Michelin restaurant guide ‘racist and Eurocentric'

Telegraph

7 hours ago

The Michelin restaurant guide is racist, Eurocentric and elitist, academics are claiming.
The famous guide, first published by the French tyre company in 1900, now covers more than 30 countries and has racked up sales of more than 30 million copies.
Its rating system of stars – one star for high quality cooking, two for excellence, and the celebrated three stars for exceptional cuisine – are coveted by restaurateurs across the world. Many cooks regard it as the ultimate honour and starred chefs, such as Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal, have often become celebrities in their own right.
In the most recent version of the Great Britain and Ireland guide, which contains 1,147 restaurants, 220 are starred, including the first Greek restaurant to be awarded one, an AngloThai eatery and a Korean restaurant. Two West African restaurants in London's Fitzrovia were awarded stars in 2024.
But despite some variety within the guides, critics argue that Michelin's approach is generally 'parochial' and that it ignores 'huge swathes of the world'.
These omissions may be down to racism, suggests Tulasi Srinivas, a professor of anthropology, religion and transnational studies at Emerson College, in Boston.
'There is no Michelin Guide in India, one of the world's greatest and oldest cuisines, or in Africa with its multiplicity of cultural flavours. Perhaps a side of racism with the boeuf bourguignon?' she wrote in a blog on the website The Conversation.
Instead of promoting restaurants in other parts of the world, she criticises the 'inherently elitist' guide for celebrating 'obscure' European gastronomic processes such as 'fire cooking' in Stockholm and 'molecular gastronomy' in Spain.
'Despite a movement to decolonise food by rethinking colonial legacies of power and extractive ways of eating, Michelin has derived its stellar reputation primarily from reviewing metropolitan European cuisine,' she said.
Michelin Guide expansion into new regions is often funded by local tourism boards or governments, with Thailand, for example, paying more than £3 million for the guide to rank restaurants in Bangkok. The professor said this arrangement amounts to a 'shakedown' - stars in return for cash.
Other academics describe the Michelin Guide as the 'gatekeeper' of fine dining, focusing on white, Eurocentric restaurants and controlling the styles of cuisine that are worth paying a premium for.
Zeena Feldman, a professor of digital culture at King's College London, compared food influencers' reviews on social media to the Michelin Guide and concluded that the former gave a voice to 'under-represented cuisines' from different parts of the world. 'Culturally and economically, Instagram food criticism is a lot more inclusive than Michelin,' she said in a separate blog on The Conversation website.
But supporters of the guide hit back. Chris Watson, a former Michelin Guide inspector who runs an HR consultancy, dismissed claims of racism and said there will always be an element of exclusivity to dining guides that rate restaurants.
'Michelin has introduced a 'Bib Gourmand' award representing value for money experiences in dining, and there are currently over 3,200 of these across Michelin Guides globally,' he said.
'It also introduced the green star, in 2020, to celebrate restaurants which utilise 100 per cent local ingredients - so far from elitist. And there are a multitude of Indian restaurants across the globe which have been awarded the star accolades. Hardly, racist.'
A Michelin Guide spokeswoman said: 'The Michelin Guide evaluates all cuisines according to five universal criteria, without quotas or Eurocentric favouritism. Its expansion beyond Europe has led it to be present today in more than 60 destinations worldwide, from Mexico to Thailand, via Brazil and Turkey.
'The Guide celebrates the richness and diversity of culinary cultures by highlighting more than 200 styles of cuisine, the result of rigorous inspections carried out by inspectors from over 30 nationalities.
'Trésind Studio, the first Indian restaurant in Dubai awarded three Michelin stars, El Califa de León, a Michelin-starred Taquería in Mexico, the famous hawker centres of Singapore, and the kebab shops of Istanbul are all examples that perfectly illustrate this ambition: to celebrate universal culinary excellence, without borders.
'This diversity is also reflected in the wide range of price points among Michelin-selected restaurants. For example, some starred establishments in France offer three-course menus for less than 40 euros (£34), while some starred restaurants in Asia serve dishes for under 10 dollars (£7.40).'