It’s nearly impossible to pry a working chef out of the kitchen for a night. But once a year, the world’s most famous tire-company-turned-restaurant-award-bestower summons nearly 100 name-brand chefs from across California to one hotel banquet room. They show up, of course, because it’s Michelin.
And so, Monday night at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay — because Monday is the traditional chef’s night off — Thomas Keller of the French Laundry (three Michelin stars) sipped from a cut-crystal glass not five feet from Val Cantu of Californios (two stars). Meanwhile, Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski of State Bird Provisions and the Progress (one star each) hovered around a bar table with Michael and Lindsay Tusk of Quince (three stars).
They came for the open bar: “I’m just here for the free drinks,” the chef behind one of San Francisco’s only Michelin-starred Korean restaurants quipped, gesturing with a glass of (entirely unremarkable) wine you’d probably never find on the menu of a Michelin-starred restaurant. And they came for the free food: “I’m just here for the jamón,” remarked the chef’s wife, shuttling a plateful of Spanish ham through a carpeted hotel hallway.
This was, on some level, posturing. Because, obviously, the chefs came to be recognized for their work in a room full of their peers. Or at least, that was the hope.
Most chefs don’t find out how many stars their restaurants have earned until they show up. And there’s always the outside chance of the ultimate humiliation: having a star stripped away, as happened this year to the former two-star Los Angeles restaurant N/Naka. (Chefs Niki Nakayama and Carole Iida-Nakayama weren’t in Half Moon Bay on Monday.) There’s also the possibility that, despite their unspoken ambition of gaining a star, chefs leave with little more than a plaque marking the status quo — plus an engraved bottle of French spring water.
The uncertainty infused the event with the unsettled energy of a middle-school cafeteria, full of slightly insecure individuals attempting to convey an air of nonchalance. In fact, for a so-called party, attendance requires a level of vulnerability: Among these titans of the culinary world, it’s risky to admit how badly you want it.
The Michelin Guide does matter, however. We know this because the minute the results came out, our restaurant-obsessed community collectively clicked on the menu at Hilda and Jesse to understand why a brunch spot in North Beach just landed a star. But it goes far beyond piquing diners’ curiosity. It can mean money in the bank.
In 2017, prolific chef Joel Robuchon estimated that one star can boost revenue by 20%, while a rare three-star designation can double your business. This is not to say that Michelin isn’t built on a pay-to-play model: For years now, the company has accepted “partnership” money from city and state tourism boards to get the guide’s inspectors to come to town. The Colorado Tourism Office and the tourism boards of Denver, Boulder, Aspen and Vail each paid between $70,000 to $100,000 to entice Michelin to release a Colorado guide, according to The New York Times. Boston, on the other hand, hasn’t paid up, and thus there’s no guide to one of our country’s most visited cities.
Back at the party, one journalist goaded: “I think one star is just a tease. They just want you to want more of them.”
“I think I can stop at one,” the chef behind a one-star Chinatown restaurant answered with a shrug.
In a plus for the battered Bay Area restaurant scene — called out for being irrelevant by Bon Appetit and shut out entirely by the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards (for which I serve as co-chair) — the region made a fantastic showing at this year’s Michelin honors. Michelin’s mercurial inspectors gave three special awards to, yes, Hilda and Jesse (outstanding service), as well as Aphotic’s Trevin Hutchins (exceptional cocktails) and Kiln’s John Wesley (young chef). Three Bay Area restaurants earned their first stars (Hilda and Jesse, Kiln and 7 Adams), and Sons & Daughters got bumped from one star to two.
But the accolades couldn’t overshadow the fact that the event organizers completely failed to recognize, well, pretty much everybody else. (They also failed to operate a functioning live stream, frustrating anyone trying to watch the show remotely.)
During the ceremony, emcee AJ Gibson called each newly starred chef to the stage, along with the chefs from California’s six three-star holders. Then, he called for the rest of the chefs in the room to join them for a photo. I looked at David Barzelay of Lazy Bear (two stars), who looked across the crowd at Cantu, neither of whom made a move.
“Chef,” I said, prodding Brioza on the back, “don’t you think you’re supposed to go up there?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, scanning the roomful of chefs eyeing one another for cues. “We’re all confused.”
Gibson finally clarified that every chef who’d been invited to the event should be on the stage. The crowd squeezed in for a photo in which it was impossible to see everyone’s face.
There was an almost poetic irony in the way the night went down. How can a company known for its stringent standards of hospitality — and for striking fear in the hearts of restaurant chefs and workers everywhere, lest a napkin fall to the floor and the restaurant be deemed unworthy of recognition — fail so miserably at being gracious? To invite chefs to a ceremony; ask them to travel, dress up and pose for photos; then force them to crowd onto a stage — mon dieu!
At the end of the night, as everyone paraded out to the valet to begin a long, winding drive on Highway 1, I asked one notable lawyer-turned-fine-dining-chef how he felt about the night. He was clutching a red Michelin plaque bearing two stars.
“I feel good — now. But that was weird.”