Michael Ellis describes his team as follows: “Our inspectors are full-time Michelin employees. They eat anonymously, and reserve under false names. They always pay their bills and they even have credit cards with false names, which was a challenge with the bank.
“They are usually retired food experts from hotel or cookery schools, and often from hotels themselves, front or back of house. They must have the ability to taste food, in the same way a sommelier can taste wine, and they must be able to translate that into writing.
“They are on the road five days a week, eating 10 meals a week, usually by themselves. So it is not particularly compatible with family life – hence it is a male-oriented job; we have only six or seven female inspectors. But we have virtually no turnover of inspectors.
“We employ locals wherever we are around the world. So we would employ Emiratis here if we come to Dubai, as we need local knowledge and understanding.”
Michelin’s inspectors understand the gravity of their role and the implications of their decisions, Ellis insists. “A star puts a restaurant on the map. It will change the chef’s life, and his customer base. Customers will be more demanding.
“A star is not awarded to the chef, but to the establishment,” Ellis reinforces. “So the phrase ‘Michelin-star chef’ is a misnomer. If a chef leaves, we’ll go back and see if the next chef can execute the same level of quality to maintain the star(s).”
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A star is not a fixture, even where a highly rated chef stands the test of time. “Sometimes we have to take stars away,” says Eliis. “If our inspectors have a bad experience we’ll do a second inspection, and maybe a third or fourth to see whether that warrants the removal of a star.
“We are aware of the impact that can have on a restaurant,” adds Ellis. But more happily, sometimes inspectors will award a second or third star.
Restaurants can’t reject the inspectors’ decision. “It’s not like an Oscar, it’s an opinion – you can’t give it back,” jokes Ellis.
Equally, it shouldn’t become an obsession for chefs at the expense of good business practice. “I always say a restaurant’s main objective should be to fill itself with happy customers who want to come back; to be profitable and viable. Do that well and we will find you,” promises Ellis.
“We do our homework properly, using other guides, magazines, the internet and talk to local chefs. So we’re able to boil down all the restaurants, and then we start looking at menus. We’re looking for restaurants that stand out from all the others. It’s a long, arduous and expensive business!
And we don’t get it right first time every time,” Ellis concedes. “But we do the best we can.”
The list of starred restaurants is always – if you’ll forgive the pun – a moving feast. There are currently nearly 19,405 restaurants in the Michelin Guides (which will increase soon with the publication of the latest Sao Paolo/Rio guide), and 2,704 - less than 15% of them - have stars.
At the time of writing there are 109 three-star restaurants, 407 two-star restaurants and 2,118 one-star restaurants.
And just maybe – in 2017 – a small cadre of restaurants in Dubai will add to those numbers.
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