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Rumors of stars

The race is on, but is Michelin watching?
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By Dave Faries
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
December 26th, 2007 issue

Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
The faces of success: maze, La Degustation and Allegro have the city talking.
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Sometimes it seems like the entire city is yearning, straining, almost expecting to hear two little words: Michelin star.
Prague has never earned one of the coveted marks, the influential little guidebook icons that crown a restaurant with prestige and turn chefs into culinary gods. In previous years, the passing of Michelin’s review period caused little more than envious shrugs.
This time around, it’s different. The arrival of Gordon Ramsay’s maze, the opening of La Degustation, the revival last year of Bellevue and V Zátiší, the hiring from Florence of Andrea Accordi by Allegro — all are perceived as flickers of worthiness by chefs, diners, even critics. “Local customers are becoming more knowledgeable and demanding,” says Laura Baranik, former food writer for expats.cz. “Prague is definitely ready for a Michelin star restaurant.”
In Michelin’s vernacular, three stars are reserved for an establishment worth a special journey, just for dinner. Only 56 of these were awarded last year. Around 1,400 restaurants in Europe earned single stars, designating them as “very good” in their particular category.
“The first star is about food — and service, of course,” Accordi explains. “When you want the second or third, you must have really, really high expectations.” Even the wrong glassware may draw scorn from tire company critics.
Accordi abandoned a star in Florence and admits to a desire for another —although, he adds, “first we work for the guests.” Maze, which many consider Allegro’s rival in the race for Prague’s first star, claims to operate according to the same principle.
“We do not set up restaurants to win Michelin stars,” says Jason Atherton, the London chef overseeing Ramsay’s Prague operation. “But we use the same ethos as Michelin. If Michelin deems us worthy of a star, fantastic.”
Mario Corti, chef at Mark, a one-star beacon in the center of Munich, warns of the frenzy awaiting whichever place — Allegro, maze, La Degustation, or perhaps Alcron, amongst other contenders — wins the race. “The first one that gets a star, you won’t get a table for the next four months,” he says. “I had an 80 percent increase in bookings after getting the star.”
Yet many observers, including Baranik and local resident Darren Heath, doubt the city’s ability to support such a restaurant for long — if the tire company even sends accolades in this direction. “The problem I see with Prague dining is the general attitude of Czechs to food,” Heath explains. “It has to be cheap, lots of it and nothing to adventurous” — not really terms of Michelin endearment. Even establishments flaunting Bib Gourmands (Michelin’s “value for money” category) — Brasserie M, Aromi and Le Terrior — “have a long way to go before getting anywhere near Michelin star status.”
Despite the growing awareness of global flavors and increasing familiarity with fine dining, even the hopeful cannot quiet misgivings, learned from decades in the gloom, that deep down Prague remains, in many respects, a haven of culinary adolescents. “Until there are enough world-class restaurants to attract a really discerning international customer,” Baranik points out, “the city won’t be able to sustain more than a handful of top-level kitchens.”
Still, the competition — the race for Prague’s first Michelin star — will likely hasten the city’s yearning for culinary recognition. At the very least, Baranik concludes, “it’ll mean a better experience for patrons.”

 

Dave Faries can be reached at dfaries@praguepost.com


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