03-04-2025
Opinion: Dear Michelin Guide, don't come here to Charlotte. Not yet, anyway.
I recently spent a weekend in Chicago, where the Michelin Guide has recommended restaurants for 14 years. While I was there, I had the opportunity to dine at a restaurant I had never been to before: Esmé.
Esmé is a hybrid art gallery-restaurant. The line between the two is seamless and not at all disconcerting. The cuisine is 'chef-driven,' as much as it is inspired by the artists whose works are on display, but it is without ego and full of empathy.
The kitchen had worked together to create a special black truffle and freekeh course for me, inspired by one artist's struggles with ADHD, being on the spectrum and being bipolar. My own manic episode had kept me off the plane to go to Esmé a year ago, and I had the distinct embarrassment at the time of explaining all of this in an Instagram DM to the chef.
When I visited, the tears that the service captain shared with me when she said the earthiness of the dish was meant to make me feel safe and grounded, were genuine. The flavors were bold, the plating colorful and the wine pairings inspired. It was the best restaurant experience I have had in ages.
The Michelin Guide, which rates restaurants between one and three stars — with most restaurants not receiving even a starless mention — rates Esmè but one single star.
Charlotte, pause for a moment to consider this and perhaps noodle on the notion that we're just not ready for the Michelin Guide. The Queen City's food cognoscenti, ever the active rumor mill, can also now predict the future. With news that Michelin is indeed coming to the American South, inclusive of North Carolina, Michelin inspectors could even be sitting at the table next to you when you go out for dinner tonight.
I couldn't think of anything worse, to be honest.
And I say this with a modest bit of authority. I am a former judge for the World's 50 Best Restaurant awards, and I have eaten at over 20 three-star restaurants, perhaps twice as many two-star restaurants and countless one-star restaurants. I once ate at every starred establishment in Singapore. On top of which, I have won two North Carolina Press Association awards for my food writing and restaurant criticism. I have the waistline to prove this.
Despite what people may think of me as a food critic, though, I do genuinely want Charlotte restaurants to succeed. Based on what I've experienced so far since moving to the Queen City in 2020, I think so too should Charlotte restaurants want Michelin to stay far away. For now.
Consider a distribution curve and that restaurants in Charlotte today fall into one of three categories:
Category A belongs to the very small handful of restaurants that could be ready, with some seemingly created ready.
Category B is for 90% of restaurants in town, neither here nor meh. They are the starless mentions, if anything at all. On the low end, these restaurants are stuck in the past, overrun by ego, are possibly trapped within the tight grip of unscrupulous influencers, or all of the above. They could be restaurants that serve gigantic portions of otherwise satisfactory food for the sole purpose of being extra. On the high end, these are popular crowd pleasers with good food that is sometimes great, that just seem to be missing that certain je ne sais quoi.
Category C restaurants are the opposite of A, with no hope of ever being in a Guide. Think: chain restaurants and bad bar food.
With the state of Charlotte restaurants thusly presented, an America South Michelin Guide in which the Queen City makes an appearance, in my opinion, would be nothing more than a disservice, both to our restaurants and to diners.
Keep in mind that the Michelin Guide purportedly only gives stars out based on food, but most savvy, experienced Michelin diners know that not to be the case. There are intangibles like 'chef's vision,' more objective criteria like consistency of quality and even the rumored 'white tablecloth-factor.' (Do only restaurants with white tablecloths get stars? Maybe, who knows?) And, of course, there's always the front of house service to consider, as nobody tastes food in a vacuum.
Let's all agree that good ol' Southern hospitality generally means that most restaurants seeking Michelin validation here in Charlotte have strong front-of-house service.
Let's also agree that restaurants with white tablecloths aren't that common, and therefore any 'white tablecloth-factor' is equally awash amongst our restaurants.
Putting these two factors aside, then, we're left with the consistency of the quality of the food and 'chef's vision' to make up what sets a particular restaurant up for recognition in that little red book.
Therein lies the problem — the two factors that create the wide chasm between Category A and Category C restaurants in Charlotte.
