A Tire Company Giving Out Culinary Awards?! An Overview Of How Michelin Stars Came About

An image showing the 1900 edition of the Michelin Guide.

Today, whenever someone is asked to think of a fancy restaurant, one of the first things that will come to their mind is a Michelin Star. This culinary award is actually given out by Michelin—yes, the tire company. But what could a company that produces tires possibly have to do with world-class food? Well, the story behind how the Michelin Star came about is quite interesting.

In 1889, as the car industry was still in its infancy, two brothers named André and Édouard Michelin set up a tire business in a French town called Clermont-Ferrand. Although cars weren’t mainstream yet and not many people drove them, the two brothers still saw them as the next big thing. With fewer than 3,000 cars in France at the time, they figured out they needed to get more folks behind the wheel to sell more tires. Speaking of the brothers, both André and Édouard didn’t really have much experience with tires: André had worked as an engineer and mapmaker before, while Édouard ran a rubber factory that he had inherited from the family. Together, however, they set their eyes on making tires, founding the Michelin Tire Company. It grew fast initially because they came up with better ways to make tires that lasted longer on rough roads.

Around 1900, the idea for a guidebook hit André and Édouard, and they decided to hand out a little red book to drivers for free. This book listed places to fix tires, find gas, stay overnight, and grab a meal, and they printed 35,000 copies of that first edition, giving them away at auto shows and to car owners. The goal was simple. If people drove more, they would wear out tires quicker and buy replacements from Michelin. Restaurants showed up in the guide as spots where travelers could eat while on the road. Unlike today, with Michelin Stars, no fancy ratings or awards were given out, at least not yet. The book just pointed out basic eateries along with mechanics and hotels, and drivers loved it because roads were bad and trips took planning. The Michelin brothers kept updating the guide each year with new information from user feedback and their own checks.

By 1904, the guide had spread beyond France to places like Belgium and Algeria as cars popped up there too. The brothers continued to tweak their maps and symbols to make them more helpful and easier to use. A few years later, in 1910, they put out a version for Britain and Ireland, and at a time when GPS and search engines didn’t exist, people started to fully rely on these books for trips. Then, in 1920, something shifted. When André was on a visit to a tire dealer, he saw that the workers there were using the Michelin guides to prop up a workbench. Seeing that annoyed him so much that he decided to start charging for the book to make people value it more. They sold it for seven francs and pulled ads from it to make it seem more neutral and prestigious.

A photo of André and Édouard Michelin in their later years.

The biggest change of all came in 1926, when the guide first used a star to mark restaurants with good cooking. At first, it was just one star for spots that stood out, and restaurants strived to earn that mark. Then, in 1931, the system grew to three stars, where one star meant the place was worth a stop on your trip; two stars was worth a detour off your path; and three stars was worth a special journey just to eat there.

Inspectors became a key part of how the guide worked. Michelin often specifically chooses former chefs or hotel workers, who travel around eating at restaurants while maintaining anonymity. On a side note, Michelin takes the anonymity of their inspectors very seriously. As John Colapinto writes in his 2009 article for The New Yorker, “Michelin has gone to extraordinary lengths to maintain the anonymity of its inspectors. Many of the company’s top executives have never met an inspector; inspectors themselves are advised not to disclose their line of work, even to their parents (who might be tempted to boast about it); and, in all the years that it has been putting out the guide, Michelin has refused to allow its inspectors to speak to journalists.”

When these inspectors are trained, they are taught to judge food based on five characteristics: quality of ingredients, skill in flavors and cooking, the chef’s personality in the dishes, value for money, and consistency over time. Over the decades, the guide has grown to cover countries all over the world, starting with Europe and then adding the United States in 2005. Japan got its first guide in 2007, and today, Michelin issues guides that include spots in Asia, the rest of the Americas, and more.

Inspectors eat hundreds of meals a year, noting every detail, from any complimentary bread to the main course. Multiple inspectors compare notes in meetings to decide on stars, as no single visit determines a restaurant’s qualification. Out of the five characteristics we listed above, consistency matters the most, since it becomes pointless if a restaurant can’t serve quality food every time. 

A photo of a three-Michelin-star award, the highest honor that a restaurant can recieve from the Michelin Guide.

So, why do restaurants chase these stars? Simply put, they bring in customers and boost prices. Chefs work hard to keep standards high, since inspectors visit multiple times a year and it’s almost impossible to tell them apart from a regular customer. Some places can get their stars revoked if things slip, while on the contrary, chefs may also choose to willingly surrender Michelin stars. For instance, in 1999, French chef Marco Pierre White gave back his three stars and retired, deciding to do so because the pressure to keep exceeding expectations was too much. The guide also has other awards like the Bib Gourmand, which was named after the Michelin mascot Bibendum. It’s given out to spots with good food at lower prices. The company also introduced Green Stars in 2020 for places that focus on sustainable practices like using local ingredients or cutting waste.

To this day, Michelin owns and runs the guide, even though it makes no direct profit from it. Michelin spends millions each year on inspectors and printing. As André and Édouard had intended it to be, the point of the guide still remains to encourage travel, which, again, ties back to selling tires. People drive or fly to these starred places, wearing out rubber along the way. Albeit criticism, the Michelin Guide, along with its valuable stars, holds a lot of power in the food world. It lists over 15,000 restaurants worldwide now, with only about 140 holding three stars.