11/11 - Do Michelin stars affect restaurant popularity?
Can I now dine in the House That Drake Mentioned?
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Do Michelin stars affect restaurant popularity?
Last month, every notable food publication announced that Carbone - the hyper-exclusive New York City restaurant best known for its vodka sauce and celebrity clientele - lost its Michelin star.
For restaurants, a Michelin star is peak recognition. Bon Appetit summarizes this perfectly:
“Receiving a star from Michelin represents what many restaurateurs view as the highest honor in the culinary world. One star is “worth a stop,” two stars is “worth a detour,” and three stars (the most a restaurant can receive) is “worth a special journey,” according to the guide.”
As someone who intends on eating at every restaurant ever referenced in a Drake verse but does not yet have the status nor Resy bot needed to secure “elite” reservations, I was delighted by Carbone’s loss. I figured losing a Michelin star would drive enough customers away that I would finally be able to book a reservation at the House That Drizzy Mentioned.
A month after losing its star, this is Carbone’s reservation availability:
No tables for the next thirty days.
My prediction failed, but is my Michelin hypothesis entirely corrupt? Perhaps Carbone’s perseverance is a Drake based anomaly.
Eight other NYC restaurants lost Michelin stars this year. L’Appart, a French tasting-menu spot in Tribeca with a full five star Yelp rating, lost its star. L’Appart has reservations available for thirteen of the next sixteen nights.
Wallse, an Austrian restaurant in the West Village, also lost its star. A month later, Wallse has yet to remove the Michelin star from its website. Despite posing as a star haver, Wallse is shockingly accessible. According to Resy, tomorrow you could dine at Wallse whenever you want to.
While I want the availability of L’Appart and Wallse to support my thesis, because I don’t have insight into their past Resy data, there is no way to confirm that these restaurants became less popular due to star loss.
However, while some restaurants lost stars, others gained them. If Michelin stars do impact a restaurant’s popularity, then gaining stars should decrease a restaurant’s accessibility.
Semma - a Southern Indian restaurant in the West Village - received its first star last month. Like Carbone, Semma has no available reservations for the next thirty days.
This is not normal. Of the nineteen New York City restaurants that received stars for the first time this year, only two places appear fully booked: Semma and Yoshino, a new omakase spot on the Lower East Side.
The seventeen other star-receiving restaurants are not deprived of customers. They all appear to be perfectly busy. But, receiving a Michelin star did not catapult these restaurants into top tier popularity.
While newly anointed Michelin star restaurants must compete with institutions that have held stars for years – the most popular places in New York City often have no stars at all.
Via Carota, a universally loved Italian spot in the West Village, has no stars. It also has no reservations for the next thirty days. Other non-starred places like 4 Charles and Misi also have no available reservations for the next month.
From all this, I see a few things.
First, my original thesis stinks.
Second, Michelin stars do not imply nor drastically influence restaurant popularity in New York City. A Michelin star - much like a Tik Tok video, Yelp score, or Restaurant Adjacent review - is simply an additional data point customers use to inform their dining preferences.
In sum, if someone at work tastefully boasts of dining at a Michelin star restaurant in such a way that makes you want to eat there, don’t immediately inquire how they got a reservation. Instead, ask if Drake has mentioned it.
Thank you all for reading. This remains the best part of my week, every week. Hope you all have an amazing weekend.
A question I have truly been wondering for the past few months, so thanks. Another question I’ve been considering is: does the loss of a Michelin star really change the status of the restaurant? Does that make the food less good? Probably not. So, the polish restaurant in Logan Square that still boasts of a Michelin star they received (and have since lost) in 2016 still has a star in my eyes.