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Michelin Man's New Business Plan: Give Stars to Faraway Restaurants to Force Tire Sales
(thelemmy.club)
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2026
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i know about this but i never understood why no one thought "why do i give a shit what a tire company says about food"
edit: seems some people are missing my point and thinking this is about capability rather than motive.
Well it just so happened that the reviewers were people who knew fine dining, and the awards DID drive business to restaurants.
So it could have been a joke from the start, but accidentally became a prestigious award, that happens to be becoming a joke.
It’s also not unusual for companies to branch out into weird things like this for one-off promotional stuff. The Guinness Book of World Records was not originally intended to impress grade schoolers in the library
Fine dining like making mashed potatoes out of 50 % butter...
I want to see your reaction to Skordalia lmao, fucking like 90% garlic with a wee little tater all mashed up.
Are suggesting there’s a way to go higher? Was someone holding out on you?
Not seeing the problem here.
The flaw in your reasoning is that you are assuming that everybody whom Michelin could hire is a tire expert. Michelin is just as capable of hiring food critics. They hired eminent critics and experts to write travel guides, and when people realised that, "hey, their reviews are actually accurate, because they have incredibly strict criteria on which to base their rating system", people understandably began to build trust in that system. The fact that Michelin still doesn't seem to have sold out is why there's such longevity to it: they have no reason to make their criteria any less strict (quite the opposite, and I've never been to a restaurant that was even mentioned in the Michelin guide that wasn't some of the best food I've ever experienced). The title of most eminent food review is theirs to lose, so they can't afford to betray that, especially in a world with increasingly-ready access to information. There's nothing that can outmatch the brand loyalty and name recognition.