The results of the latest edition of the Michelin Guide are announced at noon today.
Last year, Scotland netted a record haul with Kinloch Lodge, The Peat Inn and 21212 all gaining a star. We’ll post today’s news as soon as it’s announced.
Fingers crossed that none of Scotland’s Michelin stars are lost and, who knows, there may even be a couple of new ones.
It would be great if, say, Martin Wishart or Tom Kitchin, gained a second star but, purely in terms of grabbing the headlines, it would be best if Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles was awarded a third star.
If that happened, it would be the first time that Michelin had given any Scottish restaurant three stars.
Not everybody loves the Michelin Guide and there are plenty of people who think it promotes a style of cooking which is elitist, irrelevant or both.
There are pieces in The Guardian and The Independent here and here which take a swipe at the Guide.
There are some grounds for the criticism. You could certainly argue that, these days, people are much more likely to be guided by other customers’ reviews of a restaurant than by a Michelin inspector.
Which would you give more weight to: a short thumbs up from one Michelin inspector or the dozens and sometimes hundreds of reviews which you can find on 5pm’s restaurant entries?
However, while you could argue that the Michelin guide isn’t actually very helpful as a guide, I think that the Michelin stars themselves are incredibly beneficial to the restaurant industry.
They give ambitious chefs something to aim for and they put much needed bums on seats. They also have a great knock-on effect. They attract tourists who spend money in surrounding shops, bars and hotels.
A couple of weeks back, I spoke to Paul Kitching, chef at 21212, about what it takes to gain and keep a Michelin star. The resulting piece is in The Scotsman today. You can find it here.