Even in France I prefer the Patricia Wells’s books and lefooding.com to Michelin. Before those I preferred Gault Millau though I had the red book as well.
In the mid-80s we were outside of Les Baux and thought we’d try a Michelin one-star for the hell of it. Walking from the parking lot to the door we looked through the window into the dining room and saw some ancient bald dude in white tie with a monocle. Turned around and went to some casual place in town.
Can it be a combination of both? If I’m gonna spend a boatload of $$ on one meal, I would prefer to know that it’s recognizable by some combination of blogger, critics, Michelin to maximize my QPR. After all, I’m not made of money and that’s why we read reviews right? That’s the reason why I don’t wing it often…my wealth is of very limited means.
It’s also the same reason why we follow chefs of a certain pedigree since we sorta know what to expect from them. If there are two new restaurants with chef A & B running each one serving the same cuisine with both charging $100 for a tasting menu (for simplicity sake). Let’s say we don’t know anything about either chefs other than the fact that chef A’s resume consists of Apple Bees and Cheesecake Factory and chef B was CDC at Providence, I will choose to spend my money with chef B since it’s more likely that my money is better spent there.
That’s why I went to try Auburn and Inn Ann since they have pedigree…same reason why many people trust Michelin.
I would read other guides and food experts and things online to try to inform myself. Like with Michelin not as a the bible but definitely to give me a good picture of the landscape. I would then see what locals are eating too.
I can totally understand why someone doesn’t want to follow the Michelin guide, but I can’t understand why some people have problems giving other people the chance to do so.
I do not disagree with your dos pesos at all.
Personally for me, I like to do a lot of research before eating at places, buying techy stuff, or choosing a spouse.
I do love the serendipitous nature of running into a random hole in the wall that blows my mind, or a local recommendation following through with expectations. But I don’t use the guide because I worry that the food is going to be bad with non Michelin, unrated, unsigned hype places. I just really enjoy the culture behind Michelin establishments and their drive to reach three stars along with the common goals that it instills for a kitchen~. The guide is an easy way for me to navigate the vast world of dining. I don’t personally use it as a bible either, but it’s still something I respect~
I’m not sure I’ve ever spent big bucks on a meal at a place I haven’t been to before without a strong recommendation from one or more friends or one of the few critics whose taste I trust.
I’ll avoid a place based on online reviews, often positive ones that make it clear a place is not to my taste.
Thanks. Searching for “Sixth & Mill” doesn’t find “Sixth + Mill.”
Monday - at a resort in Huntington Beach of all places…regardless of what one feels about it’s relevance to the LA market it certainly has every high-end restaurant in town on the edge of their seats.
I know. Why don’t we all eat what we like and use our own guidelines in choosing places. Basically all lists and ratings are lame and subjective, so what we do here is better. Discover, expose stuff, hopefully without a rating system or overly ambitious (BEST BURGER IN LA OMG) descriptors, bounce them off each other and test. Some will agree some won’t.
Judges probably don’t live in Los Angeles. Adana is not in Pasadena. It’s in Glendale. I don’t know how I’d eat at some of these places for $40.
I’m one of them Armenians who thought Adana was most basic.
Basic, but how’s the cooking there for the food that they serve? Good? Bad? Average?
How’s it compared to Raffi’s in Glendale? I’m interested since I work relatively close by.
Not all restaurant lists are lame. Depends on who’s making them and whether you share their taste.
They couldn’t book a nice ball room in Beverly Hills?
Some of the judges probably do live in the greater Los Angeles area since they have to eat so many meals there.
Not my understanding about inspectors. But maybe they picked up some locals with Visit California paid Michelin $600k.
