Declan Murphy totally sneezed all over fj.life.in-japan with a withering cloud
of snot:

[...]

>> They had a special report on this a couple weeks ago on TV. They had vox pops
>> from people in Europe saying that the Michelin Guide is "old news", and in fact
>> some restaurants have since hidden their rating from the general public because
>> of the tremendous pressure put on their staff to live up to the rating.
>
>That seems very unusual. My sister is a chef in Europe and says
>competition for "hats" is still very frantic. Not just ratings from
>Michelin though.

I think it might have been Michelin in particular they were talking about,
because of the image of such a rating being equal to high-class perfection in
many patrons' eyes (which is not only difficult to maintain, but expensive).
They interviewed one older guy who dropped the rating from his restaurant so he
could relax a bit and concentrate on making a comfortable environment for
everyone, instead of running a hard-assed operation to cater to upper-class
snobs and maintain the rating. He said the rating had become the purpose.

>> Also, there was a curiously large number of restauranteurs who scoffed at
>> gaigins rating their food. That the staff actually contained Japanese didn't
>> seem to make much difference to them.
>
>Wow - "our French cuisine is so delicately calibrated to those with
>different intestinal lengths to the French that no French food critic
>could possibly rate our Frenchiness?"

Seriously. That was about as dumb as the overseas "official Japaneeziness"
restaurant rating the government had conjured up recently.


-- 
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