Restaurant Michelin star in hisThe original version reminds 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 it 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 second direction of the company's activityis the production of guidebooks and directories "ViaMishlen", among which the most famous and popular is the "Red Guide" - restaurant rating. His first editions contained 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 Michelin Rating is enoughconservative methodology, 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 stars. And more, since the early 30-ies of the last century, the assessment system has not changed.
Today restaurants with Michelin stars can bedivided 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 However, modern specialists say that this system is somewhat outdated, since it worked at a time when the restaurant business was more attached to the roads and travels around them.
The Michelin star is not the only symbol,which 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 is luxurious. In addition, the guide presents institutions with no stars at all, but who have an appreciation of the quality of the kitchen in the form of a pictograph of Biba, the 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.
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 the applicants must compile a report. Before this, the contestants must 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 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).
But the details of the process, in general, have all the samepublic 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 kitchen and other data of the restaurant (atmosphere, service, prices, etc.). Based on their impressions, they write reports that are reviewed at the main office in Paris at a collective meeting. Here, stars are assigned and assess the state 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 decrease in the stars of his institution from three to two (which did not happen).
Michelin stars in Russia or in another countrycan 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 head 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 a little stiff and designed for wealthy people. A feature of the guide is that the restaurants included in it do not have the right to specify 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".
Despite the fact that the company is trying to refuteits commitment to French cuisine, there is the fact that three-star restaurants in Paris are larger than in the 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. There are nine establishments 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 turned out to be more supportive towards institutions in the Czech Republic - Allegro Prague in Prague, and to Ukraine, where local businessmen opened the restaurant of the Prague cuisine La Veranda. In addition, it is worth noting the establishment under the brand name "Green", opened in Geneva by A. Komm.
What can connoisseurs of delicious dishes offerrestaurants in Moscow? 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, who has gone through many institutions of high food culture around the world, works, including through the one-star "Bacchus" restaurant in Mallorca.
Cooks with Michelin stars work even inMoscow region. For example, Jan Lejar, who supervises the Ryver Palace fish restaurant, also "looks after" the kitchen in the Cheval Blanc, located eight kilometers from the Rublevo-Uspenskoe highway in his own plot with a 50-hectare pristine forest. Foreign masters can be found next to the Garden Ring ("L'Alberto"), where N. Canutti works - in the past the chef of the three-star London establishment "Alan Ducas in Dorchester". Among the famous chefs there are also Slavic surnames, for example Taras Zhemelko, who in 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 restaurantsParis 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".
For lovers, it's worth considering eating abroad,that in some eminent Western restaurants there is a queue for a table a year long, 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.
