More and more restaurants open from year to year. Each of them has its own characteristics, cuisine, style and atmosphere. In an attempt to stand out from the competition, restaurateurs come up with ideas that can surprise and amaze guests. But how to make the right choice among such a variety?

This is what ratings are for. Professionals in their field rate restaurants according to certain points and draw up lists of the most attractive establishments. Among the main evaluation criteria are the following:

• the taste and quality of the food served;
• quality of service;
• cleanliness of the room;
• atmosphere;
• availability of additional service.

When choosing an institution, one must proceed, first of all, from the reason for organizing the celebration. For example, if you are looking for restaurants for a wedding, it is important to pay attention to the quality of service and the great taste of the dishes. No less important here will be the availability of additional services, for example, the ability to extend the fun after 23:00.

If you need a special atmosphere and enough space for dancing, take a look at the restaurants in Moscow with live music. As a rule, this item always raises the rating of the institution.

It also adds "weight" and the ability to order food from a restaurant, since it is convenient and is very popular in the modern world. In matters of service and additional services, universality and versatility always play into the hands of establishments. Of course, the quality of the dishes is of no small importance, as well as the high speed of delivery.

Modern restaurant ratings are a very useful tool for clients to help them choose a restaurant that meets all the desired conditions. For the restaurant itself, getting into the top positions of such ratings is a very significant marker of quality and prestige.

One of the famous ratings is The World’s 50 Best Restaurants (50 best restaurants in the world). This is a rating compiled annually by The Restaurant Magazine, which is formed on the basis of a survey of chefs, restaurateurs, gourmets and restaurant critics around the world. Moreover, the list of the 50 best restaurants in the world is compiled according to the results of the voting of the "Academy of 50 best restaurants in the world" - from 26 groups created to compile the rating. The whole world is divided into regions, each of which has a chairman who is familiar with their part of the restaurant business. Each of the chairpersons forms a voting commission of 40 members, who cast thousands of votes every year. At the same time, there is no list of nominees: each member of the international commission votes for his personal choice of ten restaurants. Up to six votes can be cast for restaurants in the voter's own region, while at least 4 restaurants must be located outside their region. No voting member is allowed to vote for their restaurant or restaurant in which they have an economic interest, and voters must eat at the restaurants they designate within the past 18 months. The fairness of the voting process and the final list is verified by the global consulting firm Deloitte.

French guide since 1900. With Michelin guides under their arms, American soldiers made their way into war-torn Paris in 1944, most likely because the guide always printed detailed maps of the area. The Michelin Guide was created by the tire company of the same name to help travelers. It marked everything that could be needed on the road: hotels, gas stations, cafes and important attractions.

20 years later, a restaurant rating appeared in the guide - this was the beginning of the star rating, but at that time it was only one star: located next to the name of the restaurant, it indicated high prices in it. Ten years later, in 1930, the Michelin guide began to use three stars, more like cotton wool, to evaluate restaurants - since then the rules for selecting restaurants and their ratings have not changed.

The Michelin restaurant guide is also called the Red Guide. This is due to the fact that in France it is generally accepted to focus on the designation of color. For example, a credit card is often referred to as Carte Bleue - that is, literally a "blue card". Michelin also has a Green Guide covering the sights, museums, churches and sports grounds of different cities.

Who chooses

90 carefully selected and specially trained inspectors. Before starting to work in the Michelin team, they must definitely work in the service sector for several years and be their own people there. In order to get this job, applicants must go through several interviews and interviews, and most importantly - a dinner with a senior inspector, after which they submit a report. This is how the newly-minted experts are tested for attention to detail and a fresh look at the way food is served and prepared. After passing the entrance tests, newcomers must complete a six-month course, during which they will learn about the criteria for selecting restaurants and awarding famous Michelin stars.

800 restaurants and hotels featured in the 2013 Michelin Red Guide to New York

450 restaurants and hotels found in each of the Michelin guides of Chicago, London
and Paris for 2013

70 guide inspectors work in Europe

20 guide inspectors work in America and Asia

How the choice is made

The process of selecting restaurants for a guide takes place in several stages: searching for restaurants, tasting dishes, filling out questionnaires and writing a report to the main office. Inspectors travel anonymously, visiting about 1,000 restaurants a year. A detailed report is made about each, on the basis of which further selection is made. The final decision on getting the restaurant into the guide is made at the head office in Paris. Stars are assigned at special meetings by the vote of the entire team. They are also used to evaluate restaurants that were included in the guide earlier: Michelin not only awards stars, but also has every right to take away if the quality of the cuisine in the restaurant has fallen.

Criterias of choice

The list of criteria by which guide inspectors judge restaurants is not known: this is a trade secret of Michelin. However, it is obvious that the main thing is the kitchen. Any restaurant cannot get into the Michelin Red Guide; the institution must have an author's cuisine. Thus, it becomes clear that the main merit in obtaining Michelin stars lies with the chef. But the stars are still given to the restaurant, not to the person, so if the chef resigns from his post, then the stars lose everything - both the institution and the chef.

The notion that Michelin is focused only on French cuisine is wrong. A refutation can be, for example, the fact that the guide contains Chinese restaurants. Nevertheless, the prevalence of French cuisine establishments is noticeable - there are more three-star restaurants in Paris than in many European countries combined. And this is forgivable, because Michelin is still a French guide and can afford to love its cuisine.

