Michelin Marks Its Debut Here In French Taste
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The French have chosen their favorite Manhattan restaurants. The choices are really quite, well, French.
Today, the tire company Michelin officially unveils its first guide to New York City restaurants. The Michelin Guide New York City 2006 gives its top rating, three stars, to four French-leaning Manhattan restaurants – Alain Ducasse, Jean-Georges, Le Bernardin, and Per Se.
When Michelin announced earlier this year that it would cast its critical eye on the Big Apple, New York’s food industry denizens reacted with anticipation – but also with shrugs of Gallic proportion. For some, the publication marked the city’s inclusion in the world of elite dining; others questioned whether Michelin could adjust to Gotham’s more casual culture.
According to the director of Michelin Guides, Jean-Luc Naret, the standards remain the same no matter the city. “One star in Paris should be equal to one star in London,” Mr. Naret said.
He was quick to defuse some national stereotypes. “We’re not coming with any sort of arrogance to New York,” Mr. Naret said. “We’re coming with humility.”
The results, however, appear to have done little to dampen the perception of a French bias. All four of the three-star restaurants are either French owned or feature French cuisine. Two of the four two-star eateries – Daniel and Bouley – serve French cuisine.
“The whole list has a French slant to it,” a longtime New York food writer, Arthur Schwartz, said. He called Michelin’s ratings “totally predictable,” noting that the starred restaurants had little representation in Italian food and no examples of Mexican, Greek, or Indian fare. “I don’t think New Yorkers are going to take it seriously,” he said.
Others said that while the top restaurants were not unexpected, Michelin’s one-star list was more eclectic, featuring popular standbys like Nobu on the same page as less acclaimed restaurants like the Spotted Pig, in Greenwich Village. “They really went across the board,” a public relations consultant, Steven Hall, said.
There are a few surprises in the results. Thomas Keller’s Per Se earned a three-star rating a little more than a year after opening, but the Upper East Side fixture owned by Daniel Boulud, Daniel, received just two stars. For his part, Mr. Boulud said he was happy that two of his restaurants garnered stars.
“To New Yorkers, I hope they know what Daniel is worth,” Mr. Boulud said.
Michelin made the journey to New York this year after an aborted attempt in the 1980s. “Maybe at that time, New York was not ready, but we were not ready as well,” Mr. Naret said. “The timing is now perfect.”
Mr. Naret insists that Michelin is not looking to displace the Zagat Survey, whose ubiquitous decals have graced window fronts across the city since 1979. The two companies tread carefully when discussing one another, but neither seems concerned about a new challenger.
“The Zagat is a popularity survey, which is useful,” Mr. Naret said.
Tim and Nina Zagat aren’t sweating the French arriviste. “The Zagat Survey is the trusted, comprehensive, and quintessentially New York source for restaurant information,” Nina Zagat said, adding that the survey is based on more than 30,000 responses from New Yorkers.
Several of the most popular restaurants in the Zagat Survey earned at least one star from Michelin. Union Square Cafe, which has been either the no. 1 or no. 2 most popular restaurant in the Zagat Survey for several years, received no stars.
Overseas, Michelin is arguably the gold standard of guides to restaurants and hotels. “In France, the Michelin Guide is really a bible,” a restaurant consultant, Stephanie Teuwen, said.
“It has a tremendous impact on the business of a restaurant.”
The guide’s history began in 1900, when the French company distributed it free to the country’s early motorists. In the century since, the guide’s success has led to its expansion to 12 editions in 20 European countries.
Michelin boasts of its selectivity, as well as its secretive evaluation process. Throughout the year, a group of trained inspectors traverse the fine-dining scene, stealing anonymously into and out of the top eateries and grading them on everything from taste to service to atmosphere, including even the quality of the silver and the fabric of the napkins. Of the thousands of European restaurants Michelin has rated, only 50 garner three stars.
Indeed, Michelin’s status had become so vaunted that in 2003 a top French chef committed suicide, reportedly over rumors that his restaurant was about to lose one of its three stars. (It did not.)
Michelin inspectors have been stationed in New York for more than a year, Mr. Naret said. They started with a list of 1,000 to 2,000 restaurants, which they whittled down to 507. Of those, 39 earned stars, including the eight restaurants with two or three. Only two starred restaurants operate outside Manhattan: Peter Luger and Saul, both of Brooklyn. Each restaurant was visited at least twice, and those with stars many more times. Inspectors examined the kitchen and storage facilities of some eateries.
The guide, which will be in stores Friday, sells for $16.95 and features 507 restaurants from the five boroughs, as well as 50 Manhattan hotels.