It is weird when you think about it.

Does it actually make money for them somehow? Or does it just keep their name in the public's collective mind?

Maybe it associates their name with high quality as well.

Shrugs. I have never eaten at a starred restaurant and I have never specifically purchased tires from Michelin.

I have, because they’re amazing tires for my climate- the cross climate ones.

I have both accidentally eaten at a Starred restaurant and unintentionally bought their tires. Happened to eat at a restaurant around the corner from a hotel in Spain that was Starred and only found out after. And got the garage to put new tires on and asked for the not totally cheapest but affordable and got their All Seasons.

They make a bunch of money selling the guides.

It’s become a whole side business.

I would think it would be really hard for them to tell if it's working or not, but at this point the restaurant ratings are kind of their own institution and there would probably be a backlash if they shut it down.

What an evil plan XD

If all the restourants you go in are shit, I am starting to wonder where you live or how many bad choices you make

You have to remember that Michelin is a French company, so the Michelin star guide was originally about getting the French public to drive to French restaurants.

All that food sampling has made his body lumpy and bloated.

Yeah. I always assumed the name Michelin was just a coincidence. I was incredulous when I found out that it's the same company. Genuinely weird thing for a tire company to do.

It helped them sell more tires, it associated the tires name with higher quality, it made money by itself, and it pushed the mascot into an icon capable of making money by itself.

All for something that sounds like a dr. Doofenshmittz plan.

Similarly, the Guinness book of records was started by Guinness the beer brand to settle pub arguments.

The state/county/province/whatever pays several million dollars for the guide to judge its restaurants.

Its a very valuable tourism and service industry development tool.

Michelin also edited road maps and built milestones to help early time drivers find there way on the roads !

The French car-owning public... In 1900. So basically getting the ultra rich to drive to very expensive restaurants.

Michelin tires are fine, I bought many of them because my favourite tire place sells a shitton of heavy truck tires from them so they have great discounts. And I've eaten at a starred restaurant because it was my friends'. Haven't loved the latter tho.

Michelin is the exact opposite of AMC

You expect AMC theaters and the AMC channel to be the same thing

They're not

It's leeching money. The fine dining bills are through the roof. The cost of the guides, that few people actually buy, stand in Pqle comparison of having to buy multiple courses in the most expensive restaurants in the world.

The cost of eating in the finest establishments in the world, together with hotels, air-fare and double blind secrecy makes that it's a net money sink.

..........why would anyone do this? How about I imagine something not idiotic?

I mean, when you're a tire company and not a lot of people have cars or good reasons to put lots of miles on them...

Got a source for your claim Michelin loses money on the guides?

I always knew because my parents had this book with the tire guy on it:

I don't remember if it mentioned restaurants in it as well, but the association with them and travel guides made the connection for me, I guess.

That's a cool looking booklet.

The source is the podcast 'no such thing as a fish', which is generally well sourced.

https://podcasts.musixmatch.com/podcast/no-such-thing-as-a-fish-01gv2bv14079rhv1ch6dvacmgt/episode/no-such-thing-as-fishing-in-the-sea-of-tranquility-01jdv42kt341n4r3tk1d3qpe9y

The quote in particular is from a Chicago chef, and it's localized. However the sales of the book themselves are marginal considering the cost of the system.

They did not start it for the reason in the comic. That is a complete fabrication.

It was an internal list of restaurants to wine and dine fine clients, and it was a massive success and many people who wanted to know where to take their own clients kept trying to find out about the Michelin list

And ribbed for her pleasure

This was from the cool time when companies used their money to make things even if they're only tangentially related to their business. The mickelin guide and the gennis book of records are cut from the same cloth.

Now companies just spend money on stock buybacks and other financial chicanery.

Even a restaurant with one star nowadays is a $60 seat minimum. The best restaurants in the world are expensive.

There's one in Hong Kong that is famously inexpensive for a 1 star, like $10-15 USD for a meal of dim sum. I think I read somewhere it's the cheapest 1 star restaurant in the world.

Nah that’s the green guide. It’s focused on sight seeing and cultural attractions.

The red guide is the restaurant one.

Nah, originally it was just a complementary map for those who bought tires. They ended up just being the most reputable reviewer with their star system that it became a prestige thing afterwards.

A bit of a tangential aside, but I always disliked that podcast name. Fish is a reasonable morphological and ecological term and the fact that people have tried to stretch it into a phylogenetic term is silly. Morphology is a perfectly legitimate way to describe something; it just gives you a different set of information.

They were famous for referencing good restaurants, not only stared ones.

I was so confused when I realized that the restaurant thing is the same as the tire company. I'd assumed my whole life that it was just random that both happened to be associated with the same name. Honestly it still doesn't make much sense to me.

Gave away the joke with the title

Yeah it's a bit of an unfortunate name. They call it 'fish' for short, which is a bit contradictory too, as there now is a thing called fish.

I don't think they previsioned the shows succes

Aaaand... the flavors of the food have vanished.

How so

that's diabolical

To be fair , the restaurant reviewed need to be decent at serving their menu at minimum in order for this to work.

They also have given stars to hole in the walls and hawker stalls. Like this one

https://guide.michelin.com/en/article/travel/behind-the-scenes-the-world-s-first-michelin-starred-street-food-stall

French-style cooking is quite infamous of "entrying" other cultures. Hungarian here, people often try to minimize seasoning in the food they cook, because they saw some French star chef on TV doing things that way, often they're going even further. I.e. instead of replacing bouillon cubes with soup stock, they just use tap water, jet still claim it's more "luxurious cooking" that way.

Saying the Pledge of Allegiance during school was a tradition that was invented by a company which made American flags, they did it as a sales tactic.

America doesn't really have a culture it just has capitalism.

goddammit.

That's not it at all. Look, I know it's easy to place the blame on those cheese eating surrender monkeys, but this one is on human nature.

Multiple scientific studies done by the big food corps have shown, consistently, that the majority of people in the world prefer blander food.

You may not personally, but multiple double blind studies have shown that the average Joe prefers blandness, and bland unspiced food tends to sell better than the opposite.