Michelin Guide

All of these things, right? To the confluence of what I think makes someone a front of house operator or a restaurateur, but not someone tied to culinary.

And you just don't hear a lot of stories about, well, you know, I was GMing this place in Houston, and then I got the opportunity to stage as a GM at this amazing three-star Michelin restaurant in Italy.

It's not a thing we get to do.

And so obviously there's culinary technique, right? And all of these things that you learn when you travel the world doing these things.

So it was very special.

Because it was about leading up to getting a Michelin star.

Yeah,

it was about getting Michelin stars For us, it was almost more about just getting open.

I mean, because we were so new and so young, and we got a Michelin star the year after the show, not the year of the show.

But I think our storyline is almost less about Michelin and more about what's it like to open a restaurant in today's modern dining public.

What's your favorite food city?

I mean, Chicago.

Okay, food news you can use.

We've avoided this long enough, but the Michelin Guide Southwest has returned after, what is it, like 15-year hiatus or something? And the Vegas results are two stars, Joel Robichon, one star, E by Jose Andres, Guy Savoie, Le Tellier, And then there's Bib Gourmand, which is great food at an accessible price.

And those went to Esther's Kitchen, China Poblano.

Why it didn't go to Haleo, I don't know.

I have a lot of thoughts, but ultimately, I think the big kind of glaring omission to me was Tomba.

How that didn't end up on this list is just wild.

Two, it seems like this was rushed, and I intended to go look at when they announced the return of the Southwest Michelin Guide and when this award ceremony was, because this list just feels like Someone went somewhere once and was like, good enough.

Someone sat at a computer and figured out the star winners right away.

You were talking about sort of like AI adoption.

We work with, you know, Michelin star restaurants.

We work with big groups, enterprise level.

We work, you know, every single restaurateur is putting their reputation out there.

their front door, that's what they do, right? So honoring that reputation, what we see from restaurateurs who, I mean, I speak to people all the day who say, I'd never want AI in my restaurant.

I've got a Michelin star, there's no way I would ever do this.

And I would challenge to say, how do those guests feel when you don't answer your phone? Well, cut to, you know, two weeks later having implemented Hostie.

And they're delighted that they're able to actually service their guests.

But now it's

like, I guess back then it was like, only like the Michelin Guide.

Sure.

But only, you know, you can only access that in the markets that

Which we obviously just got here.

Yeah.

How do you feel like that having the Michelin Guide here and sort of that changed, has that changed the food scene quite a bit? I think it's

important that it's kind of showing all the different areas now.

And I'm also not one of those people that runs away from them necessarily, but I was skeptical initially.

But I was a little less skeptical because it's at Odd Duck, which I think is one of the best restaurants in town for the last decade or so from Chef Bryce Gilmore, who's been around with his Barley Swine, which has a Michelin star.

So he's obviously a pedigreed chef.

And Odd Duck, I used to live in Zilker for more than 10 years, and that was kind of a regular haunt for me.

Thank you to Matt, Connor, and Karen for joining us on the Roundtable.

Final note here, Michelin Guide, the awards are coming, and they are coming to Detroit here in the Northeast Ohio area, so you can find that there.

If you missed any part of today's show, you can find it on 89.7 WKSU at 9.

You can always get the last word on today's topics by emailing us at soi at ideastream.org. I'm Stephanie Haney, in for Mike McIntyre.

It's at a good location.

It has a Michelin star restaurant.

It's obviously a city hotel.

It's a different vibe and structure, but that might be, I was just thinking that's probably the only other competitive, like really true luxury hotel in this whole.