Michelin Never Gives Up

The Michelin Guide, like some French wine, does not travel well. It is the definitive guide to French restaurants that insists on expanding throughout the world, where it brings inappropriate standards to bear on all manner of cuisine that has little or no resemblance to what it knows well: French food.

It's here in America, apparently to stay. (I don't know why we can't keep it out, maybe by building one of those fences designed to turn back illegal immigrants.) Last year it reviewed the restaurants of New York—and the updated version of that debacle is due out this month. The guide unsurprisingly determined that four New York restaurants where the cooking was French deserved its highest rating of three stars. Last week it reviewed the restaurants of San Francisco (and environs) for the first time. Only one restaurant got three stars, The French Laundry. I'll bet you can guess the style of cooking there.

The only review of special interest in the San Francisco guide was that of Chez Panisse, the iconic Berkeley restaurant of Alice Waters, one of the legendary names in American cuisine. Chez Panisse got one star. At first glance that seems unfair, like a travel magazine giving one star instead of three to the Statue of Liberty.

Chez Panisse is a monument to sustainable agriculture, intelligent dining, and an absence of excesses. Despite the word "chez," it is not about fussiness and it is not French. It is ideological eating.

The Michelin Guide got it right. Chez Panisse is a one-star restaurant, in the best sense of the word.

That in no way diminishes what Chez Panisse represents—faith in freshness and the sensible pursuit of the appetite. It does not value sensuality, gratuitous cream sauces, 12-course prix fixe menus or sterling silver platters bearing boxcars of petit fours. Unsound dining experiences are what most critics, myself included, cherish, and that generally is what is meant by a three-star experience.

If all of us ate the way Alice Waters wished us to eat, we (and our world) would be healthier. If that adds up to one star and not to three, then that's a reflection on our values, not on her restaurant.