Never thought I’d be against globalization… the advent of the internet and easy access to the Bourdain, Zimmern, Michelin, Pellegrino 50, Neflix I think has created this ‘global’ class of foodies. They all chase the same restaurants and hold things to the same standard. In some ways I think this is an easy and safe route to obtain one’s credibility as a ‘serious’ foodie. Rattling off names like Noma, Chang, Momofuku, Per Se, Saito, Arpege, Robuchon, Keller, Tim Ho Wan etc etc easily recognized by their peers regardless of whether they’re in Dubai, Singapore, New York, Rome, Beijing etc… I have some cousins abroad who never considered visiting LA for food prior to Neflix’s Inaka feature. I’m mean why would you? There were no Pellegrino, Michelin rated restaurants to brag about back home. You’re better off visiting NYC, SF or Chicago. But now you can brag about dining at the world famous Inaka and in a month Michelin too!!! 
Based on my personal experience Michelin has been more misses than hits specifically as it relates to non-French cities (perhaps you can include Europe). The 1* list in NYC over the last few years have been quite awful… the 2 and 3* for the most part are predictably boring. Think anywhere’ville nordic, frenchy plated fare.
The crowd that travels the world collecting stars all dine at the same restaurants, stay at the same hotels, buy the same clothing ‘luxury’ brands, watches, toting the same Leica cameras etc… don’t they all eventually start looking the same? Restaurants as a result are all morphing globally in the same fashion… they’re all updating their traditional cuisines with the same techniques and presentation. Seriously just pick the account of X heavily trafficked instagram foodie and you’ll have a tough time telling which country the pictures are from.
I think this is why CH came about many years ago and FTC exists today and I expect some derivative of these will continue to exist in the future. These forums exist for those tired of the au courant formulaic or mass adopted dining references or ranking readily available. Don’t you wish you stumbled upon El Bulli, Noma, Faviken, Inaka when its was crickets in the dining room? The CH manifesto does a good job summing it up.
Coming back to Michelin, it offers a view of the food world through the lens of your distant French foodie uncle. It’s a great starting point but if you rely on this exclusively, you’ll miss out on a whole lot of what a city has to offer (except maybe if you’re in France). So boils down to - do you want to be surprised or just follow the well trodden path?
Thanks for the thoughtful reply!
I really don’t care about being a foodie or not. I just like eating in general. 
Only if you dine at the absolute top end but even then that segment of restaurants only represent perhaps .1% of the overall food scene.
As with any sort of list or guide and even on FTC, food is pretty subjective so I’m not surprised. We just need to find a guide, critic, FTCer, blogger, or Yelper that matches your palate. That’s why I always tell my friends that they might not like my recs and bring up how my mother absolutely hates the places that I bring her to (from hole in the wall to Michelin restaurants).
After watching many interviews with chefs, the ones that are passionate simply want to improve their cooking so they try not to be held back by traditions and learn from other cultures and their techniques. So I don’t really see harm in that if it yields a superior product.
Yes, but I’m gonna play it very safe when I’m paying big bucks. I want a proven product! The reason why I’m on FTC to begin with is to get info on restaurants that I never would’ve gone to so it’s the same reason why I would use Michelin.
I probably just haven’t been to enough of these Michelin places to feel that they offer the same thing other than perhaps the format. Of the 3 star places I’ve been to, their flavors are nothing alike. In fact, their combination of flavors are nothing like I’ve experienced. So I’m in the camp of being surprised AND following the well trodden path.
Nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re happy.
Thank you for seeing things so closely to my own feelings. Admittedly, I used to do the international star chasing thing as well. San Sebastian, Paris, Napa, Tokyo… It does all start blurring after a while, and I no longer felt the joy and exhilaration in what should have been an incredible meal. Then I realized: It was because of that Michelin formula.
These days, I find much more joy in discovering the quixotic, the unusual, and the daring in my dining experiences. Sure, a trip to Japan or France will sometimes still contain 2 or three starred places, but I go to them not with the stars in mind at all, but because my friends or family recommended them. I’m often far more interested in the street stall I passed by on the way to the Michelin restaurant.
LOL! I posted one of the first online reviews of n/naka soon after its debut in 2011.