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Chef Joel Robuchon (centre) with his team at his restaurant The Mansion, in Las Vegas, in 2005. Our obsession with celebrity chefs overlooks the teams behind them that contribute to restaurants’ Michelin-star status. Photo: Getty Images
Opinion
Charmaine Mok
Charmaine Mok

How many Michelin-star chefs are there? None, actually; it’s restaurants that are awarded. Why celebrity cook culture is getting out of hand

  • The likes of Joël Robuchon and Alain Ducasse, and not their restaurants, are often credited with Michelin stars, but this is a misconception
  • Our obsession with celebrity chefs ignores the teams behind them. Besides, is a chef who fries noodles any less talented than one who crafts tasting menus?
Charmaine Mok
Charmaine Mok
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On April 26, the much delayed results for the latest Hong Kong and Macau edition of the Michelin Guide were released to the world.

In tandem, the website michelinstarredchefs.com, which purports to present a “comprehensive list of Michelin-starred chefs” every year without fail, also shared an update.

Scroll down the page and all you’ll see is a single sentence in English and in French: “There are none. Restaurants, not chefs, are awarded Michelin stars.”

That’s right – there’s no such thing as a Michelin-star chef.
Alain Ducasse (left) and his kitchen team prepare food at his upscale French restaurant Benoit, in New York, in 2017. Photo: Getty Images
The late, great Joël Robuchon is frequently cited as having more Michelin stars than any other chef – fans claim he had 31 under his belt, dispersed among his galaxy of restaurants stretching from Paris to Hong Kong.
Another Frenchman, Alain Ducasse, is also often credited with having 21 Michelin stars – starting from the very first two he earned for La Terrasse at the Hôtel Juana, in Juan-les-Pins, France, when he was in his mid-20s.

I’m afraid we’ve fallen into the trap of becoming enthralled by celebrity.

As michelinstarredchefs.com rightly puts it, stars are awarded to restaurants, not to individuals – even if they are the face of the brand and the powerhouse behind it.

The stars don’t follow chefs around, either. When, hypothetically, a famed chef leaves their three-Michelin-star restaurant and opens up a new venue, it doesn’t automatically become bestowed with Michelin stars (though cynics often theorise that Michelin appears to favour and quickly upgrade restaurants whose chefs have seen success in its guide before).

The emphasis on a single chef overlooks the efforts of an entire brigade – both front and back of house – who have worked together to create an impeccable experience for diners and inspectors alike.

It’s rare to find someone calling themselves a Michelin-star sous chef or pastry chef. Perhaps they realise how naff it actually sounds. It seems Michelin stardom is destined only for the man – as is often the case – at the top of the food chain.

In fact, it wasn’t until 2019 that the Michelin Guide realised it should also be spotlighting the work of pastry chefs, sommeliers and service staff, launching the Passion Dessert, Michelin Sommelier and Michelin Welcome and Service Award prizes to recognise the efforts of these other culinary “departments”. But you don’t hear much about them, either.

Ralph Fiennes (centre) as egotistical Chef Slowik in a still from “The Menu”. Photo: Searchlight Pictures
The cult of the head chef has prompted much navel-gazing, mani­festing in films such as The Menu (2022) – in which Ralph Fiennes plays an egotistical overlord of an ultra-exclusive, remote island restaurant – and Thai film Hunger (2023).
The latter, which portrays the power struggle between two vastly different protagonists – Aoy, a young female street food chef and supercilious fine-dining villain Paul, who plays pied piper to a legion of rich followers with questionable palates – highlights the absurdity of our obsession with awards.

Is a restaurant with a Michelin star any better than one without? And by extension, is a chef who flips burgers or stir-fries noodles any less talented than one who crafts tasting menus?

Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying (left) as Aoy, and Nopachai Chaiyanam as Chef Paul in a still from “Hunger”. Photo: Netflix

Both films reach a similar conclusion, and we could do the same to take all the hot air out there with a grain of salt.

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