INTERVIEW:THE BUILD-UP TO meeting Derek Bulmer is almost as complicated, I imagine, as organising an audience with Madonna. Our people had to speak to their people; their people had to touch base with some other people; sample questions had to be provided; three phone numbers were given to me, just in case there were any problems; and all that had to be bashed out before we moved on to the big discussion about photography, which also had its procedures, applications and qualifications to be attended to.
Eventually, we were given permission to photograph Derek . . . “but not his face”, which was kind of redundant, as the day before the interview I had done a Google image search for “Derek Bulmer, editor of the Michelin Guide, Great Britain Ireland”, and the first image to appear was a photograph of none other than Derek Bulmer, editor of the Michelin Guide, Great Britain Ireland.
We meet, face to face, in the Fitzwilliam Hotel in Dublin, on a cold afternoon. At the required time, I walk into the lobby where our photographer is already waiting with Peter Snelling, Michelin’s head of communications. Snelling brings us over to meet Derek, a middle-aged man, well groomed, with a trim figure that belies years spent sitting down, eating – it is one of the rules for a Michelin inspector that everything on the plate must be finished and the full amount of courses available must be consumed. I do that once a week, while Michelin inspectors do it up to 300 times a year.
Bulmer seems to very much enjoy the photo session before the interview, I could tell this was a part of his job he enjoyed rather than dreaded. Eventually we got to sit down and have our interview:
How does a restaurant attain a star?
Essentially, we are judging the quality of the food and reflecting that to our readers. That’s what we’re all about, and a star, in particular, is purely about the food on the plate. Nothing else. There are lots of misconceptions about what we look for – a luxury premises, lots of waiters serving lobster and turbot and foie gras. That’s nonsense; we’ve got about 10 pubs in England with a star and there’s a move towards a simplification of the category.
Has the economic downturn affected your judging criteria?
Restaurants are starting to cook cheaper cuts, for example, but they put just the same amount of care into sourcing the ingredients and technical skills into the preparation of those ingredients as they did when they were cooking more expensive ingredients. So there is a change, yes, and we’re changing with the industry.
What new trends have you noticed?
When you’re in the middle of a recession, people are looking for value for money, they want quality, but at a lower price, so where we’ve seen a big increase is in our Bib Gourmand restaurants, those that offer good food at moderate prices. We cap the prices restaurants can charge for a good meal – it’s €40 in Ireland, and that’s for three courses.
What makes a good Michelin inspector?
The first quality required is a passion for food and wine. You’re going to be dining out an awful lot. You’ve got to have a real understanding of the industry. The typical inspector will be 30-something and will have done some cooking at some stage in their career, and will probably have 10 years’ experience – that’s the sort of candidate we look for.
They’ve got to be observant, for obvious reasons; they’ve got to have a good memory because we don’t sit there taking notes at the table – that would be a bit of a giveaway. We also have to be discreet, because we are often told a lot of things in confidence by hoteliers and restaurateurs.
One other thing we look for is an appreciation of the finer things in life. You have to know about architecture, about furniture and paintings, because these are all the things you’re going to be judging as you go around some of these magnificent properties.
What do you say to allegations that the guide is elitest or too franco-centric?
People who say that really haven’t looked at the guide lately, because the Michelin Great Britain Ireland guide is made by a team of British inspectors, and the vast majority of the restaurants listed you could describe as modern British or Irish restaurants. The percentage of French restaurants is very small, fewer than 100 out of 1,800 listed. But we can only reflect what’s out there.
What happens to good restaurants that don’t get a star but don’t fit into the Bib Gourmand category either?
If a restaurant doesn’t quite hit the star, but is also a bit too expensive for the Bib Gourmand, we tend to mark those restaurants out in red in the guide. I can think of a few places like that, places that are iconic – they haven’t got a bib and they haven’t got a star, but they’re special.
How do inspectors judge authenticity in a dish?
As the guide is growing, our horizons have spread. We have gone to the US and Japan, eating different sorts of foods, so we have developed specialists in the team. For example, we have one guy who has been to Japan to judge the food there, and because he has spent so much time there, he is supremely positioned to judge top-end Japanese restaurants back at home. He can compare them directly, and it’s the same with Chinese food – one of our inspectors has been to Hong Kong for three years now, so they have become specialists.
What about the internet and blogs; have advances in digital media and the online public sphere affected how you do business?
We’re experimenting with Twitter in New York and we’re going to see how that goes; New York was the best place for that because it’s buzzy. We also follow a lot of blogs, where feedback is instantaneous; you can get a real feel for a restaurant if there’s a groundswell of opinion all in one direction, then it’s usually accurate.
Where do you think the next big wave of culinary talent is going to come from?
Maybe surprisingly, my answer is Germany. There have been more new three-star restaurants in Germany than anywhere else in Europe over the past few years. It’s not a country that has a high profile, but there are fantastic things going on there. Another area is Scandinavia – there is extremely good cooking going on in Copenhagen and Stockholm right now.
MICHELIN RECOMMENDATIONS:
BIB GOURMAND
White Sage, Adare; Cafe Hans, Cashel; Sha Roe Bistro, Clonegall; The Chart House, Dingle; La Maison, Dublin; Pichet, Dublin; The Pig’s Ear, Dublin; Aldridge Lodge, Duncannon; Rosso, Dundalk; Good Things Café, Durrus; Casino House, Kilbrittain; Fishy Fishy Café, Kinsale; Wild Honey Inn, Lisdoonvarna; O’Brien Chop House, Lismore
ONE STAR
Chapter One, Dublin
Thornton’s, Dublin
The House, Cliff House Hotel, Dungarvan
L’Écrivain, Dublin
Bon Apétit, Malahide
TWO STARS
Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, Dublin
