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Status Anxiety

Wednesday, 21st January 2009

My guide to the horrors and awesome indignities of Michelin-starred restaurants

My heart goes out to the compilers of the 2009 Michelin Guide to Great Britain and Ireland which was published earlier this week. Not since 1929, the first year of the Great Depression, can an edition of the famous red handbook have been looked forward to less. In the current climate, the prospect of going out for an expensive meal is about as appealing as buying a new house.

I spent five years working as a food critic and some of my most miserable evenings were spent in Michelin-starred restaurants. A typical experience would begin with being put on hold when I called to make a reservation and end with the arrival of the credit card slip on which the waiter had helpfully left room for a ‘tip’ even though the total included 12.5 per cent service. In spite of the difficulties of booking tables, Michelin-starred restaurants are almost never full. Indeed, I remember one place in which I was the only person in the dining room. Even when operating at full capacity, they are notoriously lacking in atmosphere — the inspectors would do better to award tumbleweeds rather than stars. They are holy places in the gastronomic universe and the customers dare not raise their voices.

As a general rule, Michelin-starred restaurants cater to the rich, the famous and the beautiful and if you don’t fall into one of those categories, you will be treated as a nobody. I’ve been told by maître d’s that I have to be in and out in 90 minutes and then made to wait over an hour for my starter. I’ve been seated so close to the kitchen that when I sneezed I was worried that the whole restaurant would catch a cold. And I’ve spent 45 minutes cooling my heels at the bar while a succession of D-list celebrities have walked in off the street and been shown to a table.

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Anxiously stable

January 22nd, 2009 9:05am Report this comment

We all know that you're busy Stateside with Top Chef, but such a shameless rewrite of an old piece is poor by any standards (even Julie managed to coin a few original phrases in her recent article for The Sun). Hope you do better next week.

Kellie

January 22nd, 2009 4:55pm Report this comment

Toby I normally love reading your column but waking up this morning stateside to read a column from recently regurgitated material is about as appealing as opening the door to find a deliveryman bringing you dead flowers.

I know you can do better than this and I look forward to reading it.

Toby Young

January 22nd, 2009 5:36pm Report this comment

This isn't a rewrite of a previously published piece, but the distillation of a longer blog entry. Since I published the entry on my own blog -- and own the copyright -- that's within the rules. Apologies to anyone who's already read the longer version, but most readers of the Spectator -- where this piece appeared today -- won't have seen it.

Karl Liplicker

January 22nd, 2009 6:34pm Report this comment

Name names Toby, name names!!

Herbert Thornton

January 22nd, 2009 6:34pm Report this comment

Toby -

Are Anxiously stable and Kellie perhaps former Michelin-star restaurant workers who are now out of work due to the recession but have not yet shed their accustomed attitudes?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your comments and I don't care if earlier versions exist.

Angharad

January 23rd, 2009 8:33am Report this comment

"the tasting menu is described as ‘Menu Prestige’. Isn’t the adjective supposed to come before the noun?"

In French, the adjective precedes the noun, not like in English or German. If you need a good example, think "Moulin Rouge", the Red Windmill.

Anxiously stable

January 23rd, 2009 1:33pm Report this comment

Dear Herbert. I've served my time in various places, but never in a restaurant. I'm just a fan of Toby's stuff, so was a mite peeved to have already read this piece (albeit edited for Anglo tastes) on his blog. Check out the comments on the Top Chef website, though. They're seriously funny…

Kellie

January 23rd, 2009 5:16pm Report this comment

Toby, my apologies for having thought that I read it here in the Spectator rather than your blog.
By the by, Herbert, no I have never worked for a Michelin rated restaurant or any restaurant for that matter. We don't have Michelin rated restaurants over here (at least to my knowledge unless they finally rated some in New York or L.A.) It seems very few of ours over here on the other side of the pond would pass any of their "criteria". Being a foodie that has lived in some of the most culinary rich cities in america, it's complete rubbish what they deem as a good restaurant.

Ellie

January 23rd, 2009 8:03pm Report this comment

Actually, the French grammer is perfectly correct. Only some adjectives come before the noun.

David Short

January 27th, 2009 6:22pm Report this comment

I don't think Prestige is an adjective anyway; it's also a noun. Toby's right: it is hugely pretentious.

I once saw something that should have been an unguarded moment for Gordon Ramsay. He was showing some serf how to make broccoli soup. Broccoli, water and salt. That's why he's worth millions and that's why only fools go to pretentious restaurants.

I've been to some of the best restaurants in the world but thankfully have never had to foot the bill.

There is nothing very sublime about the food, and it's all been touched and mucked about with by God knows how many people before it gets in front of you.

Same with canapes. I've never touched them since a woman I met in Cannes, who was in charge of supplying girls and boys to delegates of the various festivals there, told me the waiters always blow raspberries all over them.

You can't have minimum wage people serving absurdly privileged people with something as personal as nibbles without a little bit of class warfare.

Remember Leona Helmsley? She was incredibly rude to the staff of all her husband's hotels. The result was that every cocktail she was ever served had been stirred by at least one waiter's cock. And doubtless it was not a very clean one!

I am sure that such swizzle sticks are used daily amid the refreshments of the rich and famous...

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