Nostalgia egg cooker5/8/2023 ![]() Joel Robuchon, one of the most celebrated chefs of all time, who has held 32 stars across various restaurants around the world, noted the economic value of the Michelin star. But perhaps it’s not quite as simple as that. Maybe keeping the door open, the suppliers paid and your chefs and waiting staff in a job is more important than chasing accolades. Hospitality is being hammered more than any other industry at the moment, with VAT, business rates and costs of everything from paper napkins to cooking oil doubling, even tripling. Like everything, there’s clearly an economic slant to all this. He’s probably onto something, not to mention the fact that, in a cost of living crisis, should we be turning food into foam any more than we should be sending people into space? Higher Ground's Richard Cossins, Joe Otway and Daniel Craig Martin (Image: Supplied) “A city with 15 bistros you really want to go to is so much more interesting than one with one restaurant where they’ve learnt to iron the napkins and blow air into their vegetable foam." "I’m not commenting on Mana as I haven't been, but this whole thing of a star for Manchester, what does it really say about your city? Nothing really, because the strength of a gastro-culture is not made by one restaurant, it’s made by 15 bistros. Read more: The 50 best restaurants in Greater Manchester right now "I have to say, that has always baffled me, this sense that a city hasn’t got something to be proud of unless it has a Michelin-starred restaurant - it’s always left me cold," he told us. Observer restaurant critic and regular Masterchef judge Jay Rayner had a healthy take on the situation when we interviewed him at Erst, one of his favourite Manchester restaurants, earlier this month. Others followed suit, wishing to get off the three-star merry-go-round and all the pressure that comes with it. ![]() They proved just what could be done with no kitchen equipment to speak of (a pressure cooker and a sandwich press) at their informal bar Flawd. Newly opened Higher Ground boasts three founders with a wealth of experience in Michelin-starred restaurants from New York to Copenhagen. Perhaps the cooking is too ‘simple’, lacking the foams, the nitrogen, the bells and the whistles. Erst, also in Ancoats, might not be typical of the kind of place that gets a star. There’s other Michelin-quality cooking in the city. London, meanwhile, has a rather out of reach 74. To put into a bit of context, Birmingham has five Michelin starred restaurants, and as of last night, so does Edinburgh. Read more: Manchester restaurants snubbed at 2023 Michelin stars But then again, Simon Rogan also didn’t snag a star while he was cooking there, and he now has three at his restaurant L’Enclume in the Lake District, and another at Rogan & Co, also down the road in Cartmel. ![]() It turned out not to be the precursor to its first ‘proper’ star, at least not this year.Īdam Reid at The French also didn’t get a star, despite many thinking he’s long overdue for one. Stockport’s Where The Light Gets In, headed up by founder Sam Buckley and his very gifted team, received a ‘green star’ last year, for recognition of its sustainability. This is not for a lack of deserving talent. And the renowned tyre company didn’t deem any other restaurant worthy of its first. Chef Simon Martin’s Ancoats restaurant Mana, which won the city its first new Michelin star in 40 years, retained its star but wasn’t awarded a second. Last night, Manchester didn’t get any new Michelin stars. ![]()
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