MICHELIN BRANCHES OUT

One of the more interesting aspects of the Michelin Guide’s decision to survey the Vancouver restaurant scene is that it reflects a kind of culinary devolution that’s been going on for some time. Whereas the Guide began as a French guide to France and only later spread into the culinary and financial capitals of the world—London, New York City, Tokyo—it has lagged behind in regard to regional cuisines. But within the last decade, Guide inspectors surveyed such notable food destinations as Bangkok, Shanghai and Taiwan. Remarkably, neither the continents of Africa and Australia nor the Indian subcontinent have yet been deemed worthy of a Michelin star.

More than a few cooks and critics have ascribed this to cultural bias, if not out-and-out racism, and it’s true that the Michelin standards are still those of French haute cuisine. The Michelin trail, which also encompasses luxury tourism, has been dictated more by money than by culinary brilliance; it’s probable that only the success of El Bulli, in a remote corner of Catalan Spain, and Noma, in otherwise untrendy Copenhagen, forced the Guide to branch out. Still, even if Vancouver’s exaltation is owed as much to it being a playground of the idle rich as to its abundance of talented chefs and superior ingredients, it’s good news for an embattled restaurant industry, and for cookbook publishers, too.

—Alexander Varty