Calgary-based culinary judge Rosemary Bacovsky says the first time she ate a Michelin-starred meal outside of a tour group, in Paris, was “a disaster.” The diner next to her had a terrible cold and hacked obnoxiously through his entire meal. “None of the servers helped us with the translation of the French menu. No smartphones back then for Google Translate. We ordered chicken and then quince for dessert, the only two items we could decipher,” she recalls.
By the time dessert showed up, another group of diners near them started smoking cigars.
Resisting the urge to be sick from the smell, Bacovsky bailed early, leaving her husband to finish his pricey meal solo. “The experience was so negative from food, service and ambience perspectives, that I did not ever want to go to another Michelin-starred restaurant,” she says.
But they had a reservation for another Paris spot, the three-star Le Cinq, the following night. There, their experience was the complete opposite: wonderful service, creative and delicious dishes, and unforgettable ambience.
Le Cinq left Bacovsky wanting to know more about Michelin and fine dining. These days, she and her husband spend their vacations checking out Michelin-rated restaurants and other great food experiences around the world.
While their experiences aren’t exactly common, they are not alone in their pursuit of fine culinary adventures. If you’re a food lover with deep-ish pockets and you’ve visited a major city in the past few years, odds are good you have made — or considered making — a reservation at one of that city’s Michelin-starred restaurants.
So, what exactly is the Michelin Guide? In 1889 in France, two brothers named André and Edouard Michelin, founders of Michelin (the tire company), created the first Michelin Guide — a free list of places where you could fill up on fuel, with maps and instructions on changing a tire — as a way to encourage people to drive around the country. At the time, there were fewer than 3,000 cars in France, but the brothers dreamed big and, by the 1920s, cars were becoming common and they were selling their guide, which by then included hotel suggestions and an expanded list of restaurants.
They hired a team of anonymous restaurant inspectors and, by 1926, began to award stars to the top places. Five years later, they introduced the one-, two- and three-star hierarchy, which remains in place today. A single star ensures a chef’s place in culinary history. A three-star rating is reserved for the best of the best.
Considered by many to be some of the world’s greatest culinary destinations, three-star restaurants typically offer exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey.
(Confession: I have enjoyed most of my Michelin experiences so much that I once started a website, michelincanada.com — only to get a letter from Michelin’s lawyers, threatening legal action if I didn’t transfer the site to them immediately. In a nutshell, not looking for a fight, I took it down.)
In 1997, Michelin launched its Bib Gourmand award. While it doesn’t have quite the cachet of a star, Bib Gourmand recognizes quality restaurants that offer an outstanding price-versus-quality ratio.
In 2005, the program spread to North America, starting in New York City. Toronto (Canada’s first Michelin city) and Vancouver launched their first guides in 2022, and the province of Quebec will have its first in 2025.
What makes meals from Michelin-starred restaurants in these cities different from, say, meals in top Calgary restaurants? Not a lot, Bacovsky says, and that’s why she — and others — would love to see the Michelin Guide program come to Calgary.
“Based on eating at hundreds of Michelin-starred restaurants and most of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, Calgary has had Michelin-calibre restaurants for many years,” says Bacovsky.
“Michelin should be invited to rate Calgary restaurants. Ratings would increase food-focused tourism in Calgary and Alberta, and would recognize the high calibre of restaurants here.”
Food and travel writer John Gilchrist agrees the city is ready to catapult into the big leagues.
“Calgary is definitely worthy and has been for some time,” he says. The award-winning host of the Cuisine of the Rockies television series, now streaming on Tubi, Gilchrist adds that many local chefs have worked at Michelin-starred eateries elsewhere in the world before bringing their experiences back home.
“There are lots of talented chefs and creative restaurateurs, a good corporate base to support innovation, and a well-travelled clientele to encourage variety and quality. Having dined in many Michelin-starred restaurants both excellent and mediocre, I think Calgary has been Michelin-worthy since the mid-1990s.”
