French Restaurants

Since it was Out of subject in the Bday thread anyway, I paste it here.

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Originally Posted by Kraco

A nice restaurant in France sounds like a very good and delicious thing...

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I advise my fellow gotwooters to buy "Le guide Michelin" the red one.
Inside you have the 1, 2 and very rare 3 stars.

Many restaurants are excellent in France (and many others should just be closed...), but those in this guide are well described and you really get what you paid for.

1 stars are very good at a reasonable price for quality.
2 stars are generally a bit more expensive and can be more creative. A bit of hype
and nice service at a higher standard.
3 stars are the hype ones, with top notch service. Quality is at the top too, sometimes
creativeness goes too far. Prices can really be insane to "average" people.

I would consider 1 stars to be very good for a try and special events.

The michelin guide is edited in many countries, so many languages are available.
End of advertising for France :D

PS: I may go to a 1 star I tried 7 years ago that left a nice impression on me.

I heard Michelin is going to 'review' american (USA) resturants as well.
it was a weak news day, so they got an entire column in the paper.

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Originally Posted by Death BOO Z

I heard Michelin is going to 'review' american (USA) resturants as well.
it was a weak news day, so they got an entire column in the paper.

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I think I've heard about that long ago... Maybe they postponed that due to the size of the USA, making the business plan a tad more difficult than in France.

Hmm... There's one two stars restaurant and two one star restaurants here in Finland, all in Helsinki. I don't really travel all the way to Helsinki (to eat) that often so who knows when I'm going to taste Michelin star food.

I'd be curious to see how the restaurants at the grove by me compare

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Originally Posted by Kraco

Hmm... There's one two stars restaurant and two one star restaurants here in Finland, all in Helsinki. I don't really travel all the way to Helsinki (to eat) that often so who knows when I'm going to taste Michelin star food.

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I didn't know that. To be honest, I wonder wether the star evaluation is fit outside of France.
I would say that they establish some kind of scale based on many expriences and tests, and try to extract the restaurants clearly above the rest.
I wonder how many restaurants they tried in your contry before publishing ;)
I'm just curious about their method, so that you're not disapointed in case they were just mistaken ;)
On the other hand, they may also underestimate great restaurants. I think it's hard to export such a model. I hope you have a great time experiencing if one day you get the opportunity.

To sum up, I'm pretty certain the Michelin is great for France, I can not guarantee it's good elsewhere because I never tried

Zagat's Restaurant Guide is the big one here in the States. Not that I really bother to trust it. I've learned you can enjoy a lot of the lower end places better than the places that charge you premium.

There's a place not 20 minutes from my house in a really upscale town, and it started as little more than a coffee shop. It's a tiny artist-community place, the menu rarely exceeds 10 items a day, but the food is still great. A really expensive place up the road from it can't even compare.

When I was in Seattle, we went looking for the Todd English Fish Club, but in the end we went across the street from it to a chain seafood restaurant. Ate outside right on the pier. Definitely more enjoyable at only $7 per person.

When I visited Quebec (a little closer to topic) my friends and I ate at this cheaper cafe, shared a bottle of the house wine (which was surprisingly good for $14). Probably rated a 1-star (I'm guessing). Later, we ate at a completely average diner kind of place in the Old City that served anything from lamb to gyros, and it had this incredibly relaxing atmosphere. Nothing fancy, just booths, decent service and good food. I doubt this place had ever been rated, but I really enjoyed it.

My advice is to just go wherever you feel like it. We tend to like the places that are a lot more comfortable than the upscale "creative" places. It's not really the place you go, it's the people you're with, and an atmosphere where conversation flows easiest.

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Originally Posted by David75

I didn't know that. To be honest, I wonder wether the star evaluation is fit outside of France.
I would say that they establish some kind of scale based on many expriences and tests, and try to extract the restaurants clearly above the rest.
I wonder how many restaurants they tried in your contry before publishing

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It's the Main Cities of Europe guide that includes restaurants from the major cities in Europe. I doubt they tested any restaurants outside of Helsinki over here, because that's the only city in this country, anyway...

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Originally Posted by Ryllharu

Zagat's Restaurant Guide is the big one here in the States. Not that I really bother to trust it. I've learned you can enjoy a lot of the lower end places better than the places that charge you premium.

There's a place not 20 minutes from my house in a really upscale town, and it started as little more than a coffee shop. It's a tiny artist-community place, the menu rarely exceeds 10 items a day, but the food is still great. A really expensive place up the road from it can't even compare.

