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This November, Boston and Philadelphia became newly minted Michelin Guide cities, joining the roster of American locales accumulating stars since the Guide’s U.S. debut in 2005. For nearly two decades, Boston watched as New York, Chicago, D.C., Miami, and even Colorado appeared in the red book while it remained absent. That changed this year. After months of anonymous Michelin inspectors quietly circulating through Greater Boston, the inaugural list was unveiled: 27 recognized restaurants in total — 6 Bib Gourmands, 19 Recommended, an Exceptional Cocktail Award, and just one paltry Michelin star awarded to 311 Omakase. Only Dallas has received fewer stars per million residents in the last few years.

To understand the anticlimactic nature of this result, it helps to understand the economics. Michelin does not simply appear in a city; the Guide expands through paid partnerships with tourism bureaus. Meet Boston, the city’s tourism agency, reportedly struck such a deal with Michelin for $1 million over three years. A Meet Boston representative said back in 2023 that the board had consciously opted not to invite Michelin in once it realized the system was “pay-to-play,” but somewhere along the way, that stance changed. $1 million for a measly one star — a pity star, one could argue, for the city’s efforts — awarded to an omakase restaurant that opened in 2023, at that. It is a perplexing choice for a city defined far more by seafood houses, immigrant-driven innovation, and one of the country’s oldest Italian districts than by minimalist sushi counters.

For the uninitiated, the Michelin Guide occupies a peculiar place in the food world as one of the most powerful global arbiters of culinary prestige. Its inspectors reward precision, consistency, and a particular style of culinary performance. The stars come in three tiers: One star signals “high-quality cooking worth a stop,” two stars “excellent cooking worth a detour,” and three stars “exceptional cuisine worth a special journey.” Below the stars sits a constellation of consolation categories: the Bib Gourmand, which recognizes places offering “great value for money,” and the Recommended category, a watchlist for restaurants deemed noteworthy, but not yet star- or Bib-ready.

When a city partners with Michelin, it hopes to elevate itself as a culinary destination, and thereby boost tourism and economic development — the so-called “Michelin Effect.” As Meet Boston president and CEO Martha Sheridan put it in an interview with WHBUR, “Travelers, particularly international visitors, really do want to seek out restaurants that Michelin recognizes. So we felt like it could bring a different level of culinary visitor.”

There is, to be fair, some evidence that the Michelin Effect exists. A cross-city study in Spain found that Michelin-starred restaurants function as a distinct pull factor for gastronomic tourists. Other preliminary research suggests that highly-rated restaurants on Yelp have positive spillover effects on nearby hotel occupancy and room rates. But any benefits tend to cluster around starred establishments and its surroundings, meaning that not all parts of a city’s food ecosystem benefit.

So, what should we make of Boston’s lackluster debut in the Guide? Is our food scene simply not up to scratch? Well, yes — but not in the ways you might assume. In the midst of a Prohibition-era liquor license quota system, a state-wide ban on happy hours, and a wave of homogenous, investor-friendly development in neighborhoods like Seaport, well-funded restaurant group-steakhouses and interchangeable upscale concepts have proliferated at the expense of more idiosyncratic outposts. These structural constraints do leave the culinary landscape in need of support, but not the kind supplied by an external grading system that rewards the narrow contours of fine dining.

What happens next? Will the restaurants that made the Recommended list fall into the gravitational pull of the chase for stars? Take Moëca — situated just off Harvard’s Radcliffe Quadrangle — which made the cut. Moëca’s food can be uneven in quality, but a year under Michelin’s microscope may compel them toward more consistent, sharper execution. And maybe culinary tourism will finally stretch beyond lobster rolls, clam chowder, and the North End. There is real cultural diversity in the Recommended and Bib Gourmand lists, and if more diners discover the breadth of cuisines Boston offers, that would be a genuine boon.

But alongside those possibilities, it’s hard to shake a sense of unease. For all the charms of a tasting menu, Michelin’s arrival risks ushering in a creeping shift toward haute cuisine; the kind of dining that photographs well, travels well, and fits neatly into a globalized vocabulary of excellence. Chasing that elusive star can reshape a restaurant’s identity long before it ever earns one.

The culture already knows this. In the satirical film “The Menu,” Ralph Fiennes’ chef character has grown to despise the trap of Michelin-level refinement. His villainy is motivated by how relentless demands for artistry, innovation, and perfectionism have eroded the joy of cooking and the authenticity of a restaurant’s purpose. Outside of fiction, real chefs have voiced similar frustrations. “I catch myself adding a purée, a tuile, an herb, a flower — just to make it look more fine dining,” said Charlie Mitchell of the now-closed, once one-starred Clover Hill in New York in an interview with the New York Times.

For a city like Boston, with a deep legacy and heterogeneous food culture, Michelin credentials may very well bring new visitors and new money. But they also risk narrowing the definition of “good food,” privileging a small, globally legible subset of restaurants over the richly textured culinary traditions that define our city.

Or perhaps this is an overreaction. The vast segment of dining that is not “fine,” and knows it, will likely continue on unaffected. Diners will still line up for phở in Dorchester and meze in Somerville (Sarma was snubbed by the Guide), no matter how many stars appear or don’t. Maybe what is most unsettling is not Michelin itself, but the familiarity of the pattern. At Harvard, we are all steeped in the pursuit of externally defined excellence; we know the pressure to conform to a mold, to enter a rat race designed by someone else. Michelin is merely a microcosm — another reminder of how easily the chase for validation can obscure the value of what we already have.