"michelin stars" news and stories

• The Michelin Man came to Chicago, and he had something to say.
• For Chicago restaurateurs, 2010 was the best of times and the worst of times.
• Food festivals, however -- for them, it was just the best of times.
• Vegetarians have been throwing their weight around the Windy City.

For the first state dinner hosted by the Obamas, Marcus Samuelsson served White House arugula -- plus collard greens and curried prawns -- to 320 guests on the White House's South Lawn.

Now that more cooks than ever are searching online for recipes, it's easy to map who's serving what for Thanksgiving across the country. Yet many still find it hard to throw out their old-fashioned recipe cards.

A team of researchers from Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History used genetic tests at 31 sushi restaurants and found other fish marked as tuna in more than half.

A Hong Kong restaurant was named the world's cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant. The most expensive dish costs less than $5.

Photo: Michelin.

Michelin's "New York City Restaurants 2010" dining guide was released this week, bumping up Daniel Boulud's Daniel restaurant to three stars while stripping Mario Batali's Del Posto of a star.

Daniel is in small company in the three-star category of "exceptional cuisine and worth the journey." Masa, Per Se, Jean Georges and Le Bernardin also retained their three-star ratings.

Del Posto dropped from the two-star category ("excellent cooking and worth a detour") to one star ("a very good restaurant in its category").

Other restaurants that saw significant changes include the Italian restaurant Alto, with a bump up to two stars and Corton, which also won a double star.

What do you think of guidebook ratings? Let us know in the comments below.

For years, Michelin has been awarding top chefs and restaurants 'Michelin Stars' for outstanding achievement in fine dining. Though they release an annual guide, the general population seems to remain unaware of which restaurants are actually rated as 3-star, 2-star, etc.

Now, in a clever marketing move, all restaurants that have been awarded Michelin stars will display a 30-foot tall inflatable Michelin Man on their roofs, leaving no question whatsoever to observers that they have received the honor. Further, the establishments will display multiple inflatables for each star they have received - for instance Gordon Ramsay and Joel Robuchon will each have three of the enormous balloon-like figures adorning the tops of their restaurants.

They have just released a picture of the first restaurant to display the Michelin Man inflatable, which can be viewed after the jump.

No one would question the fact that the French Laundry deserves all three of its Michelin stars, but what about the rest of the ratings? Michael Bauer, restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, described the French Laundry as a ringer, a restaurant so good that no other establishment - on either coast - can really stand up to it. Bauer wonders whether the other area restaurants are being handicapped by the fact that the French Laundry sets an impossibly high standard for comparison that the 3-star restaurants in New York could not live up to, either.

He says "the list lacks many of the places that go to the heart of Bay Area dining and define who we are" and considering that the restaurant scene in the area has more high-quality restaurants than just about anywhere in the country, if not the world, it would seem that he has a point. While a great honor for Thomas Keller, the Guide's ratings do not seem sufficient for Bay Area restaurant scene. Does Chez Panisse only deserve 1 star? Does Manresa only deserve two? And how many were left off entirely?