As expected, the release of the Beijing 2021 Michelin list drew not gourmets on the scent, but the cynicism of the melon eating crowd: at the top of the list is Taizhou chain restaurant Xin Rongji, vegetarian restaurant Jing Zhaoyin; closely followed by Shanghai cuisine house box, Xin Rongji changed the horse armor of the branch of the Jing Ji. The restaurants further down the list are even more magical. In addition to Liyuan, Xiang Ai and Fuchunju, which are chain restaurants representing the tastes of other provinces and cities, even Lijia Cuisine, which has been flopping for a long time, Country Taste Kitchen, which costs 68 yuan for a can of Coke, and Shanhe Wanduo, which is more form than content, have all made it to the top of the list. There is no core judging criteria, no clear geographical labeling, and no broad social reputation. This Michelin list, the threshold for entry seems to be only the word "expensive".

No.1

The company that sells tires and makes restaurant recommendations may be the last modernist joke in the history of world cuisine. But the joke's logical self-consistency is valid: in order to accelerate the rate of wear and tear on the tires of users with cars, and ultimately grow the company's sales. That's why fairness and guaranteed social reputation were the most important founding principles of Michelin before it entered mainland China. In order to be fair, Michelin has used the external reviewers who never dared to test the waters of the catering industry before, the unexpected blind test experience, and the most detailed area control map. In the catering industry, where the barrier to entry is low, competition is fierce, and gateway views are serious, this kind of system, is the industry's stirrer of water. Because Michelin at that time did not rely on restaurants to feed, the list makers want the user's real experience, in the era without the Internet, to spread by word of mouth and published communication to form an influence, and ultimately to achieve the commercial aspirations of the Michelin company.

That's right, in those days, a key part of the Michelin guide's logical self-reliance was the absence of commercial interests. At the same time, in order to maximize the user's travel mileage and increase tire wear, Michelin guides would also pay special attention to the irreplaceability of each place's own characteristics. Than Florence's old Michelin three-star restaurant - Enoteca Pinchiorri - signature dishes are amberjack from the Ligurian Sea, spaghetti dumplings from the Tuscan region, and tomahawk steak with traditional Florentine craftsmanship.

These are all foods with ingredients and cooking techniques that are hard to find elsewhere once you leave the city. And the leitmotif printed on the front page of the menu at EnotecaPinchiorri, which runs through all the dishes and service offerings, comes from Oscar Wilde: "We can forgive a man for doing something practical, even if he doesn't admire it; the only excuse for doing something useless is to admire it to adore it. All art is utterly useless." This veritable three Michelin stars, in fact, represents not the restaurant itself, but the geography, the products, the historical flow and the culture of the city of Florence. For diners who come to visit, eating at this restaurant is not just about savoring the taste, but about reading about the city of Florence through eating. The Tire Factory's food map, starting from travel and ending with taste, has completed the "dimensional blow" to the catering industry, and has also gained a really wide reputation. But when it came to China, everything changed.

No.2 II

In 2016 China, the manufacturing industry has been in full surplus; per capita car ownership, is by no means comparable to France in 1900. For Michelin, tire products are not competitive with local Chinese brands, and tire sales are not going to increase with the dependability of the food guide. The purpose behind the determination to bring the food guide to China is self-evident: to extract profit from the restaurant world. Unreliable things tend to be similar, with seemingly cumbersome motivations, but the links that really determine their inappropriateness are formed as early as the very beginning. What's worse, in a country like China, where Confucianism has been steeped for thousands of years, the social status of restaurant workers has always been low. In the past, cooks and restaurant owners saw business as a means to support their families, with the ultimate goal of enabling their next generation to study, to read well, to get a job, to become an official, and to be a "man of the world".

This is the root cause of China's lack of craftsmanship, and also the reason why practitioners in the restaurant industry have not exercised much self-restraint in the past, and why the circle of gateway competition is more serious than that of their Western counterparts. In recent years, the emergence of food media and documentaries has brought unprecedented vitality to this circle, but at the same time, it has also allowed the old and decrepit practitioners to see a faster, lower-cost access to the "human" class. Michelin's timely appearance gave this circle what it wanted most: the power of public opinion. I'm sure I'll offend someone if I write this, but it's true that the Michelin list on the continent is full of commercial favoritism, fame and fortune deals, and fake word-of-mouth. If you follow the map and search for Michelin-listed restaurant reviews on Internet platforms such as X-Tuan, X-Bei, and X-Dianping, where the purpose of commercialization is blatantly obvious, you'll find a thousand positive reviews blowing up in the front row. Only by flipping to the back page, or reading only the bad reviews, can you harvest some valid information.

No. 3

Why is Beijing not the right place for a Michelin list? As a region with a relatively underdeveloped gastronomic accumulation, the local specificity, difference and stasis of its food is low. More good flavors come from "chain restaurants" that copy dishes from other countries. But food as a culture with roots, leaving the local, more or less in the flavor, temperament discount.

Beijing, as a Michelin-awarded city, has always valued not the ultimate flavor, but the capital of those who have the strength to replicate restaurants and dishes. The Michelin list was originally created for the purpose of discovering the original flavors of a city, and to motivate foreign tourists to go there with a purpose. Michelin Beijing has "forgotten its original purpose", and that's an understatement. Peter Mayer once praised the 1939 Michelin restaurant in Beijing. Peter Mayer once praised the accuracy of the 1939 Michelin map of France, saying that the Allies relied on that map when they liberated France in 1944. And if today's diners, according to the Beijing Michelin map to the capital to find taste, I am afraid that will only be lost in the concrete jungle.