A Michelin Star is a widely recognised culinary award that the Michelin Guide gives to restaurants for their world-class food, service, and ambience. The Michelin Guide is a renowned restaurant and hotel rating guide. Michelin inspectors bestow stars on restaurants after evaluating them rigorously several times.
What’s so exceptional about a Michelin Star?
After receiving a Michelin Star, a restaurant typically receives greater recognition. Its tables get reserved weeks in advance, and it receives diners from far-flung corners. It often gets access to significant food-based events.
To earn a Michelin Star, a restaurant must excel in several areas — culinary skill, use of fresh and finest ingredients, blend of flavours, the chef’s personality in cooking, and consistency in the quality of cooking, service, and ambience.
However, there’s more to Michelin Stars and the criteria to earn them. In this blog post, we’ve unravelled the details in an easy-to-understand manner.
What Do Michelin Star Ratings Mean?
Michelin One Star
A Michelin One Star rating indicates the restaurant is worth a stop for an exceptional dining experience.
It’s the lowest rating in the Michelin system. Yet, it’s a high accolade. It may denote a new cooking hub.
One star is awarded to restaurants for using top-quality ingredients and for preparing high-standard meals with distinct flavours consistently.
What to Expect?
- Well-prepared, flavourful, and beautifully presented meals
- Attentive service
- Inviting ambience; not necessarily extravagant
Michelin Two Stars
A Michelin Two Star rating signifies that the restaurant is fit for a detour. It indicates the chef’s distinctive flair, mastery of ingredients and innovative preparation of meals.
Two stars are awarded to restaurants when the chef infuses their distinctive personality, talent and regional influences in their meals, making them refined.
What to Expect?
- Thoughtfully composed and presented dishes with complex flavours
- Attentive and knowledgeable service
- A refined and sophisticated ambience
Michelin Three Stars
A Michelin Three Star rating signifies the highest level of culinary excellence. It indicates an out-of-the-world dining experience, demanding a special journey.
Three stars are awarded to restaurants for the chefs’ superlative culinary artistry, where some of their meals have the potential to become classics.
What to Expect?
- Cuisine of unparalleled quality
- Thoughtfully curated and beautifully presented dishes
- Flawless execution
- Exceptional creativity
- A profound depth of flavour
- Highly knowledgeable, attentive, and dedicated staff
- Unmatched elegant setting
How Do Michelin Inspectors Evaluate a Restaurant?
We’ve broken down the process of Michelin inspectors’ evaluation:
1. Anonymous Inspections
Michelin inspectors visit restaurants anonymously. They’re instructed not to reveal their assessment plans to either the media or the family.
Inspectors blend in with regular diners to experience the restaurant’s food, service, and ambience without expecting any special treatment. They also pay for their meals like regular diners.
These inspectors undergo official Michelin Guide training. They usually have credible experience in the business. They have extensive knowledge of cuisine, wine, and hospitality.
2. Evaluation Criteria
Inspectors assess restaurants based on a set of strict criteria laid in the Michelin Guide.
They award Michelin stars solely on the cuisine’s standard. They rate a restaurant from 0-3 stars.
Michelin Green Stars are awarded to restaurants meeting high standards of sustainability.
They also award Bib Gourmand and Michelin Plate to restaurants that offer fine dining experiences, but they’re not great enough to receive Michelin Stars.
They’re told not to pay attention to the ambience. However, they pay attention to every aspect of the dining experience — dishes’ presentation, freshness of ingredients, and the staff’s attentiveness.
3. Multiple Visits
Different inspectors visit the restaurants multiple times at different times of the day (i.e. lunch and dinner) for a fair and comprehensive evaluation. They do so to confirm the accuracy and consistency of their assessment.
4. Discussion and Consensus
After each visit, inspectors discuss their findings and scores with their colleagues. They arrive at a consensus on whether a restaurant meets the criteria for receiving a Michelin Star.
5. Ongoing Evaluation
Inspectors continue to visit and evaluate starred restaurants regularly to ensure that they uphold quality and consistency.
Overall, the process of awarding Michelin Stars is rigorous, impartial, and based solely on the merit of the dining experience.
What Are the Criteria for a Michelin Star?
1. Using High-Quality Products
Michelin considers restaurants that emphasise procuring fresh and high-grade ingredients. It’s about using the finest ingredients, handling them carefully and properly, and preparing meals such that the natural flavours of the ingredients stand out.
However, restaurants don’t need to use premium and luxe ingredients to get high ratings.
Example: Sourcing locally-grown organic vegetables, fresh seafood caught that day, and premium cuts of meat.
2. Mastering Blending of Flavours
Michelin inspectors consider restaurants that demonstrate mastery of a wide range of cooking techniques. These include classic French haute cuisine and innovative modern gastronomy.
Inspectors are interested to know if restaurants:
- Offer inventive dishes that showcase the chef’s imagination and culinary prowess.
- Experiment with different ingredients and techniques.
- Create dishes that surprise and delight them.
Example: Combining unexpected flavour combinations like Japanese sushi with Peruvian ceviche influences. Alternatively, preparing traditional Japanese cuisine through meticulously prepared dishes.
3. Showcasing the Chef’s Personality in the Cuisine
The chefs need to portray their unique culinary style, geographical and cultural influences and creative vision in their menus.
Example: At Apéritif Restaurant, we frequently collaborate with Michelin-star chefs to give our patrons a flavour of haute cuisine. Each of these chefs brings with them their distinctiveness. When we invited Chef Guillaume Galliot, he brought to the table his masterful French technique in the exclusive menu.
4. Giving Value for Money
Herein, value refers to the overall dining experience. It takes into account portion sizes, service quality, and the overall ambience.
The inspectors may note if:
- The restaurant’s staff greets guests by name, anticipates their preferences, and provides knowledgeable recommendations.
- Restaurants have an in-house sommelier to recommend perfect food-wine pairings to enhance their experience.
- The setting influences diners’ moods.
Example: Staff reaching out to diners to check their dietary preferences.
5. Showing Consistency in Dining Experience
Consistency means delivering the same high-quality dining experience every time a guest visits the restaurant.
It’s about ensuring that:
- The food tastes just as delicious.
- The service is just as impeccable.
- The ambience is just as inviting.
Example: Following rigorous quality control measures in every aspect of the dining experience, from ingredient sourcing to plating and presentation.
Michelin Star Dining in Bali
Bali doesn’t have Michelin restaurants yet. You can still indulge in an unparalleled culinary journey at Apéritif Restaurant. Apéritif Restaurant has received top culinary recognition, winning several prestigious awards.
We offer five tasting menus, including vegan, vegetarian, and candlelight. Our menus brim with inventive creations reflecting our culinary philosophy of the Borderless Food Concept. It’s a fusion of South Spice Islands’ flavours and European culinary techniques.
Step into our elegant colonial-style dining space. We’ve adorned it with sophisticated furnishings, crisp linen tablecloths, and bespoke tableware.
And, to top it with impeccable tableside service! We’ve received rave reviews about our personalised service.
Further, we’re proud of honouring Ubud’s cultural tradition of paying respect to Mother Nature by harvesting as much green produce from our garden and local farmers.
When you join us at Apéritif Restaurant, you don’t just tantalise your tastebuds, you set off on a gastronomic odyssey. The experience is completely sensorial, promising a memorable dining experience, and a desire to return to create more memories.
Book your table today.
