Michelin has come to Milwaukee.
Earlier this year, the Michelin Guide announced it would be coming to Milwaukee as part of its expansion into the Great Lakes region.
To bring the Guide's inspectors to town, Visit Milwaukee spent $450,000 on a three-year contract with Michelin, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in April.
The Michelin Guide has become the go-to resource for fine dining recommendations. To some, receiving a Michelin star is the pinnacle of a culinary career. But the Michelin Guide is not without controversy, and some worry that it could change Milwaukee’s food scene for the worse.
“My concern is that it's going to change the way the culinary community operates in Milwaukee – that it’s going to become more cutthroat, less willing to help each other,” says Greg Leon, chef and owner of Amilinda.
For Leon, running a restaurant is hard enough. At this point in his career, he says he doesn’t want all the stress that comes with keeping a Michelin star once it’s been received. And he doesn’t want the “Michelin Effect” to price out his customers either.
“Do I want to feed a bunch of elites ... the few people that can afford to come and have a 90, 100, $200 steak? Or am I doing this because I’d like to feed people?” he says. “I want to make sure that my restaurant is still affordable and somebody on a Wednesday can say, ‘Oh, I'm hungry, and I don't feel like cooking. I want to go eat at Amalinda.’ So I think that's another reason why I wouldn't want one.”
OnMilwaukee’s senior dining editor, Lori Fredrich, shares a similar concern, despite the potential benefits of Michelin coming to town.
“I think the city itself benefits, the tourism benefits, and the diners benefit to some extent – as long as the market doesn't out-price the consumer,” she says.
She cites a 2018 study on Michelin stars’ inflationary effects on restaurant prices.
“On average, one star can raise your prices by 14%,” she says. “Two stars may raise it 20% or 30%. And then if you get three stars, I mean, that's that's the territory where your restaurant could raise prices by 80%.”
Kyle Cherek is a culinary historian, food essayist and the host of WUWM’s podcast Classic Eats. He also wrote about Michelin coming to town for the Milwaukee Record this spring.
For Cherek, the news is a “tale of two cities.” On the one hand, it has great potential to spotlight Milwaukee’s food scene. But on the other hand, he says it’s important to remember how the Michelin Guide got its start – as a marketing tactic to boost sales for a French tire manufacturer in the early 1900s.
“They created the need, right? So that people travel and have to buy more tires. ... When we look at Michelin, we have to realize this is a marketing opportunity. That’s exactly what this is.” he says. “Is it great for our city? Is it great for our chefs? Unequivocally. Is it a marketing ploy? ... Everyone should realize that. What I think it is, is a culinary Klieg light to the rest of the region and the rest the country saying, ‘come here because our food is incredible.’”
Cherek, Fredrich and Leon joined Lake Effect’s Audrey Nowakowski and Joy Powers for a roundtable discussion on the Michelin Guide in Milwaukee. You can listen to their full conversation above.
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