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Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

luxeat.com

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Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#181

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

bjarneh wrote: post #151

The worst part about some of these 3 star restaurants, is that staff are often unpaid. It's basically what Americans call an internship, i.e. the only "salary" is that you can add working in a 3 star restaurant to your CV. I once visited a 3 star restaurant in Spain (Arzak), where this was the case. If you look at the cost of eating there, and consider that most of the staff is unpaid, it really leaves a bad taste in…

Considering the owners of Arzak are not in jail and that not paying your workers would be a serious violation of Spain labor laws, I am going to go on a limp and posit that what you say is probably not entirely true.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#182

Post by me_me_me »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #175
me_me_me wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You tip dishwasher or floor cleaners? Cruise ships are set up to exploit every loophole out the being a legal entity on international waters under flag of loophole county. Everyone would be better of if that industry died already. Including environment.

No, but I assumed there was some sort of tip sharing deal between them; isn't this common in restaurants too (e.g. I tip the server because that's who I'm interacting with and it'd be weird if I walked through the kitchen giving individual small tips to the line cooks, busboys, etc.)

> I assumed there was some sort of tip sharing deal between them

Oh sweet summer child...

Some people are nice... and some people dont get their fair share especially when they are replaceable.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#183

Post by jhgb »

bjarneh wrote: post #151

The worst part about some of these 3 star restaurants, is that staff are often unpaid. It's basically what Americans call an internship, i.e. the only "salary" is that you can add working in a 3 star restaurant to your CV. I once visited a 3 star restaurant in Spain (Arzak), where this was the case. If you look at the cost of eating there, and consider that most of the staff is unpaid, it really leaves a bad taste in…

> i.e. the only "salary" is that you can add working in a 3 star restaurant to your CV.

Spain has salaries? I thought that was largely a US concept.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#184

Post by ToJans »

locallost wrote: post #143
ToJans wrote: post #107

As a Belgian consultant I've spent a lot of time on business lunches and dinners, all over Europe. Big orgs always invited me in Michelin star restaurants. Smaller orgs usually invited me to emerging restaurants or well known local places. If you mostly care about discovering the second kind, I would strongly suggest you to ignore the stars and take a look at Michelin's "bib gourmand rating" [0]: these are restaurant…

Thanks a lot! It's exactly what I'm always looking for.

Welcome! Enjoy! I especially recommend asking for the signature local dishes in these kind of places; a lot of pleasant surprises!

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#185

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

praptak wrote: post #133
jiggawatts wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been to two Michelin-starred Sushi places in Japan. I thought they were both amazing, but I realised that my parents would not have thought so. They grew up relatively poor, and still have the habit of eating at home from a rotating menu of relatively straightforward recipes. Stews, soups, that kind of thing. They've gone to restaurants maybe a few dozen times in their lives , if that. I've been to so many Sushi…

It always makes me question whether it is good to have a well developed taste. Having taste makes you require more dollars to get the same level of satisfaction from a meal or a drink.

> Having taste makes you require more dollars to get the same level of satisfaction from a meal or a drink.

I don't know. It's not really the same level of satisfaction. Eating well is very enjoyable.

I think food is one of the product categories in which spending just a bit more raise the quality drastically. Buying fresh vegetables from the market and butcher meats from time to time rather than everything from a grocery store was transformative for me and it's not actually that much more expensive. I guess I could sustain myself on canned peas and frozen chicken but it wouldn't bring me much joy.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#186

Post by TrackerFF »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #162
bjarneh wrote: post #151

The worst part about some of these 3 star restaurants, is that staff are often unpaid. It's basically what Americans call an internship, i.e. the only "salary" is that you can add working in a 3 star restaurant to your CV. I once visited a 3 star restaurant in Spain (Arzak), where this was the case. If you look at the cost of eating there, and consider that most of the staff is unpaid, it really leaves a bad taste in…

Wait, why is this like cruise ships? I thought people on cruise ships were paid alright (considering also the tips they can make) compared to the alternatives they have at home (my understanding is that the vast majority of workers are non-American/W. EU)

Not sure what people on cruise ships get paid, but my old room mate from college got his Master's degree in nautical/maritime engineering, and went to work on huge cargo ship (the course of becoming a captain). Apparently the pay was almost unlivable, for the first 2-3 of years - under minimum wage, by western standards. And 90% of the crew were from Philippines etc. Should be mentioned that my friend was not a deckhand, but worked with the officers on the bridge.

Where I'm from (Norway), and probably most seafaring nations in the west, this has been an issue for years - social dumping by using Asian labor.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#187

Post by dotancohen »

jiggawatts wrote: post #138
praptak wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always makes me question whether it is good to have a well developed taste. Having taste makes you require more dollars to get the same level of satisfaction from a meal or a drink.

> Having taste makes you require more dollars to get the same level of satisfaction I have carefully avoided trying excessively high quality things because once I've experienced something truly luxury then it becomes an ongoing expense to keep up that level of experience. The irritating part is that before I was perfectly happy in my ignorance of something better being available out there, but aftewards I feel like I…

For me it was music. Till this day I cannot stand MP3 audio, and can detect when it's played on the radio, because of one bored afternoon in 2002 experimenting with MP3 and CD audio quality.

Sure, you _could_ rip an MP3 with near-undetectable quality loss for most types of music (The Wall, yes. The Downward Spiral, no). But nobody does that, as apparently it was not the default on anything back then and today Youtube and Spotify and all others still use those horrible quality settings as people have gotten used to them.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#188

Post by 4ad »

wolverine876 wrote: post #7
tomcam wrote: post #3

Went to Paris and dined at a number of Michelin-starred places, including Le Cinq. The food was fine, but... I didn't get it! I think there is a culinary language that I understand as little as a typical Michelin-starred chef would be able to evaluate a tightly-written C program. On the other hand I was lucky enough to dine at Poppy Seattle every year of its existence and felt their completely original approach to th…

In every domain - food, vpns, literature, etc. - I have more or less sophisticated taste (as does everyone). When I was young, I was skeptical of and even sometimes mocked the 'so-called experts' - possibly because (naturally, due to time) I'd developed sophistication in so little. I was very wise. But over time I found that when I develop sophistication in things, the 'so-called experts' suddenly become very smart a…

You are of course right but... vpns?? How does "taste" in vpns work?

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#189

Post by krageon »

bjarneh wrote: post #151

The worst part about some of these 3 star restaurants, is that staff are often unpaid. It's basically what Americans call an internship, i.e. the only "salary" is that you can add working in a 3 star restaurant to your CV. I once visited a 3 star restaurant in Spain (Arzak), where this was the case. If you look at the cost of eating there, and consider that most of the staff is unpaid, it really leaves a bad taste in…

> staff are often unpaid

No. Perhaps you have found an example of this (which I doubt strongly), but this is not something that happens "often".

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#190

Post by [deleted] »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #175
me_me_me wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You tip dishwasher or floor cleaners? Cruise ships are set up to exploit every loophole out the being a legal entity on international waters under flag of loophole county. Everyone would be better of if that industry died already. Including environment.

No, but I assumed there was some sort of tip sharing deal between them; isn't this common in restaurants too (e.g. I tip the server because that's who I'm interacting with and it'd be weird if I walked through the kitchen giving individual small tips to the line cooks, busboys, etc.)

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