And will a bunch of newly-minted destination dining joints boost that local economy as a whole or just line the pockets of a few hospitality industry titans … and, of course, Michelin?
Sooooo … I take it that many of my readers have heard that Boston and Cambridge are about to be favored with their very own Michelin Guide featuring supposedly gold-standard restaurant ratings. Not out of the good graces of the eponymous French tire company’s marketing arm in question, no, no, no. Rather because Meet Boston (formerly the Greater Boston Convention and Tourist Bureau, Inc.) and the Cambridge Office for Tourism both paid thus-far undisclosed but undoubtedly significant wads of cash, according to Eater, for the “privilege” of having a bunch of entirely anonymous reviewers check out local eateries to determine which establishments might be worthy of being awarded one, two, or three Michelin stars and being listed in the company’s massively overhyped guide.
Receiving even one star can turn a restaurant into a destination overnight. Many such destination restaurants in a given region can bring more tourism dollars. Which explains why Michelin “began accepting money from sponsors like food brands, liquor distributors, hotel chains and tourism agencies” in 2010, according to the New York Times. Why would a giant corporation give a service away to tourism hubs that it can rent for big bucks?
However, as a former restaurant worker who is a serious home cook and someone who regularly enjoys watching both Michelin fans like Alexander the Guest and Michelin critics like Forking with Michelin on YouTube, I find myself disturbed the guide is coming to Boston and Cambridge in three related ways.
First, because diners at Michelin-starred restaurants are asked to pay ever-higher sticker prices for performative meals—which start to seem more and more alike the world over as star holders constantly watch other star holders to identify and imitate ideas (like hewing to European culinary conventions and serving luxe ingredients like caviar and foie gras) that seem to guarantee staying in the good graces of the mysterious Michelin “inspectors”.
Second, and more importantly, while top chefs, chef-owners, and/or just plain owners could become rich and famous after their restaurants get listed in the guide (although some restaurants have started giving stars back or refusing stars to begin with due to the new fame frequently worsening the low profit margins and accompanying high stress levels of producing haute cuisine), generally overworked and oft-abused kitchen crews and front-of-house staff (plus a growing army of “interns” desperate to break into Michelin-anointed gigs whether they’re paid or, more often, not) will continue to work ridiculous hours for what could well become even lower pay with fewer benefits.
And finally, because the tourism industry-backed PR flacks at Meet Boston (see Part VIII, Section 2c of its 2023 IRS 990 report) and the Cambridge Office for Tourism (see Part VIII, Section 1e of its 2023 IRS 990 report) get government grants—and much larger payments from a very special and very large Tourism Destination Marketing Fund that Meet Boston organized for itself in 2021 (see Part VIII, Section 2a of its 2023 IRS 990 report) on behalf of the state tourism industry based on a hotel room tax of up to 2% that was basically self-imposed by said industry—to essentially help them compete with other locales for tourist and convention dollars … the “war of all against all” being always at the heart of capitalism, as I never tire of pointing out.
Meaning that public funds are being used to pay a marketing arm of Michelin to create havoc in the Boston area restaurant industry in exchange for making more local restaurants more unaffordable to more of the public in these inflationary times and retrogressing already bad labor conditions for more area restaurant workers. Thus ensuring that the only potential winners of this unfortunate game are Michelin and some well-positioned local tourism industry bigs.
Naturally, tourism industry boosters will insist that many Bostonians and Cantabrigians will benefit from more jobs, increased tax dollars for helpful government programs, and trickle-down profits to various smaller businesses serving food and lodging titans (e.g. contract multimedia specialists and convention services companies), that a destination restaurant explosion could bring the area … in theory.
And Michelin will point to its unstarred listings for places its inspectors deem excellent but not star worthy, its Bib Gourmand award for small and less tony food spots, and its Green Star program for establishments that meet certain environmental and economic sustainability standards in their operations as proof that they are working to become a more positive force in local restaurant markets they enter—as well as cherry-picked case studies of economic success stories from other major cities where they’ve set up shop.
Yet for the average area resident and the average area restaurant worker, I’m just seeing more unaffordable dining options in an economy increasingly organized by and for the rich and more shit service jobs for the working poor coming from the Boston and Cambridge Michelin Guide.
What I’m not seeing is much hard evidence that local economies automatically benefit from having Michelin Guides—let alone local restaurant scenes and their workers. Bold claims from PR and marketing concerns and anyone with direct economic interest in pushing Michelin’s star regime, yes. Good independent data, not so much.
Still, I’d love to hear from restaurant industry workers on this issue. Line and pastry chefs, prep cooks, servers, bar staff, sommeliers, hosts, and cleaners. What do you all think the new guide will mean for your jobs: good, bad, or indifferent? Email me at info[at]horizonmass.news. And, sure, any other individuals that aren’t representing key tourism industry players in the Boston and Cambridge Michelin gambit that want to weigh in, please weigh in. If I get enough interesting comments, I’ll run them in a future column.
Maybe I’m too pessimistic, but long experience with similar half-baked “economic initiatives” tells me I’m probably not pessimistic enough.
Apparent Horizon—an award-winning political column—is syndicated by the MassWire news service of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.
