Why Isn’t There a Michelin Guide to Texas?

Austin’s food scene has come a long way. Chef Lorin Peters grew up in the city and remembers having to move to Dallas to cook at the caliber she wanted to. “There was nowhere near the food scene that was here that is now,” she says. Now, over a decade into her career with a resume that includes chef Thomas Keller’s the French Laundry, she is looking to bring one of the world’s most well-known restaurant ratings systems to her home state. Peters is part of the group of boosters rallying for a Michelin Guide to Texas.

There’ve been murmurings of a state Michelin guide for a while; nothing concrete. Yet the state feels ripe for the guide treatment, given its performance on the national stage in the last decade. Texas restaurants and chefs have landed so many James Beard Awards that the state now warrants its own category. Likewise, it’s gotten features in the New York Times, spotlights in Bon Appétit, and expanded investment from media outlets from the Infatuation to this site. But the Michelin Guide accolade remains out of reach for the restaurants of the Lone Star State.

Whatever you feel about it — love, hate, loving to hate, hating to love — a Michelin star is a status symbol. Since 1990, the international guide has awarded stars to restaurants it deems noteworthy (mostly European and Japanese fine dining), prompting diners to flock there — ideally in a car with the French company’s tires. More recently, the dining guide has actively broadened its footprint abroad and in the U.S., with lists emerging in Georgia, Florida, and Colorado, and the revival of its California guide. These lists have cropped up in part due to partnerships with local governments and state tourism boards willing to pay for inspectors.

Texas institutions are already familiar with striking deals with the media in return for coverage. The state lured cooking competition Top Chef to Texas in 2011 with $400,000 in state funds, and an additional $200,000 from the San Antonio Convention & Visitors Bureau to sweeten the pot. It has been rumored that cities including Houston have paid to be featured on shows like Top Chef. So why not Michelin in Texas?

Let’s be clear: Neither Texas organizations nor Michelin appears to be working on a Texas guide at this time. A rep for Michelin North America wrote to Eater in an email that while it’s “open to expansion in the United States and around the world, [it doesn’t] have any news to share about new guide destinations in North America.”

Meanwhile, a rep for Visit Austin deferred to Travel Texas, which in turn said via email that “there are no details or comments to share related to the subject at this time.”

But the Texas Restaurant Association seems at least warm to the idea. President and CEO Emily Williams Knight says that the organization “will always advocate for third-party endorsements that raise the food scene and profiles in cities across Texas.”

Nevertheless, this got us wondering: Does Texas even want a Michelin guide, and if so, what would that mean for the dining landscape in our cities?

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Lorin Peters, founder and chef of Austin bakery Cookie Rich and food truck Goldy’s, is very familiar with the world of Michelin. She and her husband, Mathew Peters, are alums of renowned chef Thomas Keller’s restaurant group. Lorin previously worked as the chef de partie of California three-Michelin-star fine dining restaurant the French Laundry, where she formed a close working relationship with Keller. Mathew was an executive sous chef at fellow three-Michelin-star property Per Se in New York and a sous chef at the French Laundry.

When the Peterses eventually decided to leave Napa Valley in 2017, a move to Austin made sense for them; it was Lorin’s childhood home, and she knew people there already. They were also looking for a place that “was a blend of New York City (big city) and Napa (chill and nature) and we felt that Austin could provide both,” she says. Crucially, Austin’s food scene had grown up in a way that could let their skills shine. “We knew Matt’s talents could eventually be recognized here.”

The couple see a ripe opportunity for Michelin in Texas. “The U.S. has been the baby of fine dining and other types of cuisines,” she says, pointing to how fine dining is steeped in centuries-old European traditions, not American. “And now the U.S. has stepped up and we are being recognized and the talent is here. Maybe that’s why it’s taken longer to go through the states, but now that they’ve rated most major cities, I don’t see why Texas wouldn’t be soon.”

In fact, the pair along with Keller are part of a group lobbying for a Michelin Guide in Texas. “We have been part of the conversation of Michelin coming to Texas,” Peters says. “We’ve been working behind the scenes with some chefs and other [Texas] cities,” to see how Michelin could work in the state. “What support do we need from the state to look at that in the future?”

Edgar Rico, Austin chef and owner of award-winning Mexican restaurant Nixta Taqueria, thinks a Michelin guide might encourage the local dining scene to level up. “It’ll breed some competitiveness,” Rico posits. While there can appear to be a formula to what a core Michelin restaurant is — table service, tasting menus, no room for errors — the chef believes that starred restaurants still need to be genuine. “At the end of the day, you still gotta have incredible food and impeccable service to back it up to make [Michelin stars] happen,” he says. “Because they don’t just give away those things like candy.”

Sushi by Scratch founder, chef Phillip Frankland Lee, is already familiar with Michelin’s standards — he’s earned, kept, and also lost stars at his California restaurants. When the Guide launched in Los Angeles in 2008, he was a sous chef at what became a one-star restaurant; the kitchen atmosphere was different back then. “There was a palpable difference in what cooks wanted and what cooks strived for in the city” before Michelin launched in LA and after it launched, when “there were restaurants with stars, and cooks who took it seriously wanted to work at stars,” he says. (Michelin ceased publication of the LA guide in 2010 and took a nine-year hiatus, returning in 2019 as a statewide guide to California.)

