Michelin Guide

Michelin's inspectors visit anonymously and pay their own bills, the guide states that awards are based on five criteria: the quality of the ingredients, mastery of cooking technique and flavour, the personality of the chef as expressed in the cuisine, harmony of flavours, consistency across visits and over time. Crucially, stars are awarded to the cooking rather than to the wider restaurant, each distinction sits on a different axis: stars mark culinary quality, the Bib Gourmand marks good value, the Green Star marks sustainable practice, the Plate designation marks restaurants the inspectors judged worth including in the selection. Pearl organises these distinctions as separate lists and runs its own venue-matching process, so the number of restaurants Pearl shows within a distinction is a mapped count rather than Michelin's global total for that distinction.

The Michelin Guide has published restaurant assessments since 1900 and remains the most widely recognised inspector-led guide in the world. Pearl currently maps 6 lists from the guide, split by distinction.

The Michelin Guide began in 1900 as a motoring companion produced by the tyre manufacturer Michelin and evolved into a global restaurant and hotel guide. It now publishes selections across Europe, the Americas and Asia, awarding a set of distinctions that operate on different axes: One, Two and Three Stars for cooking quality, the Bib Gourmand for good value, the Green Star for sustainable gastronomy, Selected Restaurants (historically represented by the Plate symbol) for restaurants that earned a place in the selection. Each market's selection is revised on its own annual cycle.

Michelin's inspectors are full-time employees who visit anonymously and pay for their meals. The guide publishes five criteria behind its star assessments: quality of the ingredients, mastery of cooking technique and flavour, the personality of the chef expressed through the cuisine, harmony of flavours, consistency both between inspector visits and over time. Stars are awarded to the food rather than to the room, the service or the wine list. Pearl's process is separate and downstream: after Michelin publishes a selection, Pearl matches the named restaurants to Pearl venue profiles, meaning the count of venues within a distinction on Pearl reflects Pearl's mapping rather than Michelin's global count.

The Michelin Guide is the most widely cited restaurant rating system in the world, its star distinctions carry measurable commercial and career consequences for the restaurants and chefs that receive them. Its anonymity and self-funded inspection model have made it the reference point against which other guides are described. Because inspection coverage varies by market, the absence of a distinction reflects the guide's coverage and judgement in that market rather than a verdict on every restaurant.