Michelin has a presence already in the province. Of course, there are the tires, and Michelin now rates more than 40,000 places across three continents. Last year, Michelin launched its first Michelin Key Hotels list which includes top Alberta accommodations: Calgary’s The Dorian, Autograph Collection; Fairmont Banff Springs; Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise; and Post Hotel & Spa.
But let’s get back to the restaurants for now. According to Tourism Calgary, the city has not reached out to partner with Michelin, nor does it have any plans to do so.
But the team believes the talent is here.
“Should Calgary become a Michelin Guide destination for restaurants, our team has no doubt that several local establishments would make the list based on their quality, consistency of experience and the pioneering personalities advancing the positive reputation of Calgary,” says Alisha Reynolds, Tourism Calgary’s president and CEO.
While the list of judges is never made public, bringing the “big M” stars to town has a price.
“Many people do not understand that, in most countries outside of Europe, the Michelin Guide is invited to rate restaurants and funded by local tourist boards and governments,” says Bacovsky, who judges for several international and Canadian restaurant review panels and is also a member of the prestigious Chaine des Rotisseurs, an international gastronomy group founded in Paris, France. “The cost for Michelin to rate restaurants in a city or a region is usually confidential and usually involves millions of dollars for a contract for a few years of ratings.”
Rumour has it, for instance, that Vancouver paid up to $5 million to attract Michelin to the city for a five-year period. “I can neither confirm nor deny,” Royce Chwin, president and CEO of Destination Vancouver, told the Vancouver Sun’s Mia Stainsby.
According to that same story, that number may be exaggerated — in comparison, the Province of Quebec’s recent deal apparently cost just $550,000 over three years — but, no matter how you look at it, bringing Michelin to town costs, as the French would say, beaucoup, beaucoup.
“It’s not cheap to bring in a team of inspectors to eat at multiple restaurants,” Gilchrist says. “And these payments in no way guarantee positive reviews.” (To be fair, a place may occasionally lose a star or two, but Michelin doesn’t really give negative reviews — and every city so far that’s paid to get Michelin to town gets at least a few places with stars.)
Bacovsky points out that the public money involved could have been used for other projects and then there’s the stress factor. Any of us who have watched the TV series The Bear, or have known chefs who have worked at or owned top restaurants, know the pressure they face to stay in the game.
And early in their careers, many chefs work for free — a process called “staging” — just to get their foot in the door at the fancy places. That’s something for Calgary chefs, restaurateurs and the public to consider if Michelin comes to town. In a world where mental health issues, especially in the culinary and food service world, are already rampant, what personal cost will the drive for a star have on chefs and restaurateurs?
Michael Noble, chef and proprietor of Notable, The Nash and Off Cut Bar, knows a thing or two about the pressure that chefs put themselves under. He has twice represented Canada at the prestigious Bocuse d’Or and he was on the Canadian team for the 1996 Culinary Olympics. He is also the only Canadian to have competed in the original Japanese Iron Chef TV series, battling against the legendary chef Masaharu Morimoto.
Noble says he worries about the mental health effects that Michelin’s pressure would bring to the city, especially to the city’s chefs and restaurateurs. “I have mixed feelings. On the positive side, the city needs a valid ranking of restaurants based on merit,” he says.
But at what cost, he adds. “I witness the struggle to be seen on Instagram and on other platforms,” Noble says. “Will the need only increase with the desire to again be recognized?”
Chef Michel Nop (Foreign Concept, Smugglers) trained in France and worked under the late French chef Alain Senderens who, at his peak, held three stars; Jérôme Banctel, whose restaurant Le Gabriel in Paris holds three; as well as chef Alain Ducasse. “As a chef, I could see the work to get to one, two, three stars, and the pressure to then hold onto them. I saw all the sacrifice,” Nop says. “It can be great for the customer and a curse for the chefs.”
Still, Nop would like to see Michelin come to Alberta, not just Calgary. “As much as I love Calgary, there are not enough restaurants to make it a book,” says Nop. A provincial guide would be more like the original Michelin mission, encouraging people to travel throughout the region, he notes.
