But I am always delighted when I come across a new restaurant with three stars that actually deserves it – and it’s well worth the significant outlay when it is. Jan Hartwig’s superb Jan, in Munich, for example, serves exciting, modern dishes. In Britain, however, I’m not sure any of the three stars are truly of the level of their French and Japanese counterparts.
Sometimes Michelin seems bafflingly slow to react to new talent. I recall reviewing the freshly opened (and now closed) Greenhouse in Dublin, in 2012, where Mickael Viljanen was cooking up a storm. It took Michelin four years to grudgingly give a star, and four more to give it a second. Yet the meals I had there across that period were uniformly stunning.
It was a similar story with The Ritz in London, blithely ignored by Michelin for years despite consistent outstanding cooking. The venerable hotel restaurant combines excellent ingredients, unrivalled culinary technique and truly professional service, all served in a grand 1906 dining room fit for a king (appropriate given it has served multiple members of the Royal family). One two-starred American chef asked me at the end of a meal there whether it had three stars – and was astonished to discover it had none. Michelin finally relented and granted one in 2017, followed by a second last year.