Michelin Inspectors: Food Industry Spies

Dec. 27, 2010— -- A chef's toughest critic isn't the woman at the corner table who sent back her cod, or the man at table five nibbling on a steak tartar appetizer -- unless one of them is a Michelin inspector. Chances are, they'll never know.

The super secret spies of the restaurant industry, Michelin inspectors are the anonymous, incorruptible keepers of the coveted Michelin star rating. They've been writing anonymous reports of restaurants for over 100 years.

"We say it's a little like the CIA," said inspector "M," with a laugh. She asked that her identity not be revealed. "My whole life is staying under the radar, staying away from cameras, using fake names, trying to sneak in and out of restaurants unnoticed."

Along with their boss, Jean Luc Naret, the director of the Michelin Guide, about 90 inspectors around the world decide which restaurants will win the culinary equivalent of an Oscar, a Nobel Prize and Megamillions jackpot all at once.

"Very simple," Naret said. "There's no different type of cuisine. There's only two types -- the good one and the bad one. We only recommend the good one."

It takes years of expert training to become a Michelin inspector, many of whom come from extensive culinary backgrounds.

"Most of them have gone to culinary school or perhaps hospitality school," Naret explained. "All of them have worked in a restaurant as professional chef or in a hotel in food and beverage and, most importantly, all of them are passionate, almost obsessive foodies."

"M" said she eats out about nine times a week. Not wanting to draw attention to herself with taking notes at the table, she spends two to three hours after each meal writing extensive reports from memory.

"We have taste memories because we've eaten thousands of the same thing over and over and over again," she said. "[It] gives you a bit of a measurement to know if this is a good or less good version of something."

"It's like the Best in Show," she added. "That's what we're looking for."

If the name "Michelin" brings the tires on your car to mind, you're not too far off. The Michelin rating began in France in 1900 as a marketing gimmick to sell tires. The Michelin brothers thought their customers would burn more rubber if given a list of hotels and restaurants to explore.