It would likely be good for local food producers, too. “It puts Calgary and local agriculture on the world map, which could also help bring well-deserved recognition to the growers, the ranchers and the farming community,” says Paul Rogalski, Rouge‘s culinary director and co-owner.
So, who should be on the list if Michelin were to come to Calgary? Ask any food writer, blogger or influencer in town, and you’ll get a different suggestion. A few that were suggested to me include River Café and Rouge, perhaps Major Tom.
Bacovsky says some of her favourite Calgary restaurants include River Café and Darren MacLean’s Eight, Shokunin and Nupo. “In my opinion, Eight is the best restaurant in Canada and the world and worthy of three stars,” she says.
MacLean didn’t respond in time for our deadlines when asked for an interview for this story, but it’s no secret amongst local food lovers that he has his sights set on a star. Since he currently can’t get one in Calgary, he has plans in the works to open a restaurant in London, U.K. — a major Michelin hotspot. And, if any Calgarian is qualified to weigh in on MacLean’s Michelin potential, it’s Bacovsky. She’s been to more than 100 Michelin-starred restaurants — and, of those, more than 70 hold three stars. When we spoke, she was planning a trip to Chicago to dine at Alinea and Ever — two eateries on the prestigious list. (Despite the episode in The Bear where Ever closes, the restaurant is very much alive and serving in real life.)
And, before that, she was heading to Spain to eat at Mugaritz, a two-star restaurant where people criticize chef Andoni Luis Aduriz just as often as they praise him for dishes that include something greasy and mysterious, served in a belly button-shaped mould. (Just Google for reviews that include lines like: “It tasted like the lovechild of nothingness and despair…”)
“The chef there thinks food should be creative, not necessarily delicious,” Bacovsky says, in anticipation of the Mugaritz meal. “I believe food should be delicious.”
The same goes for Gilchrist. While he has dined at starred establishments around the world, he’s more apt to search out something less fancy, less fussy. (Some — me — would say less pretentious.) “I know the quality I expect at starred restaurants, but I actually prefer the more rustic, local places,” says Gilchrist, who spent 38 years reviewing restaurants for CBC Radio.
“I more frequently look for their Bib Gourmand entries, which feature good local food at lower prices.”
He has concerns that Michelin judges typically parachute in from other locations, so they don’t know the local food scene well and may miss under-the-radar or very new gems.
But, as we’ve said before, bringing Michelin to town isn’t a guarantee the city’s top eateries will be rewarded in a way that makes us diners — mere mortals — happy.
Take Canoe in Toronto, for instance. It has no star, but is legendary for its food and service, Nop notes. Yet, Nop recalls that, at a recent one-Michelin-star restaurant in Vietnam, he was handed a dirty menu, while a grungy mop and bucket sat in one corner of the eatery.
I, on the other hand, had a less-than-stellar experience at a Bib Gourmand-listed eatery in Toronto: crumbs from a previous diner on my chair, indifferent service and presentation, dusty decor.
And, in 2019, the Korean Times reported that a Seoul chef, had sued Michelin Guide, accusing the guide of fraud and attempted extortion (Michelin said at the time it would counter-sue). Bacovsky agrees the system isn’t without flaws. “Michelin has awarded one star to street food vendors in Bangkok, Singapore and Mexico City,” she says. “This implies that Vancouver and Toronto’s one-starred restaurants are equivalent to street food vendors. I strongly disagree.”
If Tourism Calgary changed its mind and paid for Michelin to come here, there would be plenty for chefs, restaurateurs and the public to consider. It can already be difficult to score a reservation for a prime time at a top local eatery. Michelin would no doubt make that worse.
And, if it takes months to get a reservation at a top restaurant, that restaurant may miss out on a Michelin opportunity because judges who don’t announce their arrivals or demand influencer treatment may not have access to eat within their travel time frame.
Service can be a problem, with many restaurants struggling to find and keep good staff. However, the guide may elevate Calgary’s dining scene for locals and for the world, bringing in top talent and spotlighting the city. “It’s likely worth exploring,” Gilchrist says. “The Michelin Guides are reliable and thorough. They are pretty much the best global dining guides around.”