The scores are in…

But rather than Craig Revel Horwood holding up a number on a wand, Michelin treated an all-star cast of chefs to a somewhat offbeat ceremony at London’s BFI IMAX on Monday of this week (the 1st of October).

The awards were punctuated by lots of folksy chat, with much of the show read from an iPad. Michelin proved its unceasing commitment to neutrality by giving chef Gordon Ramsay a major part in the proceedings! (By putting the UK’s most famous TV chef centre stage to much of the presentation it underlined to anyone of a cynical disposition the mutually back-scratching nature of the awarding body and its poster boys.)

Both our very own Harden’s London Restaurant Awards of September 10 2018, and our blog post from the previous Friday, were not half bad predictors of the awards outcome.

No new stars were awarded this year to any Indian, or Chinese restaurants. The closest we got to an ethnic award in the UK was Ikoyi – a brilliant restaurant, but one which is very much African-inspired, not African. The Republic of Ireland featured a single Japanese. There were no pure Italians.

This absence of stars for ethnic restaurants – for example for Indian Accent which is an outstanding new arrival and would have definitely had recognition if the cuisine were European – is emblematic of the chief failing of the Michelin star system. It’s not that it’s awards are not reasonably sensible in acknowledging achievement, so far as they go. It is that they are so arbitrary, blessing a few good names, but leaving many equally good or better establishments as seeming also-rans or non-entities within the Michelin constellation.

London:

New two stars: 

• Core, Notting Hill (winner of Harden’s London Restaurant Awards, Top Newcomer)
• Kitchen Table, Bloomsbury (great award this – unexpected and fully deserved)

New one stars:  

• Brat, Hackney (winner of Harden’s London Restaurant Awards, Top Newcomer)
• Sabor, Mayfair
• Hide, Mayfair (shortlisted, Harden’s London Restaurant Awards, Top Newcomer)
• Leroy, Shoreditch.
• Roganic, Marylebone.

Lost two stars, to become one star:

• Marcus, Berkeley hotel, London

Lost one star:

• Ametsa with Arzak Instruction, Como the Halkin hotel
• Ellory (see Leroy)
• HKK (closed)
• Jamavar (change of chef)
• Lima Fitzrovia
• Outlaw’s at the Capital
• Tamarind, London (temporarily closed)

Outside London, UK and Ireland:

The awards outside of London had a slight air of “round up the usual suspects”, as various well-known names were tweaked up and down. There was less in the way of new blood and dear old Manchester is still waiting for some recognition of its ever-more interesting culinary landscape.

New two stars: 

Moor Hall, Lancashire (guessed that one right last week)

New one star: 

• Olive Tree, Bath
• Bulrush, Bristol
• Fordwich Arms, Kent,
• Rogan & Co, Cumbria
• Gidleigh Park, Devon
• Sorrel, Surrey
• White Swan, Lancashire
• Tim Allen’s Flitch of Bacon, Essex
• Blackbird, West Berkshire
• Oxford Kitchen, Oxfordshire
• Salt, Warwickshire
• Winteringham Fields, North Lincolnshire
• Chestnut, Cork
• Mews, Cork
• Ichigo Ichie, Cork

Lost two stars, to become one star

• Gidleigh Park, Chagford, Devon
• Le Champignon Sauvage, Cheltenham

Lost one star

• Royal Oak, Paley Street, Berkshire
• Harrow at Little Bedwyn, Wiltshire
• JSW, Petersfield, Hampshire
• Box Tree, Ilkley, West Yorkshire
• Albannach, Lochinver (closed)
• Boath House, Nairn
• Martin Wishart at Loch Lomond, Cameron House, Balloch (closed)