Yeah. So there is that too

35:31

it where people are like, there's too much sway,

35:33

are these people even like being fair about

35:35

this? And then the star

35:38

system attracts people who are just

35:40

just there to say that they ate at a restaurant and

35:42

aren't actually enjoying the food. All that exists.

35:45

But it really seems over

35:47

the last century that the Michelin Guide

35:50

has like it is legit

35:52

Like if you go to a three starred restaurant,

35:56

you're probably going to have the best

35:58

meal that you've ever had in your entire

36:00

life. Like that's probably true,

36:03

and that in and of itself legitimizes

36:05

it, or at least, you know, lends credence to the

36:07

idea that generally it's

36:09

a legitimate if not crushing um

36:12

rating system.

36:14

Yeah. Um, there's been

36:17

some other controversies over the years. In twenty

36:19

nineteen, that was a lawsuit

36:22

filed by French chef

36:24

Mark Verrat, who

36:26

said, my restaurant and

36:28

Maison de how do you pronounce

36:31

that last part? Not boise Idaho, but

36:33

I think boise boise, Maison

36:36

de boise. Yes, all right, let's

36:38

go with that. Uh. He was

36:40

downgraded from three to two stars. He

36:43

said, quote, it's worse than the loss of my

36:45

parents, which I'm sure

36:47

his parents were like Marcy for that. Uh.

36:51

And apparently the word on the street

36:53

was the inspector accused the kitchen

36:56

of using just a

36:58

very common English cheddar cheese in a souffle

37:00

dish that he says he was

37:03

sacar blue. He was really

37:05

mad. He said, I demand to see that report.

37:09

Michelin says, I don't know who you think you

37:11

are, but you better watch it. You can

37:13

lose all your stars, buddy, but you

37:15

you can't see our reports. He filed the lawsuit.

37:18

It became known as cheddar Gate, and

37:20

then the case is thrown out when they

37:22

couldn't produce evidence that actually hurt his business.

37:25

It actually helped his business. Because all

37:27

the publicity, so

37:29

that report thing actually struck me as surprising.

37:31

I saw that they will share their

37:33

reports. I mean, you know, really yeah, they

37:36

won't They obviously it won't say what inspector

37:38

came from or anything like that, but they that restaurants

37:41

who want to improve or get a starback

37:43

or whatever and want to know what happened, they

37:45

will share the reports. So I didn't understand

37:47

that maybe what I read was was wrong.

37:50

But the Michelin Guide has responded

37:53

to this kind of like criticism and bad publicity.

37:56

Um you know, the suicide

37:59

of um what was his last

38:01

name? Yeah,

38:03

uh in two thousand three was really

38:06

a dark cloud that hung over the Michelin

38:08

Guide. Um you know, the criticism

38:11

for basically raiding the best French restaurants

38:13

in New York and their first American guide,

38:16

all this stuff really amounted some bad

38:18

press for the Michelin Guide and it kind of

38:20

evolved in the twenty one century

38:23

to become a lot more

38:25

um worldly, a lot less franco

38:28

centric, a lot less stuffy, and

38:31

to expand. And today actually

38:33

the country for the city with

38:35

the largest number of Stars

38:38

among its restaurants is in Paris.

38:40

It's tokyo. How about

38:42

that right to say tokyo. I've

38:45

been saying it wrong. Um, he says tokyo.

38:50

Yeah, I've been saying it wrong for almost

38:52

fifty years. Yeah, I'm catching up

38:54

to you. Forty four for me because that was my

38:56

first word. Actually, yeah, I've

38:59

been saying tokyo since I was in the womb.

39:02

So yeah, it's it's opened up to

39:04

Asia. Um, it's expanded

39:06

in the US market. Like we mentioned before, they

39:10

they awarded their first ever start to a hawker stall,

39:13

which is uh Singapore street food,

39:16

which is really cool. Um. It was Hong

39:18

Kong soya sauce, chicken, rice

39:20

and noodle, which Man,

39:23

that thing got a star and I just want to go there

39:25

right now and eat it. The other

39:27

thing I want to eat is

39:29

in edition um

39:31

to Taipei, they had a

39:34

take out only street stall that has

39:36

one thing on the menu, which is a steam

39:38

pork bun with ground peanuts and cilantro. They've

39:41

been serving this for sixty years and

39:43

they gave that a bib gourman um

39:47

whatever metal or

39:51

the licking lips and okay, licking lips. Guy,

39:54

I want to eat that pork bun more than anything.

39:56

I can think of. The thing is chuck.

39:58

Is the thing that I hate almost

40:02

as much as waiting at a red light when there's

40:04

no cars coming from the other direction,

40:07

is standing in line for food. I

40:10

hate that. I feel like

40:12

such a chump, such a sucker,

40:15

and after X number of minutes, it is

40:17

not worth it. It doesn't matter how good

40:19

the food is, it's not worth

40:21

it. Because I also usually don't like the

40:23

people I'm standing in line with, you

40:26

know, like a certain kind of like

40:28

food fan or kinds

40:30

that will stand in line for an hour and a half. They're

40:32

They're also probably the ones that brag about the

40:34

number of stars or whatever. Um.

