The Michelin Guide, we all know what it is but do you know how it started? The little red globally renowned book was originated in 1900 by the french tyre company Michelin. At that time there were very few cars on the roads of France, approximately 3000! To increase the demand for cars (plus tyres) and grow the motoring industry, brothers Édouard and André Michelin published a small guide for touring French motorists. Distributed for free this guide was filled with handy tips for travellers including maps, information on how to change a tyre, fuel stations and where to stay. A perfectly compact guide for the a traveller! The guide successfully continued for years. During World War One, the publication of the guide was suspended. For twenty years the guide was distributed for free, until one day André came across his guide being used at a tyre shop being used to prop up a workbench. As a result in 1920 the Michelin Guide was launched for seven francs.
For the first time in the 1920s the Michelin guide began including a list of hotels and carefully organised categories. The book rapidly grew in popularity, in particular the restaurant section of the guide. As a result the brothers decided to recruit a team of inspectors to visit and review the restaurants who were always kept anonymous. In 1926 the guide began to award stars for fine dining. Initially beginning as a single star this grew to three in 1936. From then on, the Michelin guides became best-sellers rating over 40,000 establishments across three continents selling over 30 million guides worldwide!
Today, chefs and restaurateurs hold their breaths when a new red guide is launched. Will this be the year they receive a star? And if they’ve already received a star, are they in the line-up to receive another? The MICHELIN Guide is now globally-renowned for its revered star-system. An accolade all chefs and restaurateurs aspire to reach!
References
Priceonomics (2016) Why Does a Tire Company Publish the Michelin Guide?
https://priceonomics.com/why-does-a-tire-company-publish-the-michelin-guide/
Michelin Guide The History of The Michelin Guide https://guide.michelin.com/th/en/history-of-the-michelin-guide-th
ViaMichelin (2009) The MICHELIN Guide: 100 editions and over a century of history