Star burst
Gold standard of restaurant reviews or overhyped and out-of-date? Michelin’s recent sprinkling of its lucrative fairy dust over Thailand has left Bangkok foodies divided.
Every day is different for Khun Gee, who works for an events company in Bangkok. Sometimes he is on the streets, sometimes he is in a mall. Today, he is in the ballroom of a fivestar hotel off Ploenchit Road, his wirethin frame costumed by the bulbous contours of a Michelin Man, aka Bibendum, aka Bib, aka Bibelobis. The threehour gig nets him 2,000 baht (HK$475). “At least there’s aircon in here, and I won’t get kids bumping me from behind,” he says. “Can’t say I’ve ever been to a Michelin restaurant, though.” Gee pauses, then grins. “There again, I might have eaten some of the street food they’ve awarded.”
Gee’s piece of mummery is part of the ballyhoo surrounding the launch of the second Michelin guide to Thailand: 217 eateries, 67 hotels and a minor galaxy of stars strewn over Bangkok and – new for this edition – Phuket and Phang Nga. Rather than being a hohum press conference, it has been dubbed “A Revelation”.
The ballroom is packed with Michelin bigwigs, tourismboard honchos, assorted friends and relatives, and the sort of folk who are not displeased to find themselves labelled glitterati. A battery of television cameras and three outsize screens capture the action, and the speeches are larded with phrases such as “seasonal local produce” and “authentic culinary journey”. There are also discreet, almost subliminal references to the awards being “a driving force for tourism” and “fuelling industry growth”. Who’d have guessed that Michelin also manufactures car tyres?
The first Michelin guide (“Offert gracieusement aux Chauffeurs”, or “offered free of charge to drivers”) was published in 1900 and was a howto for France’s 3,000 fledgling motorists that pinpointed petrol stations, supplied tyrechanging instructions and – crucially – listed places to eat and stay overnight. At a time when no one had really got a handle on integrated marketing strategies, it was the original inspirational road map: go forth and wear out our tyres, and then buy some more.
Initially handed out willynilly, a price tag of seven francs was introduced from 1920, after company founder André Michelin had been horrified by the discovery of a copy propping up a garage workbench. (The current, bilingual Thailand edition retails for 650 baht.)
Fastforward a century and the Michelin guide has gained a far higher profile, although its auxiliary role remains that of garnishing the image of its tyremanufacturing parent. Michelin’s rubber goods notched up a robust €16.2 billion (HK$144 billion) in net sales in the first nine months of this year; net profits from January to June were tagged at €917 million, an increase of 6 per cent on 2017. Some analysts have suggested that researching, writing, editing, printing and distributing the guides worldwide may cost the company as much as HK$235 million a year, though Michelin executives tend to adopt fixed grins when pressed on the matter. Still, many regard Michelin’s starscattering as a pricey yet valuable form of advertising.
While the awards ceremony’s MC (boyish male model Pitipat Kootrakul) was almost drowned out by the gasps of admiration and fusillades of backslapping, news of Michelin’s most recent bestowals was met with more than a few pursed lips and raised eyebrows in some quarters across Thailand’s food scene.
“First off, there is no way one book can represent a whole country, especially in terms of food,” says Sirin Wongpanit, who pilots Thai culinary blog OhHappyBear. com. “Besides, Phuket and Phang Nga deserve their own guide.
“Frankly, as someone who lives in Bangkok, I see no