Sitting at your own kitchen table with a clipboard and attempting to assess a platter of roasted chicken thighs in the manner of a Michelin inspector seems a little ridiculous. The napkin is made of paper. The price of the wine was nine dollars. Nevertheless, the five requirements quality of ingredients, technique mastery, chef personality, harmony of flavors, and consistency are printed out and tacked to the wall beside the spice rack. At first, it seems absurd. After then, it begins to feel awkwardly exposing.
A conversation that had been bothering me for weeks gave me the idea. On paper, Michelin’s rating system was surprisingly straightforward, according to a buddy who had worked in a two star restaurant in Lyon. Five groups. That’s all. The waiter’s grin, the ambience, and the speed at which the bread basket is delivered all receive zero points. Only the food. It sounded doable, perhaps even repeatable at home, and once I got that idea stuck in my head, it wouldn’t go away.
| Topic | Michelin Guide Inspection & Scoring System |
|---|---|
| Origin | France, 1900 |
| Founded By | André and Édouard Michelin |
| Parent Company | Michelin Group (Clermont-Ferrand, France) |
| Star Levels | One Star, Two Stars, Three Stars |
| Five Scoring Criteria | Quality of ingredients, mastery of cooking techniques, chef’s personality in cuisine, harmony of flavors, consistency across visits |
| Number of Inspectors (est.) | ~120 worldwide |
| Countries Covered | 40+ |
| Notable First Non-European Edition | New York City, 2005 |
| Reference | guide.michelin.com |
We therefore used Michelin’s widely accepted standards, modified for a home kitchen, to score every meal in our home over the course of a month. What transpired was a slow burning fight between two people who believed they had similar opinions about food, mixed with humor and knowledge.
When you truly attempt to apply these guidelines, the first thing you notice is how vulnerable you feel. Michelin inspectors are full time, anonymous, trained experts who work for the Michelin Group and frequently have experience as chefs or sommeliers.
They have spent years establishing a baseline by dining at hundreds of restaurants every year, shadowed senior inspectors, and learnt how to reserve tables under false identities. One inspector once acknowledged that becoming proficient in concealment was essential to their work. None of that instruction was available to us. We had a shared Google Sheet and a willingness to be truthful, which proved to be more difficult than anticipated.
Quality of ingredients seems simple until you’re standing in a grocery store wondering if you’re just paying for a prettier label or if the farm stand tomatoes are genuinely superior to the ones on sale at the chain. For the first time in years, we went to a local butcher and purchased fish from a dedicated counter instead of a plastic wrapped tray, demonstrating our increased attention to source.
The cost of groceries increased by almost 20%. Maybe this was the idea. You can taste the difference once you start paying attention, according to Michelin’s own standards, which state that ingredient quality is the cornerstone of everything else. Or, perhaps more accurately, you believe you can.
When it came to technique mastery, things became awkward. Making dinner is one thing. It’s another to judge oneself based on whether a steak’s sear was uniform, whether the emulsion cracked a little, or whether the veggies were cooked to the exact point of tenderness instead of just done enough.
We began to recognize the mistakes we had been making for years, such as overcrowded pans, careless seasoning, and sauces that tasted good but lacked depth. Most home cooks seem to become somewhat oblivious to their own routines. That was taken away by this practice, and not necessarily in a gentle way. One Tuesday, a risotto that would have received praise received a mediocre rating since the stock had been underseasoned from the beginning and the rice was a little overcooked. It didn’t make anyone pleased.
Applying the personality of the chef criterion at home is the most peculiar. This concerns whether a chef’s vision a viewpoint, a signature is reflected on the dish in a restaurant. Whether we were cooking intentionally or merely following recipes on autopilot became a concern at home. On most evenings, the honest response was autopilot.
The cuisine actually enhanced when we made a conscious effort to convey something, such as a mood, a memory, or a notion about how a dish should feel. Not because the method was altered, but rather because the choices were more thoughtful. A little smoked paprika in a lentil soup brought back memories of a chilly Portuguese evening. That sort of thing. The plates told the story, even though it sounds precious.
Flavor harmony made us consider balance in a way we had never done before. Richness against brightness, salt versus acid, and how a final squeeze of lemon can turn a dish from lifeless to vibrant. In retrospect, it appears clear that we began tasting at every stage instead of simply at the finish, but it didn’t seem to be part of our routine.
According to study on Michelin’s methodology, inspectors should assess if each component on a plate adds to a cohesive experience, meaning that nothing is wasted or arbitrary. It’s a strict standard when applied to a stir fry on Wednesday night. However, it’s not unachievable.
The fifth requirement, consistency, proved to be the most challenging. Before determining a restaurant’s star rating, Michelin inspectors visit it several times up to eight or nine times for possible promotions. They want dependability. We found that there was a huge, nearly humiliating difference between our best and worst meals at home.
On a hectic weeknight when we were exhausted and in a hurry, a meal that performed well on Saturday can fall apart. By the end of 2019, more than 40% of New York City’s first ten cohorts of Michelin starred restaurants had closed, and a recurring theme in that research was the constant pressure to uphold standards every single night. There is clearly less strain in a home kitchen. However, the lesson is still relevant: doing something well once differs greatly from doing it well every time.
By the end of the month, the scoring had become less formal and the clipboard had sustained some minor damage. However, the impact persisted. We were paying attention differently tasting more carefully, selecting ingredients with more consideration, and cooking with something closer to purpose even though we weren’t precisely grading anymore.
It’s yet unclear if this improved our cooking skills in any quantifiable way or if we simply got more mindful. Perhaps there is little significance to that distinction. Home kitchens were never intended to use the Michelin system. However, even if we borrowed its perspective poorly, it altered our perception of what was already on our plates.
i) https://www.medium.com/@benwebbpm/behind-the-stars-the-secret-world-of-michelins-inspection-process-b65d2aaf0659
ii) https://www.journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21649987231209175