The Michelin Guide Comes to Mexico

The world's preeminent restaurant awards are now in Mexico. But who benefits?

The news that Michelin Guide was coming to Mexico was not something I was thrilled to hear.

On May 15, 2024 Michelin awarded five states in Mexico. To quote its website (which I used to write for regularly) “2 Two Stars, 16 One Stars, 6 Green Stars, and a whopping 42 Bib Gourmands.” Note that this statement from Michelin doesn’t include their “Selected Restaurants,” which I’ve included in my own list below.

In Oaxaca, restaurants received:

• 2 One Stars

  • Levadura de Olla

  • Los Danzantes Oaxaca

• 6 Bib Gourmand

  • Alfonsina

  • Cobarde

  • Las Quince Letras

  • Tierra del Sol

  • Labo Fermento

  • La Olla

• 10 Selected Restaurants

  • Almoraduz

  • Ancestral Cocina Tradicional

  • Itanoní

  • Teocintle-Tika’aya

  • Asador Bacanora Oaxaca

  • Atarraya

  • Zandunga

  • Criollo

  • Casa Oaxaca El Restaurante

  • Crudo

• 1 Green Star

  • Los Danzantes Oaxaca

There’s a lot to unpack here, both in terms of the restaurants chosen (and not chosen), who was granted stars and who was put in a lesser category, the number of stars assigned, and so forth. But unless someone is intimately familiar with Oaxaca’s culinary scene and has some sort of emotional investment in who was awarded what, it’s not worth a thorough analysis that’s also guaranteed to be, at times, unkind. Let’s just say the assignment of stars and designations is—as is always the case with Michelin—peculiar. Some restaurants were snubbed, others were given undue credit. It’s just how Michelin is.

Instead, two issues are far more interesting to discuss: what did it actually cost for Michelin to arrive in Mexico, and what does it mean for Mexico to be participating in this system?

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First up, an unvarnished fact Michelin would rather you not know: destinations pay for Michelin to award them stars. Michelin insists that their system is not pay-for-play, because just because you pay doesn’t mean you’ll win, but that’s nonsense. The destinations that pay to participate receive some sort of recognition from Michelin. If they didn’t, nobody would pay Michelin to participate and their entire business model would collapse.

The Michelin Guide operates a pay-for-play scheme.

As reported by Eater, when Michelin went to South Korea in 2016 the country’s tourism board paid $1.8 million dollars for them to establish a guide just in Seoul alone. The Thai government reportedly paid $4.4 million for five years of Michelin’s presence. When Michelin originally arrived in California in 2019 that state was forced to pay too, despite the fact that Michelin initially said that no U.S. cities had ever paid for Michelin to rank them.

As quoted from the Tampa Bay Times:

In 2019, the Michelin Guide issued a California-only guide, for which the state’s tourism bureau paid $600,000. Since then, the guide has broadened to several areas in North America, including Toronto, Vancouver, Colorado and Atlanta, all following significant investments from the local tourism boards.

Visit Florida, Florida’s state tourism bureau, themselves paid Michelin Guide $150,000 for a single year of promotion.

You get the picture.

So far it doesn’t seem that Mexico’s fees for participation have been officially disclosed, but a friend in Mexico’s restaurant industry told me it’s rumored that each Mexican state which received rankings paid approximately $2 million dollars, with Baja California paying $3 million USD. Given that five states received stars—Baja California (Nor and Sur), Nuevo León, Mexico State (home to Mexico City), Oaxaca, and Quintana Roo—that would put the total at around $10-11 million USD.

It’s hard for people who don’t live in Mexico to understand just how much money this is. Mexico is an incredible, vibrant country, but it is also a country which by-and-large lacks reliably maintained modern infrastructure. Even Mexico City, one of the great cities of the world, has serious problems with reliable utilities and has effectively run out of water, in large part due to its crumbling plumbing system.

In Oaxaca we have deteriorating roads, bad pipes, unreliable internet, frequent power outages, and incredible water insecurity. $2 million USD, even in a large city like Oaxaca de Juárez, could go a very long way toward fixing some of the city’s underlying problems.

The use of the money for paying for the Michelin Guide is made even more grotesque by the fact that the average Oaxacan—the average Mexican!—cannot afford to eat in the restaurants which appear in the guide.

Of course, there’s a good argument that you can’t just divert money from tourism initiatives into other parts of the government. Tourism is essential to Mexico’s economy, and to Oaxaca’s economy. But putting aside the fact that money is needed for basic upkeep of neighborhoods not visited by tourists, more tourists would generally be attracted to the city if it had better paved roads, public transit, and an updated plumbing system. Purchasing arbitrary distinctions leveled by a French tire corporation which seems to know very little about Mexico is not the best use of tourism development dollars. Michelin swindled Oaxaca.

But I think Michelin also swindled the rest of Mexico. Michelin wrote, “The "Land of the Sun" becomes the newest destination for gastronomic excellence,” as if Mexico wasn’t a noteworthy culinary destination before it paid Michelin to show up.

But the reality is Mexico does not need the Michelin Guide; it never did, and it never will.

The reality, though, is that Mexico doesn’t need the Michelin Guide, and Oaxaca certainly doesn’t. Our restaurants are incredible regardless of whether an outside guide deems them worthy. Anyone who comes to Mexico and doesn’t eat exclusively at restaurants designed for tourists immediately sees that the food here, the food culture here, is outstanding.

The entire equation with the Michelin Guide is backwards. Mexico shouldn’t be paying for participation, Michelin should be begging Mexico to allow them to rank their restaurants. Because Mexico is infinitely stronger than Michelin ever has been, is now, or will be.

But Michelin’s presence in Mexico is also more than a little bit cruel because of the sheer imperialism of it. The Michelin Guide is acting as if Mexico is lucky to have it there. But there’s a great amount of evidence to show Michelin—like colonialism— isn’t actually good for the destinations it arrives at.

Michelin stars make restaurants more expensive.

Michelin stars make cities more unequal.

When stars are lost, it hurts (or even closes) restaurants. Some chefs even reject stars.

On social media, the mood of those who were granted accolades is ecstatic. One restaurant in particular, which I will not name, is posting incessantly, breathlessly about their award. Others are less self-congratulatory but still enthused, expressing disbelief, surprise, gratitude, and a host of other emotions.

I understand why. Oaxaca is one of Mexico’s poorest states, and until quite recently was not the subject of much press at all. For the majority of its existence the state has also been remote, effectively cut off not just from the wider world but also from the rest of Mexico. While the airport dates back to the 1940s it was only modernized in 2019, and the city was first connected to Mexico City by highway in 1994. Oaxaca’s current, contemporary era has only existed for about 25 years. Michelin’s recognition, in a way, helps to cement that Oaxaca is a part of a wider world in a way it previously was not.

But Michelin is cruel. It seemingly cares very little for the restaurants it gives awards to, or the destinations it makes pay for its participation. I’m not convinced the organization even hires its famed “inspectors” anymore. In the first two years of Michelin’s presence in Washington D.C., the guide included copy/pasted verbiage from the first year to the second year. Who’s actually visiting these restaurants? Are they visiting these restaurants? Do we have any proof the restaurants have been visited by inspectors?

The Michelin Guide is transparently a pay-to-play scheme, and a destination cannot win if they haven’t paid to participate. So isn’t making the excitement Oaxacans (and Mexicans) feel about being awarded just the consequence of a shady cash grab, money spent on hollow accolades that could have been better spent on, well, just about anything else?

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