40:37

So there's a lot I don't like about that.

40:39

And it turns out Michelin

40:42

has has heard my concerns.

40:44

And Jiro Sushi um,

40:47

the the the sushi place that

40:50

that they did the documentary about. After

40:52

that documentary, you could

40:54

not still to this day, I think that documentary

40:56

is from like two thousand nine or ten. To

40:58

this day, you cannot get

41:01

into Juro's. It's a ten

41:03

seat sushi bar that's probably the best sushi

41:05

in the world, um, and you

41:07

just can't get in. It's sorry, t s.

41:09

You have to basically be ahead of state or a celebrity

41:12

these days. And it was a ten

41:14

seat, three star, three Michelin

41:16

star sushi restaurant in a

41:18

train station in Tokyo um

41:22

and Michelin took its stars back

41:24

because they say, the guide

41:26

is meant for, you know, any person

41:29

to be able to go to these restaurants,

41:31

the restaurants they recommend anybody should

41:33

be able to get into. Like, yes, some people

41:36

are going to spend a much more substantial

41:38

portion of their annual salary than

41:40

other people, but you should be able

41:42

to get into this place one way or another.

41:45

And with Jero's you just can't do that anymore.

41:47

So they actually took their stars back. They

41:49

said, Jero, we wish you the best of luck, not that

41:51

you need it, but you don't need these stars and you can't

41:53

really have them because you can't the average

41:56

person can't get a seat in your place anymore. Yeah,

42:00

you know what this episode has really made me want to do eat

42:03

eating a restaurant. Yes, dude, yes,

42:06

this is very cruel to to put this one out

42:08

right now in retrospect, because all

42:10

I want to do is eat in a restaurant. Man,

42:13

so bad. Just a good multi

42:15

course meal, starting out with like Martinier

42:19

drink, Yes, a bluemen onion in

42:21

there somewhere, maybe a side

42:23

of ranch. I mean, like, yes,

42:26

I cannot wait. It will happen again one day,

42:28

man, I know for sure. Okay

42:31

okay, uh, Well, since Chuck

42:33

said for sure, that means, of course,

42:35

everybody, it's time for listener mail.

42:40

I'm gonna call this. And we've gotten a few of

42:42

these lately, but this one I tagged about

42:44

a month ago from people who have who

42:46

finished their stuff. You should know Journey

42:49

and listen to all the episodes. Hey,

42:53

everybody, I've done it. It took me two years

42:55

of listening anytime I was driving,

42:57

and I have to drive a lot for work, but I finally gotten through

42:59

the entire back catalog, going all the way back

43:02

to how Grassoline works. Those

43:05

first episodes were so not very

43:07

good. I

43:09

don't know what I'll do in between new episodes now, but I

43:11

wanted to say thanks for the many, many hours of

43:13

learning and laughing and

43:15

what has to be hundreds of Simpson's

43:18

references. At least my

43:20

favorite episode was either nuclear

43:22

Semiotics or the

43:23

uh the at Loft Pass mystery.

43:26

But but I need to thank Josh for introducing

43:28

me to Teddy the Beaver. Oh

43:31

yeah, Teddy the baby beaver. He's

43:35

the one that built like the damn at that in the doorway

43:37

of the bedroom. Right. Oh was

43:39

that? I think? So? He was

43:41

so cute, so cute. The greatest

43:43

moment in the show, however, was during what I recall

43:46

uh to be the Beagle

43:48

Brigade episode, when Josh predicted

43:51

COVID nineteen by

43:53

talking about someone's getting a disease by eating

43:56

a bat. Yeah. A

43:58

lot of people say I predicted that. I called

44:01

out a magazine article that I read that predicted

44:03

it. I don't know if I particularly predicted

44:05

it, but thank you for that. And

44:08

I don't even know if that's the origin

44:10

of COVID. Now, isn't that sort of a dispute?

44:13

I don't know. The last thing I heard was

44:15

that it was either a pangolin or a bat. I've heard

44:17

bat more than anything. You know what I'm saying, Well,

44:20

you're going to the wrong websites, buddy, so

44:24

you need to find the truth. That's right.

44:27

Oh God, cartoon

44:29

sweat, He says. Also,

44:31

sorry, Chuck, but shark Nato can suck

44:33

it. I wish you know, for sure, but my

44:35

mind was blown away when Josh said it. Thanks

44:38

again for all the hard work and I look forward to twelve more years

44:41

worth of episodes. And that is from

44:43

Kyle in Phoenix, Arizona,

44:46

who I guess went to our live show there.

44:48

He's a great live show on Kellogg by the way,

44:51

arm of that Phoenix show. That was a good one. That was a

44:53

good show. I think that's the one where we got Lasso's.

44:56

Oh it absolutely was. I still got that

44:58

thing, Kathy with a K. That's

45:00

right, I love that lasso. H. Well, if

45:02

you want to get in touch with us, you can send us

45:05

a email to Stuff

45:08

podcast at iHeart radio

45:11

dot com.

45:16

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45:19

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45:23

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