Why are Michelin Stars so highly revered when they originated from a tyre company?

Submitted ⁨⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨sbeak@sopuli.xyz⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

I remember watching a video on how Michelin Stars started out as a travel guide brochure for the best restaurants in France as a sort of advertisement for Michelin branded tyres (look at all these restaurants you could go to with Michelin tyres!).

How did the Michelin stars become so sought after by top restaurants and chefs? Was the head of the Michelin tyre company also a renowned food connoisseur or something? What about other tyre companiee, why didn’t they do something similar? Are Michelin Stars still given by the tyre company, or has it been spun off into its own thing?

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Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
For the same reason that the World Record Holders are decided by a brewery. They just started doing it, and people wanted to be on their list.

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- halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  That was almost certainly to help settle bar arguments before they became bar fights.
  
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  - Skullgrid@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    The michelin thing was to get people to drive around more, driving up tourism and tyre use
    
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  - Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    You’re half right! It was actually to prevent golf course fights.
    
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deliriousdreams@fedia.io ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
There was a point where tires were expensive but they lasted a long time because so few people had cars and they didn't drive them often. So two brothers who owned a tire company were trying to figure out how to sell more tires to the few people who owned cars.

The answer was to get them to wear their tires out faster by providing a list of places they could visit that would warrant the expense of wearing down their tires.

So the stat rating was more of a "this place is worth a visit/road trip system. And they published this list and it caught on and then restaurants wanted to get Michelin stars for the notariety and the essentially free press.

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- blarghly@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  and it caught on
  
  I feel like the real question is in this statement
  
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  - Obituarykidney@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Iirc it was printed as a guide with maps and stars marking the restaurants locations and given out with the tyres for free. I guess people back then had nothing better to do than road trip to restaurants. It was popular enough restaurants wanted to be in it which caused them to up their game so the reviewers would add them to the guide and it escalated to where it is now.
    
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sirico@feddit.uk ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I think it basically came down to this. If you can convince people to go to a restaurant that needs a bit of a road trip, you will sell more tyres. And if you did need new tyres, the guide conveniently pointed you to garages that, surprise, sold Michelin.

Tourism was growing quickly at the time, so the guide focused on the popular destinations of the era. France of course but also places like Switzerland and Spain. Being based in France and tied to the car industry, Michelin rode the growth of both car travel and French dining culture.

French cuisine was already becoming dominant by the early twentieth century, and after the war you had top French chefs getting hired by major restaurants in places like New York. Le Cordon Bleu started around the same time in the late nineteenth century and benefitted from the rise of French fine dining, though it was not created by Michelin.

By the nineteen twenties the restaurant section of the guide was already important, and in the nineteen thirties they introduced the three-star system. Once there was a clear hierarchy, chefs began competing for stars, and the Michelin rating became the recognised standard for fine dining.

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Fondots@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

How did the Michelin stars become so sought after by top restaurants and chefs?

It’s advertising. If you make it into the guide, more people are going to hear about and want to come to your restaurant. And since the guide has such a good reputation, it’s seen as a badge of honor that this restaurant/chef is good enough to be recognized with a star.

Was the head of the Michelin tyre company also a renowned food connoisseur or something?

No, they were renowned tire manufacturers. But they were French and that probably didn’t hurt the branding since French food has such a good reputation. I’m sure subconsciously on some level a lot of people are going to give a bit more weight to a French company rating restaurants than, for example, an American one.

What about other tyre companiee, why didn’t they do something similar?

Why bother when Michelin was already doing it? You don’t need to buy Michelin tires to eat at a Michelin-Stared restaurant. Regardless of where the guide came from it got people driving around more and needing new tires.

There’s other travel guides out there, some focus more on other things besides restaurants, some focus on areas not covered by Michelin, some overlap or compete with Michelin or position themselves as sort of an anti-Michelin because they disagree with the criteria Michelin rates restaurants on.

And I’m sure some of them are or have been in the past published or sponsored by tire companies. But Michelin managed to get into the game early enough and did it well enough that they just became sort of the restaurant guide.

And other tire companies have taken other advertising routes that are maybe a little less obvious. Let’s consider the Goodyear blimp flying over sporting events. I’m sure there’s a small element of “you should drive to sporting events to see our blimp ~and also wear down your tires a bit in the process~” at play there.

Are Michelin Stars still given by the tyre company, or has it been spun off into its own thing?

Yes it’s still the Michelin tire company. I don’t have any real insight into their corporate affairs, so I don’t know how much crosstalk there is between the tire-manufacturing and the guide-writing parts of their business these days, but it is still the same company.

