The Gold Standard

Jonathan Gold pens his thoughts about this year's Michelin guide, a more thorough observation than what he supplied us with a few days ago. "I’m not sure why so many of my colleagues and I get worked up about the boneheadedness of local Michelin ratings, but we seem to, every year?Did Michael Cimarusti’s Providence deserve to be bumped up from one star to two, putting it on a level with Melisse, Spago and Urasawa? Yes, it did: champagne all around. Did Matsuhisa, whose influence reaches across oceans, and Joe’s deserve to have their stars taken away? Only if you believe they changed noticeably from last year to this one, which they clearly did not?Vincenti, Campanile and La Terza are still mysteriously starless, as is, even more puzzlingly, Lucques. But Michelin has always been clueless about Mediterranean cooking, almost hostile to market-based cuisine." And don't even get him started on the missing ethnic cuisines. [LAW]