Michelin's peculiarity is that due to the multi-stage restaurant rating system and the frequency of the guide's release, new establishments are not immediately included in it. Therefore, it is ideal for finding, perhaps a little prim, but good restaurants with delicious food, and not in order to find a new fashionable place with big ambitions, which all the newspapers and magazines in the city have already written about.

The book that came out with a scandal in 2004 - L’inspecteur se Met a Table - "The Inspector Sits at the Table", opens the veil of secrecy about how the work of the inspectors of the Michelin guide is arranged. It was written by Pascal Remy, who worked as a guide inspector for 16 years and was fired from the company in connection with the news of the release of the revealing text.

Assessment system

Everything is simple here - stars and pictograms. Literally translated, it sounds like this: one star - a very good restaurant in its category, two stars - excellent cuisine, for the sake of this restaurant you can make a slight deviation from the route, three stars - a great job of a chef, the restaurant deserves to undertake for it special trip. In practice, however, it turns out not quite so. This designation is an anachronism, reminiscent of the time when the entire guide was built around car travel. Now even one Michelin star has been awarded to a restaurant, leading to a significant increase in the queue for table reservations.

Due to the abundance of talk about Michelin stars, it may seem that only expensive establishments rated one, two or three stars are included in the guide. But this is not the case. There are many restaurants in the guide without a single star, for them there are other designations that speak of the quality of the cuisine. For example, the Bib Gourmand pictogram is the head of the Michelin Bibendum symbol. It denotes a restaurant offering excellent quality cuisine at a reasonable price - the amount is different and depends on the price level in a particular city and country, but in the end it revolves around 35 euros. Or a pictogram in the form of two coins, which is assigned to restaurants where you can eat for less than 20 euros.

Every restaurant, whether it has stars or not, is also rated with crossed forks.
and spoons.

They can be from one to five and they indicate the degree of comfort of the institution. Two crossed pairs - "comfortable restaurant", five - "luxurious".

Impact on public opinion

Naturally, the rating of restaurants grows incredibly after they are mentioned in the guide, even if they are not assigned a star. And this despite the fact that restaurants do not use information about their Michelin stars for advertising purposes too actively.

Being a Michelin-starred restaurant is both an honor and a great responsibility. Newspapers and magazines begin to write about restaurants that have received stars, only with the mark "Michelin", because this immediately removes a lot of questions and speaks about the level of the institution. Also, almost all other restaurant guides make corresponding notes on their pages next to the names of establishments highly rated by the Michelin guide.

Features of the

Michlen's printed guide, the guide on the website and in the mobile app look and can be used in many different ways. In the paper guides, published once a year, restaurants (each has a page) are arranged in alphabetical order, and in the table of contents they are divided by type of cuisine, city districts, number of stars and other features: "restaurants with a good view" and "restaurants with a banquet hall ". Separately highlighted, as well as restaurants with stars, establishments marked with the Bib Gourmand sign. There are maps at the end of the guide.

The guide's website and mobile applications (there are separate guides for different cities and countries, cost from $ 9.99) are convenient if you are already in the desired city. They are searched in three ways: by the name of the restaurant, by the map or by address. Accordingly, there are two options: either you already know which restaurant you are looking for and enter its name in the search, or you are in a specific point in the city, and the application shows the restaurants included in the guide at a reasonable distance from you. Making a gastronomic travel map in advance, being, for example, in Moscow, is thus not easy.

Another difference between the electronic version of the guide and the printed one is that ordinary users can leave comments on restaurants on the website and in applications that have appeared in comparison with the entire history of Michelin quite recently. It is not yet clear what the active democratization of the famous guide will lead to, but right now, user reviews do not in any way affect the rating and the list of restaurants in the guide.

$ 9.99

the price of the mobile application of the Michelin guide in Italy. A guide to European cities costs $ 18.99 on the App Store.

One of the main requirements for an inspector is the ability to observe. It is necessary to learn to peer into the dish, to observe the neighboring tables, in order to make a true verdict about the restaurant in the blink of an eye.

Contrary to popular belief, inspectors are unable to distinguish cod from mackerel with their eyes closed. But the controller must be able to recognize quality products and say with confidence whether it is worth coming to this place again and paying from his wallet. Thus, the culinary inspector aims the lens at everything that may interest the client: presentation of dishes, cooking methods, quality and combination of products, the general atmosphere of the restaurant and the style of the chef.

Zagat
The exact opposite of Michelin: the restaurants here are chosen and evaluated by the visitors themselves. Many people call Zagat a folk guide, which is not far from the truth. The creators of the guide, Nina and Tim Zagaty, are American lawyers who in the early 70s decided to help their friends choose a place to dine. The main idea of ​​the guide is to finally give the floor to the guests of the restaurants.

Twenty years ago, agents of the company handed out special forms to restaurant visitors, in which the institution could be evaluated according to a number of criteria. Since Zagat had a website, the need for such agents has disappeared. Now users of the site leave ratings and reviews about restaurants and cafes on the virtual pages of restaurants, and the system calculates the overall coefficients. Since September 2011, Zagat has been owned by Google.