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erusuoyera@sh.itjust.works ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Why are Nobel prizes so highly revered when they originate from an explosives manufacturer?

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- MacNCheezus@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  Well, at least the Pulitzer Prize makes sense, I guess.
  
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Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The Michelin Guide is still run by the tyre company, and for much the same reasons - advertising, and getting people to go through their tyres faster (one Star justifies a stop, two Stars justify a detour, three Stars justify a special trip?) Though inspectors do try to offer genuine reviews, because at this point people who value such things trust the Guide because the Guide’s usually pretty close to reality.

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ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
TIL Michelin, Nobel and Guinness have the best marketing departments

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Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
To promote travel by car, Michellin started testing restaurants all over the country to give recommendations where automobilists could get a good meal on their tours.

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someguy3@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
It’s well beyond its roots.

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cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
And tyres aren’t cheap, which was the whole point. The Michelin Stars program was to show you what was worth wearing out your tyres more for as opposed to local stuff.

I would always advocate for finding local businesses to support, but that wouldn’t help a tyre company sell more tyres, now would it?

As for why other tyre companies didn’t do it, they didn’t need to. You don’t need to buy Michelin tyres to visit restaurants awarded Michelin Stars. The restaurant doesn’t check. They don’t even care. It’s not about the tyre brand for them. Certainly people with other tyre brands will go to places with Michelin Stars… but if you can’t afford Michelin tyres, you probably can’t afford to eat at places with Michelin Stars, either.

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expatriado@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
they started the guide in 1900, added 1 star 20 years, and 3 soon after, focusing on high end. do you know what else started in the 1900-30 era? the nobel prize and the academy awards.

be early and don’t quit helps, other guides came and went

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credo@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Does it matter where a good idea comes from?

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chillpanzee@lemmy.ml ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Because they have held a very high standard for a very long time. It is one of the few “brands” of reviews that has remained trustworthy over the years. They only award a star to excellence; nothing in the guide is bad. Indeed there is lots of good food that’s never mentioned in the guide.

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bitofarambler@crazypeople.online ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
They’re so highly valued because advertising and elitism works.

The Michelin Brothers thought it would be good advertising for their tire company, and it was, and it kind of became its own thing but stars are still owned and operated by Michelin the tire company.

Important to note that beyond it being owned by a tire company, they don’t even give stars to the best restaurants, only restaurants that guy certain prestige requirements that pay Michelin to give them a star.

Other tire companies don’t pursue the same scam because Michelin is the front runner, and it obviously doesn’t tie in to car accessories very heavily, so there’s not much incentive for other tire companies to do the same thing, especially when it’s basically just a “pay me $400,000 for a fake gold star racket”.

I looked into this after watching the bear, when they were talking about Michelin stars, and then I found out the extent of Michelin star chicanery.

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- Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Just one factual point - restaurants don’t have to pay for a star. They don’t even have to apply to be considered (but it helps). The only costs are those incurred in running a fine dining restaurant.
  
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  - bitofarambler@crazypeople.online ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Michelin inspectors will not visit cities unless the city registers with Michelin, which carries high, recurring fees.
    
    That’s why many prominent cities have zero Michelin star restaurants, because they won’t pay the fees(tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the city) that Michelin demands for their stars.
    
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motor_spirit@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Something about they made a guide for customers to visit destinations and it evolved into the finer dining experiences over the years. Details are fuzzy but I don’t think it’s as eventful as anything involving the Dulles brothers

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notsosure@sh.itjust.works ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Are there actually Michelin stars given to us restaurants (except for Burger King)?

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- PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  About 1500 of them apparently.
  
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  - notsosure@sh.itjust.works ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I stand accused.
    
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- 9point6@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It’s pretty global, anywhere with a good restaurant culture will probably have at least one or two. I believe Tokyo is the city with the most stars for example, I would have assumed it was Paris or somewhere else french before I found that out
  
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  - MCHEVA4EVA@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    It’s not global, Michelin stars aren’t a thing in Australia atleast. I imagine there’s a lot of places where people don’t get food recs from a tyre company.
    
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- Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I’ve eaten in US restaurants that rival restaurants in Paris I’d say the average restaurant in France is definitely better than the average in the US - but this is comparing apples and oranges.
  
  New Yorkers would actually take offense at this question: they believe they have the best restaurants in the world (I don’t agree, but they have an argument given the great variety of immigrants that settled there since before the US existed).
  
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  - kiwifoxtrot@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’d agree that NYC has probably the most diverse food scene in the world.
    
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