‘I feel for Manchester': Michelin Guide editor reveals thoughts on city's dining scene
Editor of the Michelin Guide, Rebecca Burr, has said that she "feels for Manchester", as the city's restaurants again failed to win a star in this year's list.
She referenced this year's BBC series Restaurant Wars, which pitched the two new restaurants against each other, as they both tried to achieve Michelin standard. Burr confirmed that Michelin had not been involved in the series, but said it had added to the external pressure the teams would have been under.
She said: "I think the restaurants have been put under the spotlight. They've invested a lot of money and employed people, and got good chefs. And all of a sudden everyone's getting swooped up into this frenzy. I feel for Manchester today, that [the restaurants] have had to go through that."
Burr also reiterated that winning a star was all about consistency, and that just because a chef has a star at one restaurant, doesn't necessarily follow that they will win one at another.
Responding to the example of Simon Rogan's Fera at Claridge's, which won a star, and his the French restaurant in Manchester, which did not, she said: "Rogan's food is all ingredient-driven, and very pure. But is it the same sort of food [between sites]? The menu may read the same, but when you have the dishes put in front of you, they're maybe not quite."
But Burr also confirmed that Michelin was very open to awarding stars to Manchester, and was keeping a close eye on the regional restaurant scene.
She said: "We [at Michelin] would always treat Manchester in the same way as we would any other city. It's the inspectors' experiences that count."
The Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland 2015 was released yesterday at 7.30am, awarding 14 new stars, including Barrafina, Kitchen Table at Bubbledogs, Nathan Outlaw's the Fish Kitchen, and the Crown at Whitebrook.
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