Lee and his wife, pastry chef Margarita Kallas-Lee, often came to Austin to cook at events prior to making the city their home during the 2020 lockdowns in California. “If you look around the country and go, ‘[Where would Michelin] belong in?’” asks Lee, “it belongs in Texas.”

To Lee, Michelin stars are about more than food, they’re about uncompromising top-notch service and hospitality both from the front and back of house (think Richie in The Bear going above and beyond to bring customers at two-starred restaurant, Ever, deep-dish from Pequod’s). “It’s about the entire approach to cuisine and the entire approach to come into work every day,” he says. “In a city that has stars, cooks are almost borderline militant.” He adds: “You don’t get cooks calling in sick as often when you’re in a city with Michelin stars.”

But some locals worry that a Michelin guide might have the opposite effect, muting the laid-back attitudes and innovation — the Keep Austin Weird, Slacker, food truck, pop-up-loving, DIY ethos — that sets a place like Austin apart from other U.S. dining scenes.

Peters recognizes the hesitation people might have. “They feel like it will stifle creativity,” Peters says. But she sees there being room for both the Michelin and the non-Michelin restaurants. “Look at me: Goldy’s and Cookie Rich aren’t going to earn Michelin stars,” she says. “I just love to cook and I’m having a great time.” Lorin also rejects the implication that Michelin only recognizes high-end, luxury dining. She has experienced the breadth of a starred restaurant experience from one-starred places and Bib Gourmands and newer spots designated for sustainable gastronomy. She calls it a “misconception … that it’s only fine dining.”

For those Texas chefs who do aspire to provide a high caliber of dining, she says — they deserve that recognition, too. “We have the talent here.”

The lack of Michelin and, in turn, international attention can also cause people to leave for regions that already have the guide. One Austin chef, Otto Phan of the now-closed Kyoten Sushiko, was so frustrated that Michelin didn’t exist in Texas that he left the state in 2018 for Chicago, reopening his restaurant with the very specific goal of earning a Michelin star (which, as of this writing, has not happened yet).

Lee understands why Phan did what he did. “When you want to open a restaurant at that level, you don’t necessarily want to put it in a city that can’t get a star.” He continues: “When you’re going for something at that level, you need Michelin to back you up, to be able to say, ‘Hey, this actually is worth your time and money.’”

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Executing a well-rounded restaurant at the Michelin level takes work, but some question whether the experience is worth the sacrifices to health and well-being in a brigade system that’s increasingly receiving scrutiny in the restaurant industry.

Joseph Gomez isn’t just thinking about.the quality of the food and experience at his award-winning Austin food truck Con Todo; he’s also dedicated to creating sustainable jobs for his staff.

When he was younger, Gomez thought that working at a Michelin-starred restaurant was his goal, but he quickly realized how dark things could get under that kind of pressure to execute perfectly day after day. The shiny restaurant exteriors belie what happens in the kitchens, hiding all sorts of abuses that he’s witnessed and heard about. He fears that these types of working conditions would be reinforced in a Michelin Guide-driven market. “I think it would … give chefs, managers, and owners excuses to be able to exploit their workers more.”

Sarah Natsumi Moore/Eater

Gomez also questions what the Michelin Guide’s goal is when awarding restaurants with stars. “A lot of places that get awards, yeah, they might meet certain standards — but are they actually contributing to the communities? Are they treating their workers properly? Are they compensating their workers properly?” To him, those are crucial questions the reviewers should be asking. Organizations such as the James Beard Awards are already grappling with this topic and finding the judging of the service industry challenging at best.

Michelin can also invite changes to the cost of dining in the city, as stars tend to command higher average checks — something that played out recently when the guide entered Vancouver, British Columbia, an already expensive market. Austin is already in the midst of a similar identity crisis: a once-affordable city now heaving with tech transplants looking to enjoy the cultural charms of a relatively liberal Texas city without having to contend with the taxes and regulations of a state like California. Gomez fears a future Austin where restaurant workers can’t afford to live in the same areas where they work and where average residents can no longer pay to dine out regularly. “I could see it happening, just the way I see Austin is heading towards, but it’s not something I would want.”

Even so, Lee argues that having a global entity recognize a city like Austin as a premier dining destination might be a net benefit for businesses. “It gives you the ability to not have to just rely on locals,” he says. “Because when you get a star, you’re going to get people flying to your restaurant.” He cites the city’s bigger events, like South by Southwest, Formula One, and Austin City Limits Music Festival, that attract visitors from around the world: “They’re going to look for the Michelin-starred restaurants, they’re going to seek it out.”

Lorin echoes that sentiment. She knows there are American domestic guides on various platforms. People from outside the country don’t necessarily know of those guides, she argues, but they do recognize Michelin. “Michelin is an international ratings system,” she says, “and Austin has become this international city. And we’re hoping that it’ll make it even more a destination by bringing [it] here.” Lorin thinks that a Michelin Texas guide would lend “credibility” to the state’s restaurants and allow them to show the world that there’s more to Texas than tacos and barbecue.

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It’s impossible to stop Austin’s evolution. It’s not the same place it was 50, 20, 10, or even one year ago. The population keeps growing, downtown is awash with construction of high-rises and hotels, and the city recently established its first professional sports team. Though we still don’t have a venue big enough to host huge musical acts like Taylor Swift, Austin’s dining scene really is that good.

“I hope that this brings the culinary community together,” Peters says. “We celebrate no matter what level of starring you get, [whether] you get a star or you’re just there cheerleading from the sidelines.”

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