White tablecloths, outstanding service, and the flakiest croissants that'll ever melt in your mouth. You'd think Paris would be the Best City in the World for food, wouldn't you?

Especially when it's Frenchman Jean-Luc Naret, director of the Michelin Guide, confirming the choice, right?

Nope. The best city for food is half-way around the world, Tokyo, Japan, which won 191 total stars, twice the number awarded to Paris, and more than three times the number awarded to New York.

Additionally, eight restaurants in Tokyo won top honors of three stars, whereas Paris had six. As if stars weren't enough, three of the eight three-star winning restaurants in Tokyo serve French food. Guess you're flying to Asia if you want to do a foodie tour!

[via: Gadling]

Michelin's recent announcement that it would publish its first guide in Japan met with mixed reactions from the country's chefs. Some greeted the news with shoulders colder than a sushi case, while others were a little more open-minded about the arrival of the Michelin Guide Tokyo.

Among the naysayers was Yoshikazu Ono, head chef at Tokyo's Sukiyabashi Jiro who made his point clear: "The French do not understand anything about sushi and are so far behind in handling fresh fish." Other chefs feel that since sushi is so popular all over the world Michelin's review team should know the difference between top-notch sushi and bait.

Incidentally, the news of Michelin's new guide comes on the heels of the Japanese government's move to certify Japanese restaurants abroad as authentic.

Anne-Sophie Pic now has a very prestigious distinction - she is the only woman in the world who currently holds a Michelin three-star ranking. Though she is the fourth woman to obtain the top award since it's inception in 1926, this is the first time in more than 50 years that it has been given out to a female. Being awarded three stars definitely runs in her family, her father received his in 1973, and her grandfather in 1934.

In addition to Anne-Sophie's restaurant 'Pic', located in the city of Valence, Michelin promoted four others to three stars:

• Barbot's Astrance in western Paris
• Le Meurice, run by Yannick Alleno, in central Paris
• Pre Catelan, in the Bois de Boulogne, west of Paris
• Lameloise, in Chagny, in the Burgundy region

Seven new two-star restaurants made the guide, as well as 50 new one-stars. The 2007 guide goes on sale next week, however the English version will not be available until late March.

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?

They went to New York first, but this week, the inspectors for the Michelin Guide made their designations around the San Francisco Bay area. 356 restaurants were listed. 23 received one star (*), four received two stars (**), and only one restaurant received the coveted three star rating (***): Thomas Keller's The French Laundry in Yountville (Napa Valley).

It's not totally surprising, as Keller also received three stars for his restaurant Per Se in New York. However, some folks, like Paul Franson, a wine country writer and author of the weekly Napa Life newsletter, were surprised that more restaurants didn't receive the highest rating.

Michelin-starred chef, Marcus Wareing of the Pétrus restaurant at the Berkeley hotel, in the UK, said that the standards in airline fare were higher than that of the average pub. While many pubs rely on canned soups and old sandwiches with little sign of improvement orver the years, the airlines are constantly trying to "up their game." Wareing takes a rather optimistic view of the recent discontinuation of food service on many airlines, however, seeming to imply that the reason they have done this is because they don't want to serve sub-standard food in an effort to cut costs.

Does anyone agree with this? Granted, some of the airlines do try to serve quality foods, but they know that people will eat just about anything on planes and readily take advantage of that fact. The quality of the food may be better from a freshness and food-safety standpoint, but that doesn't change the taste.

It sounds like Wareing needs to frequent some different pubs.

 

 

Alain Ducasse, one of the most successful restaurateurs in the world and holder of 9 Michelin stars, has begun to prepare meals that will go where no haute cuisine - or even anything worthy of being called a cuisine - has gone before: outer space. The chef is working with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the French National Center for Space Studies to create gourmet foods that can be packaged for consumption on space flights, giving astronauts a taste of something better than the garden variety rations then get now.

Currently, astronauts have an extremely limited array of food to choose from when on a flight, the vast majority of it being freeze-dried or vacuum-sealed. They have very limited cooking supplies and no fresh vegetables, leading them to crave foods like salads and hot coffee when they land back on Earth. Ducasse's line, which is called Space Food, will still have to be packaged specially, but will include favorites like rice pudding (in soy milk) and chicken with Thai veggies.

American diners got pretty excited when the Michelin Guide for New York was released last fall. Now, the organization that reviewed 507 restaurants in New York has announced its plans for a guide on the opposite coast: San Francisco.

San Francisco is abundant with excellent dining opportunities from Chez Panisse in Berkeley to Thomas Keller's French Laundry, but even New York, with its own wealth of stellar restaurants, had but four restaurants that were awarded Michelin's top honor of three stars. Thomas Keller's NY restaurant, Per Se, was among them.

The guide is due to be published in October of this year, and the anonymous reviewing group of one American and four European inspectors have already started making their way around the Bay Area.