How Michelin Inspectors Stay Secret

Video written by Adam Chase

[MickenCZProfi]

"Making your parents proud by telling them that you eat potatoes for a tire company." haha I'm dying.

[tomstravels]

I went to a restaurant once by myself and immediately I felt like I was treated like royalty. Afterwards whilst I was waiting for the bill a guy came up to me and said "they think you're the inspector instead of me because you're by yourself"

[lolake]

When being a Michelin inspector resembles your childhood dream of being a spy

[tyrereviews]

I know a bit about tires and this is all impressively accurate!

[NickyHendriks]

Well, this was partly true. I had an internship for 6 months in the kitchen of a 2-starred restaurant and another 6 months in a 1-starred restaurant and a lot of the time we knew that we were having a Michelin inspector over. Recognizing the face, random names and what behaviour is what made us know. I also know that while most restaurants maybe get one or two visits a year, one particular restaurant in the Netherlands had 13 visits in one year prior from two stars to three stars. What I remember from my time in those restaurants was that we wouldn't really do more than for our regular guests if we knew it was an inspector as the inspector would notice that his/her dish looks better than the dishes of other tables for example. They have a sixth sense for that kind of stuff.

[artistwithouttalent]

Fun fact! Sometimes they straight-up don't! When Gordon Ramsey was filming his first TV special, he (or his restaurant at least) got a call for a reservation. The wrinkle is that his restaurant had caller ID (which I guess wasn't ubiquitous at the time). And the Michelin reviewer made the bold decision to call from Michelin headquarters, and while the caller ID didn't directly say that, it took all of 5 seconds to realize what was going on.

[ygormartins]

One way to discover Michelin inspectors is just torturing every customer until they confess

[user]

Fact: They wear the Groucho nose-glasses. Works every time.

[wraithcadmus]

The Michelin Man himself (real name Bibendum) prefers a goblet of broken glass, screws, and scrap metal, to show how tough he is as a tyre. No, really, his first major ad was in 1898, where it's shown how he "drinks up obstacles".

[Leo-zvhs]

To be honest I always assumed that the tyre company and the guide were just two different entities that just happened to have the same name.

[geheimleise]

I always wondered how they didn`t recognise the Michelin Man. Not many guys can wear white tires as a full body outfit

[technicalamanullah]

Wendower productions be like : The insane logistics of keeping Michelen inspectors a secret

[MrProlecat]

On an old Gordon Ramsay tv program about his early days in London when he was expecting a visit they had a booking from a Paris number. The guests were treated like royalty with Gordon personally checking every element. It was not confirmed if they were from Michelin but it was pretty certain they were. However he did not get an extra star. In that program a waiter offered another guest the lunch menu in the evening by mistake. He was instantly sacked.

[stuartluo]

Fun fact: there is a food stand in Singapore with one star that each meal only costs $1.50 in 2017-19 roughly

[somerandomguywithinternet]

Who would've thought the most prestigious food rating is made by a company that is mainly known to sell tires.

[Liv-gwdx]

If this topic interests you, I highly recommend the book "Garlic and Sapphires" by Ruth Reichel. She was the food critic for the New York Times and the book is about her creating disguises for her restaurant trips. It was extremely interesting and she even peppers in a few recipes along the way. The spaghetti carbonara is to die for

[epapa]

At first I was like damn Sam is really trying to keep this joke alive and then I finally looked it up that both michelins are in fact related

[lolake]

Glad that the yelp reviewers got acknowledged, good job Sam

[QuantumHistorian]

Staying in a different hotel every night for 3 weeks out of every month sounds truly horrible.

[tanneguysalavert]

The video missed one criteria, which is presentation. This is which cutlery they use, which plates, the interior design etc. They have extremely strict rules as to what design is acceptable and what isn’t. This is also one of the reasons some very big chefs stop competing for the Michelin stars. They say that the criteria are too strict and doesn’t let them fully do what they want