Hürriyet Daily News

If you are going to a Michelin starred restaurant, your objective is not to stuff yourself until you can eat no more. So, firstly let’s agree upon this. What you are presented with is a creativity of taste that you have not experienced before.

I know that sometimes the attitude against Michelin starred restaurants can be a little bit harsh. Whenever the subject comes up, the conversation begins with the sentence: ‘What the hell, virtually nothing to eat with so small dishes!’

I am a private chef who attended culinary school in Italy and providing services to prominent clients all around the world; so in other words, just think about the expectations of a billionaire owning a 100-meter yacht… This client can hop on the helicopter waiting on the yacht, and can fly to the closest Michelin star restaurant. However, this does not mean that the guy does this everyday. Of course, he does not require a Michelin star quality dish each and everyday.  Sometimes, while the lobsters are sleeping in pool’s yacht, he just wants a pasta with tomato sauce. Because, it’s how humans are, how far can you go with basking in lobsters and caviar everyday? You eat a sandwich, you have barbecue, you go to a fish restaurant or you find yourself in a hamburger joint at midnight.

So then, can we say this? If a man only wants simple and delicious food, then what are we, the chefs, up to? Is Michelin a capitalist world’s system that revolves around advertisement and money making?  While we, the chefs, literally ruin ourselves in our kitchen for a Michelin star, don’t we go to sandwich corners in lunch breaks? Like an Italian who praises the neighboring Trattoria’s food to the sky saying it is like his mother’s cooking.

However, the point here is that as each dish has a different objective, buyer and presentation, all of these colors shall exist in the sector.

Going to a Michelin starred restaurant means to be introduced to a meal in an extremely chic venue that cannot be cooked by your mother at home, but a scent or a small flavor reminding the tastes of your mother or a memory from your past. It is to experience a creation of unique talents like art. Making you say wow with the first bite of the meat dissolving like Turkish delight and wonder how something you have eaten countless times before, like shrimp can transform into a dessert inside an oyster shell and how something you say you’ll never eat can turn into a taste making you crazy… A dessert made up of exploding sugars dancing merrily on your tongue, can both astound you and make you remember the exploding sugars you bought at the shabby general stores when you were a child. (An experience from Paris Joel Robuchon’s menu)

Of course, sometimes Michelin makes you experience ridiculous or contrasting experiences too.

For example, the most delicious Italian food I had was not in Italy but in New York at 2 Michelin starred Marea. It is still the first venue I visit when I go to New York. They are not stingy like other Michelin starred restaurants I experienced when putting food on the plate, and they do not force you to eat square tomatoes for the sake of preparing chic dishes. What I believe is that the food on the plate must look DELICIOUS. So, Marea does not try to invent a cubic zucchini, pink mashed potatoes or an eggplant coming from a galaxy far away, and the restaurant creates magnificent tastes nonetheless.

On the other hand, the things happened to me at a Michelin starred restaurant, the name of which I do not even deign to keep in my mind, in Italy could be sold as a scenario for an American comedy. It is an American comedy because I was with an American group. After the Michelin starred chef explained the coming dish’s philosophy inspired by his own life for 45 minutes, he placed a handmade wooden gondola plate in front of us stuffed with dry autumn leaves. We continued to stare at him stupidly not to fail to respect. He told us that he carved the gondola by himself and gathered the leaves from his own forest. Following this, he took three shrimps, poured some olive oil and put them in the oven. Then he put the dryly baked shrimps on those dry leaves. My stupefied state continued, but the Americans were munching the dry leaves lovingly. Now, should I respect Michelin or the dry leaves of the forest; that was also the question…

I do not know if they will ever grant a Michelin star to a sandwich joint, but what I believe in is that eating outside shall be a pleasant time enjoyed by the people. The meat is the same meat and the fish is the same fish, so if you find the best one, cook it perfectly and prepare a cool dish, then it does not matter if you get a Michelin star or a smile on a face…

So the only thing left to do is to try! Because of that, these guys carry these stars on their epaulets for many years…

Deniz Kurt.