Miles Collins

What does the red book mean in 2008?

Well the famous red guide for Great Britain and Ireland should be out soon and there will be a number of chefs either jumping for joy or crying in their parmesan foam. For some, the thought of losing a michelin star is unbearable, for others, a financial disaster whilst to the extreme, the notion of being downgraded to two stars was the catalyst for a French master chef, Bernard Loiseau to take his own life.

Michelin has long courted publicity, both good and bad for its food guides but I sometimes wonder if the whole guide has lost much of its original meaning. Over the years I have bought the guide for both Britain and France, I have also bought copies which have been some ten to fifteen years out of date in the name of research and through this I have come to a rather sad conclusion.

When I look back at the guide from the 70’s and 80’s it smacked of being a reference guide for anyone who had packed their bags, got in their cars and headed off for a short break with good food and sightseeing as their only perogative. Looking through those guides from days gone by gives the reader a sense of nostalgic romance, one of long summer drives with the discovery of a ‘hidden gem’ serving rustic, local specialities which, according to michelin are ‘worth a detour’

That’s the difference now, we no longer take a detour for lunch at a michelin restaurant, they have become destination restaurants for the privileged few or the ‘anniversary meal’ for the hard savers. Food and travel writers of the fifties and sixties gave us a true taste of what the guide was all about and I miss that.

Next week everyone will want to know how many stars Ramsay has compared to Alain Ducasse, will Tokyo have more stars than Paris etc, etc. This is sad, the emphasis has switched to the chef and the politics that inevitably go with it and nobody is really bothered about the small independant restaurant in East Anglia (England) which has won a single star.

I don’t really care who gets what this year, I shall inform you about the latest awards when they come out but that’s about it. I would much rather tell you about a good day out which ended in finding a good quality restaurant in pleasant surroundings which serves food worthy of a detour.