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New Michelin guide names 8 3-star restaurants in Japan

November 25, 2007
By Ken Worsley


Last week, French tire maker Michelin released the first-ever Tokyo edition of its restaurant guide. In all, the reviewers named 8 three star, 25 two star and 117 one star restaurants in Tokyo. This compares to 39 restaurants with at least one star in New York, and 64 in Paris.

Those reading the story would be forgiven for instantly understanding that market pandering that is going on; Michelin had to do something to stroke the ego of the home country in this case in order to actually move copies off the shelves. The trouble seems to be that professionals are actually fooled by this marketing tactic. The Asahi quotes Toyoo Tamamura, 62, an essayist well-versed in French food culture as saying, “The quality of Tokyo cuisine is higher than in Paris.”

We don’t know anything about Tanamura’s qualifications, but we wonder if she was part of the group that just a few weeks ago complained that that Michelin had no place doing a restaurant guide in Tokyo because there was no way their people could understand Japanese food.

On the other hand, is it possible that Tokyo cuisine is better than in Paris? I think so, but that’s a matter of personal taste. One thing’s for sure: I don’t need a guidebook to tell me that I cook my favorite food in the city.

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Comments

One Response to “New Michelin guide names 8 3-star restaurants in Japan”

  1. Garrett on November 25th, 2007 6:43 pm

    What struck me is that for all the stars, other than the Japanese restaurants, almost everything is French, Italian, etc. What about Tokyo’s fantastic Chinese and Korean cuisine? (There’s a good argument to be made for Tokyo having better Chinese food than China.) It looks to me like Michelin really doesn’t understand Tokyo - looks like they looked at the same restaurants they’d look at anywhere, then tacked some Japanese on for appearances’ sake.

    As for pandering, of course it’s pandering.

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