Our B restaurants are generic to a fault or so full of chefs' egos that diners' pleasure seems secondary. Or they serve otherwise good food, but they seem to be resting on their laurels. Many of these restaurants don't think very highly of us Charlotteans in that they copy their concepts from other restaurants in the U.S. or around the world, thinking that no one is going to notice.
But in this Instagram age when the camera eats first, it would be easy for anyone to go to the pages of the world's best restaurants and duplicate a dish or two. Who would know? I've seen that one Category B restaurant recently even copied a dish — from the ingredients to the presentation — from a restaurant in Charlotte. It was good, but it was also good at the OG.
[WHAT ELSE IS HOT? The ultimate list of new restaurants, bars and cafes coming to Charlotte in 2025.]
Charlotte, let's pause for a moment to consider whether we deserve better.
I think we do.
We don't deserve restaurants where food that costs a car payment leaves us full of nothing but regret. We don't deserve to have a night out only to realize that our pleasure and enjoyment are secondary to chefs pontificating on ingredient provenance.
We don't deserve, here in 2025, food that is still stuck in 1995. There are times and places for that, of course, but not in restaurants wanting to be included in the Michelin Guide. These, in case it weren't already clear, are the Bs that should be Cs.
In that wide B chasm, though, are restaurants so close to glory, so close to being in that A group. The Michelin Guide demands — and so too do we deserve — excellence, but excellence that has a personality. Michelin inspectors do not reward group efforts.
The chef's vision must be clear, and that vision is what's missing from some otherwise fantastic restaurants in town. Take us to church, dear Charlotte chefs, one might say, while you sharpen your knives.
Charlotte restaurants want stars? Then I want to see them reach for those stars.
In that Group A, I would argue, there are no more than five. Possibly only one of those will receive a star, and the rest perhaps a Bib Gourmand, a runner-up prize given by Michelin to restaurants whose excellent food is also a good value.
Only one star does not a guidebook make. Or shouldn't. Dallas may have eked out one star, but that was for an all-Texas guide. So consider that proposition. The Queen City eking out one star in a regional America South guide? It's embarrassing at best, and at worst — well, at that point, doesn't the entire Michelin enterprise seem to have become a money grab?
The point is not to have anxiety over optics or to shoehorn in restaurants that are not yet ready. The point of the guide is to be able to find restaurants that will offer experiences like that one I had at Esmé in Chicago. Only one star in Charlotte? I guarantee it.
A Michelin star in Paris should have the same weight and meaning as a star in Tokyo, as a star in Copenhagen, as a star in Chicago. This is to say nothing of two or three stars, neither of which will be given to any restaurant in Charlotte. To dole them out to the mid or altogether unworthy would mean to dilute everything that Michelin is supposed to represent, and then what are we left with? A little red book of ho hum.
One star in Charlotte? I guarantee it would go to L'Ostrica or Omakase Experience by Prime Fish.
Why?
The food at L'Ostrica is unlike any other at a restaurant in Charlotte. Chef Eric Ferguson borrows from New American, European and Asian traditions to create food that is elegant, accessible and delicious. The Sunday Suppers and daily sandwich specials have been particularly successful, especially when it comes to bringing people together. L'Ostrica is a first-class restaurant with a real neighborhood feel, with back and front of house working together to create an experience that is both upscale and relaxed.
Omakase Experience by Prime Fish, on the other hand, will be inaccessible to most given the price point ($300 per person before tax, service and drinks). But, unlike some of those B and C category restaurants, you will see where all the money goes. Chef Robin Anthony sources the very best ingredients available to create pristine, luxurious dishes, all in an intimate omakase setting. This restaurant is classic 'Michelin bait,' designed for and created to win a star (or two), and I think it is a reasonable assumption that it will happen at some point.
[READ MORE: Omakase is popping up all over Charlotte. Here's where you can try out the experience.]
But I am also not a betting man. So, Charlotte, I ask you to pause, to reflect, to think with your stomachs and your brains, and for all of you to say it together with me:
'Dear Michelin Guide, yes we are the America South and proud of it. But, please do not come here. We are not ready. Yet.'
