It is not the company budget that determines the weight of the bills in high-altitude restaurants. It’s not the relationship between supply and demand. It is not the perpetual ascension of costs. The Mib index of signature cuisines are the Michelin stars. So? Nice find. I for one have become accustomed to considering this commercial dynamic as a calm fact, without asking myself any questions about its relationship with reality. Until, one morning, I leaf through the notes from a few months earlier. And I’m startled, realizing that the Milanese restaurant Verso, run by the Capitaneo brothers, having achieved two stars in one fell swoop last November, suddenly raised prices by 46%, bringing the tasting menu from 130 to 190 euros. An increase beyond any accounting logic. How do you justify it? The maître replies candidly Marco Matta: «We aligned ourselves based on the award that Michelin awarded us in November. We have brought prices in line with restaurants in the same range.”
The article is available in its entirety in the May issue of the monthly Gambero Rosso on newsstands
Increases between 31 and 41 percent
Similar story for the George of the Grand Hotel Parker’s in Naples who had already pinned a star on his chest. Having earned the second, he promptly broke even, generously fleshing out the accounts: the cheapest tasting menu went from 120 to 170 euros (+ 41%), the most luxurious from 170 to 220 euros (+ 31%). «This year we got two Michelin stars. So, it is normal that prices have increased”, they tell me.
On the other hand, Gigionesque and defensive was the response Andrea Aprea, a chef from Naples and Milan, who has raised the tasting menus from 155 to 200 euros (+29.3%) for the less expensive version and from 195 to 250 euros (+28.2%) for the more prestigious option. He unleashes his native tongue to wrap up a questionable concept: «Since mid-March 2023, food has increased by 30-35%. I have 40 employees, and what if it does?”.
Who decides the price of the menu
Cumme if he does? Excellent question. A highly ambitious army of chefs lives in voluntary dependence on the recognition of a single editorial product, elected to the rank of Supreme Court of Cassation, although it is legitimate to have doubts about the transparency, independence and reliability of the judges. He responds “I obey” to authorial solicitations that go beyond the boundaries of talent, as if creativity were a tap to be opened as needed. And he bows to the dictatorship of the stars, settling the accounts on a completely arbitrary hierarchical order.
The mystique of faith
Cumme if it does, if this mechanism does not recognize any role for customers? What if the survival of many restaurants is threatened precisely by the excessive and bizarre standards imposed by the guidance of tire dealers?
In any secular context, collective credit is granted to an individual on the basis of concrete, easily verifiable works and actions. In the case of Michelin, however, the opposite rule applies. We are at the mystique of Faith. Amen.
