The Michelin Guide has announced its judgments on restaurants in San Francisco, the Bay Area and Wine Country.

Wine Spectator Online will post a full news story soon, and Harvey Steiman, who just wrote a cover story on San Francisco restaurants, will blog his reactions.

But here's a preview:
-- only one 3-star restaurant, French Laundry in Yountville.
-- four two stars, only two of which are in San Francisco, Michael Mina and Aqua
-- only 28 restaurants with stars, compared with 39 in New York City.

Your thoughts?

quote:

Originally posted by Thomas Matthews:
Wine Spectator Online will post a full news story soon,

Will the print edition carry the story as well?
Does the Mobil guide no longer carry as much clout as it once did?

quote:

Originally posted by Thomas Matthews:
-- only 28 restaurants with stars, compared with 39 in New York City.

Your thoughts?

NYC is the dining capital of the world (well US maybe).

New York is also a lot bigger. Per capita SF got more starred restaurants then NY by a good margin. But the real question is who cares what Michelin thinks.

quote:

Originally posted by VT2IT:
New York is also a lot bigger.

If they're considering Yountville part of SF, I beg to differ. But I agree w/ who cares about The Michelin Guide.

Let's see, there are over 8,000,000 in NYC alone. Add in at least 5,000,000 more within a half hour(Long Island, North Jersey, Westchester county). And if you go as far away as Yountville is you will be up to about 15,000,000. That is a lot more then the bay area.

quote:

Originally posted by mwagner7700:
But I agree w/ who cares about The Michelin Guide.

Care about it or not, it carries a lot of influence albeit I do believe that it favors those establishments that specialize in French cuisine.

It has not been very important in New York yet. The New York Times ratings and Zagats are much more influencial. And yes, not suprisingly they seem to rate french based restaurants higher. Also I looked it up to be sure that I wasn't way off. New York metro area had over 21,000,000 and bay area just over 7,000,000 in the 2000 census.

quote:

Originally posted by VT2IT:
Let's see, there are over 8,000,000 in NYC alone. Add in at least 5,000,000 more within a half hour(Long Island, North Jersey, Westchester county). And if you go as far away as Yountville is you will be up to about 15,000,000. That is a lot more then the bay area.

That's my point. The NYC Dining Guide included only NYC (population 8M). The SF Dining Guide not only included SF (population 7.5M) but also up to Napa... where it would bump the population over 8M.

Even still, 39/8,000,000 > 28/7,500,000. Either way...

<<edited to add: when I said SF I meant the entire Bay Area>>

Sorry mwagner, I'm not trying to be a jerk here. My point was how many people would be the market for those restaurants. Also NYC gets so many more visitors. So it seems that it should be easier to score a reservation in a starred restaurant in SF then NY.

I see. Yeah, you're probably right. It'd be much easier to get into one of the *starred* SF restaurants than NYC.

No surprise at all - the dining scene in NYC is simply better than SF, at almost every level. SF may be the second most important city in the country from a culinary standpoint, but it's a big step down.

Aqua has 2 stars????

Yeah Grun, and Fleur de Lys got only 1? What's up with that.

How is your confit withdrawal going? Tough at times? If it gets unbearable, let me know, maybe I can help.

I am going to France in 3 weeks btw. Boy, oh boy, do I crave langoustines or what? I hear they go really well with Champs!

It's worse than crack! I'm not going back to France till April! I think I can make it.