The unveiling of Atlanta’s first-ever Michelin Guide felt like a major step forward for the city’s dining scene on the global stage.
We’ve always felt that this is a terrific food city that frequently is overlooked by outsiders. The fact that the Atlanta guide debuted with only five one-star restaurants might not seem impressive to some, but the city still is one of only seven areas in the U.S. to be evaluated by Michelin inspectors. The Colorado guide also featured only five one-star restaurants across six separate locales when it debuted this year.
Now that Michelin’s inspectors are here, we expect a surge in restaurants catering to their perceived tastes, and the restaurants that earned one star are likely to try for more.
In other areas where Michelin has added guides, such as Florida and Washington, D.C., the number of starred restaurants has grown steadily each year, and that pattern likely will continue here.
Dining spots that opened later in 2023 did not receive consideration, and Michelin already has announced that establishments outside the Perimeter might be included in the future. Restaurants such as Spring in Marietta or the Grey and Common Thread in Savannah could be candidates.
Also, restaurants such as the Deer and the Dove in Decatur, which made Michelin’s lower-tier recommended list, could get promoted.
For many involved in Atlanta’s dining scene, the real excitement of the ceremony was found beyond the star winners. Some of the 45 restaurants recognized in the guide are much more humble than the headliners, but they have established themselves as Atlanta institutions — the Busy Bee, LanZhou Ramen, Arepa Mia and Nam Phuong come to mind.
Atlanta’s Asian dining scene was a huge winner in this initial guide. Two omakase restaurants, Hayakawa and Mujo, earned stars, while at least 10 others were recommended, including several that received Bib Gourmand awards (signifying good food served at moderate prices). Japanese, Chinese, Philippine, Malaysian and Korean cuisines were represented.
However, Latin American food appeared to be a blind spot for the Michelin inspectors. One of this year’s biggest dining trends locally has been a deeper exploration of regional Latin cooking, but Arepa Mia was the only such restaurant to make the list. Places such as La Semilla and Oaxaca might have opened too late in the year to receive consideration, but we expected some recognition for such standouts as El Valle or Casi Cielo, or even long-standing neighborhood favorites like Nuevo Laredo.
The near exclusion of one of Atlanta’s hottest cuisines reveals a limitation of the Michelin Guide. It comes out just once a year, so it can’t react quickly to trends. Restaurants that open in the next few months will have to wait a long time before they learn whether they make the cut.
Michelin’s impenetrable rating system is another limitation. Each restaurant is described with a short blurb, rather than an in-depth review. And the rating of the restaurants is a group effort: Each restaurant is visited by multiple inspectors, but individual inspectors might have visited a restaurant just one time. The inspectors evaluate the consistency of a restaurant by comparing notes. If the inspectors have wildly different experiences, how does that affect the restaurant’s evaluation?
In comparison, restaurant critics from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution personally visit every restaurant at least twice, almost always accompanied by other dining partners.
One of the main criticisms lobbed at Michelin through the years has been its celebration of pricey, exclusive restaurants that are inaccessible to many customers. The guide is targeted at tourists, rather than locals, and inspectors do not consider price or value in their evaluations of starred restaurants. In contrast, those aspects are an essential part of the restaurant review rubric at the AJC and many other news outlets. (Value is a consideration, however, for the guide’s Bib Gourmand awards, which were introduced in 1997.)
Michelin representatives insist that only gastronomy is considered in their restaurant ratings, but restaurants that earn stars tend to have luxurious settings and highly polished service. Ambience, comfort, noise level and service all contribute to the overall restaurant experience, so why not admit that they factor into the ratings? Who wouldn’t be put off by an uncomfortable chair while sitting for a three-hour tasting menu?
Like anything else, the Michelin Guide is not perfect. It does not replace regular, in-depth restaurant criticism that helps readers decide which new restaurants deserve their hard-earned money. But the guide does elevate the city’s restaurant scene in the eyes of visitors and places top-ranked restaurants here on par with the best around the world. The opportunity to earn a Michelin star now is a powerful incentive for restaurants in Atlanta to be more creative, take more risks, refine their service and emphasize consistency.
This is an exciting time for the Atlanta restaurant scene. The Michelin Guide is another example of Atlanta’s snowballing cultural cachet, adding to the city’s influence on film, TV, music and sports.
Michelin’s legendary guide is not the last word in Atlanta dining, but it’s another feather in the cap of one of the country’s most exciting and vibrant cities.
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