When I was in Seattle, we went looking for the Todd English Fish Club, but in the end we went across the street from it to a chain seafood restaurant. Ate outside right on the pier. Definitely more enjoyable at only $7 per person.

When I visited Quebec (a little closer to topic) my friends and I ate at this cheaper cafe, shared a bottle of the house wine (which was surprisingly good for $14). Probably rated a 1-star (I'm guessing). Later, we ate at a completely average diner kind of place in the Old City that served anything from lamb to gyros, and it had this incredibly relaxing atmosphere. Nothing fancy, just booths, decent service and good food. I doubt this place had ever been rated, but I really enjoyed it.

My advice is to just go wherever you feel like it. We tend to like the places that are a lot more comfortable than the upscale "creative" places. It's not really the place you go, it's the people you're with, and an atmosphere where conversation flows easiest.

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That I agree too and do quite a lot.

But sometimes trying something very different is nice too. I didn"t mean to say I only go
to rated places, because it's almost the contrary.
Just wanted to mention that in a discussion, because that may be useful to someone visiting France to try it too.
This really is something else, but again, I'm really into it.

Of course you also have here cafés with a formula: starters/main dish/dessert/coffe for 10 to 15€ (roughly $15 to $22.5) which are very good. And I like that quite a lot too, since it's more afordable, I do it more (and also because of my work).

No, I agree, going to nice places is good too.

However, after going to so many restaurants that charged a considerable amount per person (~$30+) and finding that the food cooked at home was better, I got disillusioned about "classy" restaurants. When you're paying premium for something that is cooked worse than a recipe out of The Joy of Cooking, it's just not worth it.

I guess I'm just low-bred and lacking refined taste.

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Originally Posted by Ryllharu

No, I agree, going to nice places is good too.

However, after going to so many restaurants that charged a considerable amount per person (~$30+) and finding that the food cooked at home, I got disillusioned about "classy" restaurants. When you're paying premium for something that is cooked worse than a recipe out of The Joy of Cooking, it's just not worth it.

I just I'm just low-bred and lacking refined taste.

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I know what you mean. My mom cooks better than just about every restaurant I've ever been to.

So we're back to square one:
What can we do in order to find nice restaurants... and be sure we'll have better cooking than at home.

The michelin is a help for France. There's also friends, familly and so on if they live in the region you seek a restaurant.

But I understand what you mean, it's very frustrating to pay expensive rate for low quality experience. That happens a lot here too... most of the time because of an overhyped place that has everything in the looks, rather than quality of dishes...

I very much doubt the Michelin stars are lying, though. If they were sloppy or affected by irrelevant things in addition to the quality and creativeness of the dishes, the service, and the atmosphere, then it would make the whole thing totally useless, which would be equal to for example FIA deciding F1 top speed can't exceed 60 km/h; it would kill the whole big idea behind it.

Besides, every year the places will be reevaluated. For example last time one Finnish one star restaurant lost its star. Who knows exactly why, but it's safe to say their quality must have decreased from the last time for that to happen. And since it's an evaluation made by undercover evaluators, the restaurants need to be cautious all the time.

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Originally Posted by Kraco

I very much doubt the Michelin stars are lying, though. If they were sloppy or affected by irrelevant things in addition to the quality and creativeness of the dishes, the service, and the atmosphere, then it would make the whole thing totally useless, which would be equal to for example FIA deciding F1 top speed can't exceed 60 km/h; it would kill the whole big idea behind it.

Besides, every year the places will be reevaluated. For example last time one Finnish one star restaurant lost its star. Who knows exactly why, but it's safe to say their quality must have decreased from the last time for that to happen. And since it's an evaluation made by undercover evaluators, the restaurants need to be cautious all the time.

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Trying to be fair, no corruption, precise testing and undercover are among the qualities that made the Michelin what it is. And here, star restaurants are very careful on not loosing one, because their economics are based on this too.

Michelin stars, or even a good article without stars, are just a way for someone to try and make a good choice when searching for a restaurant somewhere they don't know.

I will try to remember the guide Ryllharu mentioned, that could be helpful sometime inthe future.

I'd have to say though.....$40 steaks definitely taste a lot better than $25 steaks...

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Originally Posted by AssertnFailure

I'd have to say though.....$40 steaks definitely taste a lot better than $25 steaks...

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Sadly, it's not always true.
But sometimes you get the choice in animal race you wish to eat.
Rarely you get prized animal (with trully delicious meat)

Next problem is the way it's cooked....