Emerson professor says famous restaurant guide is ‘Eurocentric and elitist’
Add the Michelin Guide to the list of things considered to be racist by higher education scholars.
In a column Tuesday at The Conversation, Emerson College Professor Tulasi Srinivas criticized the renowned restaurant review guide ahead of its upcoming review of eateries in Philadelphia and Boston.
Srinivas, who recently won a Guggenheim Fellowship, described the guide as “Eurocentric and elitist,” and suggested people should rethink their views of it as the “arbiter of culinary excellence.”
“Only in 2007, 118 years after its inception, did the guide recognize Japanese cuisine as worthy of its gaze. Soon after, stars rained down on Tokyo’s many stellar eateries,” the professor wrote.
She pointed to a map on the Michelin website that charts its one-, two-, and three-star restaurants, noticing that “huge swathes of the world are missing” including all of India and Africa.
“Perhaps a side of racism with the boeuf bourguignon?” Srinivas wrote, continuing:
Despite a movement to decolonize food by rethinking colonial legacies of power and extractive ways of eating, Michelin has derived its stellar reputation primarily from reviewing metropolitan European cuisine. It has celebrated obscure European gastronomic processes such as “fire cooking” in Stockholm’s famous Ekstedt restaurant, and new chemical processes such as “molecular gastronomy” in Spain’s famed el Bulli eatery.
One could say Michelin is a somewhat conservative enterprise. Rather than leading the way, it has followed consumers’ expanding palates.
In 2024, in a rare break with tradition, Michelin awarded one star to a small family-run taqueria, El Califa De León, in Mexico City. The taqueria is known for its signature tacos de gaonera – thinly sliced rib-eye steak cooked in lard on fresh corn masa tortillas with a squeeze of lime.
Some discerning diners worried that Michelin had gone downhill.
Quelle horreur!
The decision to give a star to a Mexican restaurant that is essentially just a steel counter, fridge and griddle was so unlike Michelin that it resorted to describing El Califa tacos as “elemental and pure”; language previously reserved only to describe elite cuisine.
As to “elitism,” she said Michelin restaurants attract celebrities and are “notoriously difficult” to get reservations for. The recognition also “might translate to price increases,” making such establishments unaffordable for average folks, Srinivas wrote.
“So if you have a favorite hot restaurant in Philadelphia, better make that reservation immediately, before a Michelin star makes it impossible to get in,” she advised.
At Emerson, a private college in Boston, Srinivas teaches anthropology, religion, and transnational studies “with a focus on climate justice,” according to her personal website.
The College Fix has been documenting things labeled as racist by professors and higher education institutions for years. Among them are “telling a Japanese professor about a good sushi restaurant,” the fast food industry, fried chicken, and milk.
MORE: 103 things higher ed declared racist in 2024
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Bowls of hummus lay on a table; etorres/Shutterstock