What is a Michelin star? How to get a Michelin star? Moscow restaurants with Michelin stars

Restaurant Michelin star in its original version resembles rather not a star, but a flower or a snowflake. It was proposed more than a hundred years ago, in 1900, the founder of the company Michelin, which initially had little to do with the high cuisine. The firm supplied tires for bicycles at the end of the nineteenth century, and later for cars. Today - this is an enterprise that includes 69 plants with 130,000 employees, which produces tire products for the above vehicles, as well as for motorcycles and aircraft.

The company first produced tires

The second direction of the company's activity is the release of guidebooks and directories "ViaMishlen", among which the most famous and popular is the "Red Guide" - restaurant rating. In his first editions there was information necessary for travelers when visiting France, including addresses of hotels, snack bars, car parks and restaurants, the most expensive of which were marked with a sign from which the Michelin star "grew".

The composition of the rating does not change for decades

The Michelin Rating is a fairly conservative technique, since changes in it are extremely rare. For example, the first adjustment occurred more than a quarter of a century after its creation - in 1926, a single Michelin star in the directory began to mean not the most expensive institution, but a restaurant with high quality cuisine. A little later in the ranking there were two more positions with two and three asterisks. And more, since the early 30-ies of the last century, the assessment system has not changed.

Today restaurants with Michelin stars can be divided into three categories - one, two or three stars, where one means that the kitchen in this institution is one of the best in its type. Two stars - the cuisine is excellent, it is worth to go there, even changing your tourist itinerary, and three stars - for the sake of such an institution it is worth to make a separate trip. However, modern experts say that this system is somewhat outdated, since it worked at a time when the restaurant business was more attached to the roads and travels around them.

In the directory there are not only stars

Michelin star - this is not the only symbol that is contained in the directory of gourmet establishments. Here you can still find signs in the form of crossed forks and spoons, which do not evaluate the kitchen, but the level of comfort of the establishment. Two such signs mean that the restaurant is comfortable, and five (the maximum number) - that luxurious. In addition, the guide shows the institutions generally without stars, but who have an appreciation of the quality of the kitchen in the form of a pictograph of Biba's head - a symbol of the company Michelin Bibendum. This sign indicates a good quality of food at a reasonable price (about 35 euros). Also in the directory there are restaurants without stars, but marked with a sign of two coins, which mean a possibility to have a snack in less than 20 euros.

Inspectors visit institutions secretly

How to get a Michelin star would like to know, probably many. But the valuation technique is a commercial secret of the firm. It is only known that the team of the Michelin guide employs 90 inspectors (70 in Europe and 20 in Asia and America), who are recruited through a competition that includes a dinner with the chief inspector, after which competitors must compile a report. Before this contestants have to work for more than one year in the service sector and be familiar with all the processes in this direction. After the entrance examinations, the selected specialists pass a six-month course, where they learn how to assign a rating to restaurants. All the data are kept in deep secrecy and for their disclosure Inspector Remi Pascal (Author of the book "Inspector Sits at the Table", 2003) was instantly dismissed, and the book itself was not widely recognized abroad (it was not translated, for example, into Russian language).

Loss of the star means a lot

But the details of the process, in general, have become all the same public property. It is known that Michelin inspectors travel the world, visiting up to a thousand restaurants a year on an anonymous basis (!), Where they make a conclusion about the quality of the cuisine and other data of the restaurant (atmosphere, service, prices, etc.). Based on the impressions received, they write reports that are reviewed at the main office in Paris at a collective meeting. Here, stars are assigned and assess the condition of the restaurants that the stars received earlier. If the institution has changed for the worse, then the honorable mark can be selected. And this always entails some outflow of customers and loss of reputation. So, the French chef B. Loiseau committed suicide only because of rumors about a possible decline in the stars of his institution from three to two (which did not happen).

The restaurant must have an original kitchen

Michelin stars in Russia or another country can get only institutions with author's cuisine. Therefore, restaurants need a chef with their own original dishes, which will contribute to obtaining a rating, which is determined for the institution. If the chief cook, who is the author, leaves work, then he personally loses the star, and his employer. The rating is known for its conservatism, so here it is rare to find new conceptual establishments, but there are only good restaurants with really delicious food, perhaps somewhat stiff and designed for wealthy people. A feature of the guide is that the restaurants included in it do not have the right to indicate somewhere the number of stars they receive, so that the client learns this information only from the rating itself. Otherwise, the institution may be deprived of its stellar "awards".

French appraisers prefer the French

Despite the fact that the company is trying to refute its commitment to French cuisine, there is the fact that there are more three-star restaurants in Paris than in the other twelve other European countries. In addition, it is in France most restaurants of all stellar magnitudes - more than six hundred. Many three-star establishments are found in the city, located thousands of kilometers from France - Tokyo. Here there are nine institutions with three stars, about twenty-five - with two or more hundred with a rating of one star. Michelin stars in Moscow are not officially assigned to any institution. The French inspectors were more supportive of institutions in the Czech Republic - Allegro Prague in Prague, and Ukraine, where local businessmen opened a restaurant of Prague cuisine La Veranda. In addition, it is worth noting the institution under the brand name "Green", opened in Geneva by A. Komm.

There are no Michelin restaurants in Moscow, but there are cooks

What can Moscow restaurants offer to connoisseurs of delicious dishes? With the Michelin stars, there are actually a lot of foreign specialists working here who came from foreign institutions marked by these eminent symbols. Among them, we can mention "Cipollino", where Andrian Kellas is working, which has gone through many institutions of high food culture all over the world, including through the one-star "Bacchus" restaurant in Mallorca.

Cooks with Michelin stars work even in the suburbs. For example, Jan Lejar, who oversees the fish restaurant "River Palace", also "looks after" the kitchen in the Cheval Blanc, located eight kilometers from the Rublevo-Uspenskoe highway on its own plot with a pristine forest of 50 hectares. Foreign masters can be found next to the Garden Ring ("L'Alberto"), where works N. Kanutti - in the past, the chef of the three-star London institution "Alan Dyukas in Dorchester". Among the famous chefs there are also Slavic surnames, for example Taras Zhemelko, who for ten years of work in this field has had time to learn from Richard Corrigan, to be an assistant to the chef in the legendary Japanese "Nobu", where he became the Sous-chef. Today Taras is working in an institution called "Kai".

If you do not have the opportunity to visit the restaurants of Paris with Michelin stars, then you can find samples of a variety of high cuisine in the same Moscow. In "Spelacotto" you can get acquainted with the works of the chef Scott Denning, who previously worked in London (La Gavrosch, two Michelin stars). In the "Near East" works a master from Japan Kobayashi Katsuhiko, who specializes in Japanese desserts for more than 20 years. In "Jeroboam", where "conjures" Hunz Winkler (three Michelin stars), one can feel the atmosphere of the times of the Russian Empire and try "pigeons in crisp" or "cancers in saffron".

In some Parisian institutions you need to book a table for the year

Lovers of eating abroad should take into account that some famous Western restaurants have a queue for a table a year, they can be closed for the period of school holidays, sometimes in August, as well as on Mondays and Sundays. In particular, this mode has a three-star establishment "L'Ambrosi", located in Paris in a house of the 17th century, where fine pâtés and seafood are served in a refined design. Here, politicians, owners of large enterprises gather, so the account is from 250 euros and above. Three stars also have one of the oldest French restaurants, founded in 1784 (Grand Vefour). The establishment is located in the gardens of the Palais Royal and has in its interior only genuine antique things of the Empire era, many of which are so valuable that they are in special showcases. The account in the institution starts from 160 euros according to the "a la carte" system.