One year later: Michelin Guide’s impact on Atlanta restaurants

Lazy Betty was already a successful restaurant with only so many seats left open each night, chef and co-owner Aaron Phillips said, but earning a star certainly made them busier. When the 2023 guide was announced, they were already looking to move out of their original location in Candler Park, so the guide and the increase in reservations helped to solidify that decision when they saw they’d be able to fill more seats, co-owner and chef Ron Hsu said.

Hsu and Phillips said it is hard for them to know whether the buzz of Michelin wore off over time since the excitement of the new location likely mitigated any decline.

Credit: Daniel Varnado for the AJC

Credit: Daniel Varnado for the AJC

The pair also try not to focus on what will happen when the next Michelin Guide is announced.

“If you start worrying about these accolades, then you become a slave to all of these things that aren’t real,” Hsu said. “Focus on the product in front of you, the customer that’s sitting outside.”

Anne Quatrano, chef and co-owner of Bacchanalia, an Atlanta fine dining staple since 1993, said that of any award Bacchanalia has received, the Michelin Guide has brought the most drastic increase of business — around 20%, she estimated.

But more than driving business, Michelin brought validity to Atlanta’s dining scene, especially coming from an industry that was practically decimated after COVID-19, Quatrano said.

“It just made everyone proud, and you can’t put a monetary value on that,” she said.

Michelin reaffirmed for her that there is still “great value in fine dining.” Quatrano also expects the presence of the guide will help the city attract and retain more young chefs looking to build their resumes with Michelin-starred kitchens.

A national and international stage

The Michelin Guide, which is owned by the French tire manufacturer of the same name, made its debut at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris as a handbook with maintenance guides, maps, and listings of petrol stations, hotels and restaurants. It released its first North American guide in New York in 2005 and has since grown its presence in cities across the U.S., Canada and South America.

Atlanta was the ninth North American city to welcome the Michelin Guide. Michelin was already interested in expanding into Atlanta, but the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau (ACVB) made the final push to officially bring it here, said Andrew Wilson, chief marketing officer and executive vice president for the ACVB.

For Michelin to enter any city, tourism boards must pay a fee that goes toward funding inspectors’ visits and marketing the guide, Wilson said, but the selection process remains independent and anonymous. If the ACVB were to stop paying for the guide, “Atlanta would basically fall off the Michelin map,” Wilson said, and all the stars would be removed.

Wilson hoped the guide would change the national and international perception of Atlanta, especially when it comes to attracting conventions and tourism to the city.

So far it’s been successful, he said.

After a convention comes to town, the ACVB asks convention planners questions to assess if Atlanta met their expectations. He said that thus far in 2024, 80% of meeting planners rated Atlanta’s culinary scene as above average, compared to 63% in 2023.

Wilson suspects the effects of the Michelin Guide in Atlanta, at least in terms of attracting more conventions to the city, will likely plateau after the first few years. He also believes that if Atlanta wasn’t a Michelin city, it wouldn’t be as competitive from a tourism and business perspective.

J. Trent Harris, executive chef at Michelin-starred Mujō, has found that because the one-star category is broadly defined as “high quality cooking, worth a stop” by Michelin, many Atlanta diners don’t know exactly what to expect from restaurants that earn this designation. Some patrons arrive at a restaurant thinking it should just be good, while others expect a “life-changing experience,” he said.

“While I want people to be excited about it, I do hope that people are not coming in with their expectations too high and then judging some of these restaurants unfairly,” Harris said.

It’s too soon to calculate the long-term effects of Michelin’s presence in Atlanta will be, but a recent study in the Strategic Management Journal examined two decades of elite restaurant closures in New York City and found that restaurants with a Michelin star were more likely to shutter. It found that from the eateries sampled between 2000-2019, the Michelin-starred restaurants on average remained open for 8.05 years, while the non-starred restaurants remained open for 9.2 years.

Chefs interviewed in the study cited higher costs from landlords and suppliers, changing expectations from the customer, which don’t always align with a restaurant’s offerings, and as a result, more operational upgrades.

The pressure of a star

Receiving a Michelin star, or even earning a mention in the guide, comes with its own set of pressures as the stress of maintaining one’s spot sets in, especially in a business with such slim margins.

But the restaurant industry by nature comes with high expectations and big risks.

Lis Hernandez’s restaurant, Arepa Mia, was the only Latin American restaurant to make the 2023 guide. When she learned she had earned a Bib Gourmand, she was shocked.

“I didn’t even dream about it, because I knew it was impossible.” she said. “You feel so tiny … and to be one of the best in Atlanta is an accomplishment.”

It made Arepa Mia a destination, she said, not just a local spot.

Credit: Henri Hollis

Credit: Henri Hollis

Hernandez said she realizes there are chefs who dislike the added pressure from the guide and prefer to work in a city without it, but earning a Bib Gourmand has made her feel more proud to keep up the quality of her food. And for the more than a decade that Arepa Mia has been open, there’s never been a day where she’s felt relaxed about the restaurant.

“I think we should be on our tippy toes all the time,” she said. “Every day that I open the doors of Arepa Mia, I’m always nervous.”

Kevin Gillespie, longtime Atlanta chef and owner of Gunshow, a Michelin-recommended restaurant, opened his Scottish eatery Nàdair in May. He knew from the beginning he and his team would be factoring in Michelin’s presence.

Credit: Dominique White

Credit: Dominique White

There has always been pressure when opening something new, he said, so the guide just “adds one more chapter to the evermore complicated book that is ‘How to Open a Restaurant 101.’”

When opening Nàdair, he also had the very specific goal of earning a Michelin Green Star, which recognizes restaurants that are at the forefront of the industry with sustainable practices.

While the standards of earning a Michelin star are hazy, a Green Star is laid out more clearly, Gillespie said, and striving toward a low-waste, sustainable restaurant is a personal goal he held for himself prior to Michelin’s arrival in Atlanta.

And even if Nàdair doesn’t earn a star, he believes chefs should be collectively celebrating those who are included in the guide, because it validates the work that Atlanta’s culinary community has been doing for decades, and it shows other cities and countries that Atlanta is a serious food city.

“The fact is that if you hold a Michelin star, that has value across the entire globe,” Gillespie said. “It makes you feel like you’re part of a much bigger story when it comes to the overall landscape of food in this world.”

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