How I feel about Michelin restaurants

tldr: It’s overpriced, but go for the experience?

“How do you feel about Michelin restaurants?” I asked my friend Aaron. “I made reservations at this 3 star Michelin restaurant in Taiwan.”

“I didn’t realize Taiwan restaurants had Michelin stars,” Aaron said, then paused. “I think Michelin reviewers tend to favor Japanese and French food, while being biased against Chinese food. There are 14 Korean Michelin starred restaurants in the US but no Chinese places. Indian food is similarly screwed over by Michelin standards.”

“Yeah, apparently this is the first Taiwanese-style restaurant to get 3 Michelin stars,” I said. “I’m just not sure it’ll be worth it.”

I wanted to treat my dad and stepmom to a Michelin restaurant in Taiwan because I thought it would be a unique experience, but I had some reservations (pun-intended) about the exorbitant cost. If I knew for sure it would be an amazing, life-changing meal, then I would happily pay for it, but what if it didn’t live up to my expectations?

Which begs the question: what expectations, if any, should you have going to a Michelin restaurant?

In my mind there are 2 main criteria that make a Michelin restaurant “worth it”:

1. It needs to be delicious and memorable. It sounds simple but so many restaurants serve forgettable food.
2. It needs to be life-changing. As in, it needs to change how you think or feel about the combination of ingredients they put together. At those prices it can’t just be a good meal anymore…it needs to be a paradigm shifting experience.

As with so many situations in life, there’s no way of knowing whether Tairroir would be “worth it” without just trying it and risking disappointment. So I read some reviews and decided to bite the bullet. “I made reservations at a Michelin restaurant,” I told my dad. “It’ll be overpriced but we’re going for the experience.” Plus, I thought, I could write about it afterwards.

Spoiler alert — based on my criteria above, Tairroir was not “worth it.” Which isn’t to say that (some of) the food wasn’t good. Their signature “Taiwan-Style Ginger Duck Stew” was absolutely delicious and perfectly cooked. Alas, that’s all it was, and I don’t remember anything distinctively “Taiwan” about it.

“This seems like a Western restaurant with some Taiwanese ingredients,” my dad commented, and I had to agree. Tairroir billed itself as a French-Taiwanese restaurant, but I barely tasted the Taiwanese part of the food. All of this made sense given what Aaron had said about Michelin reviewers favoring French cuisine.

In the end, I couldn’t help but be somewhat disappointed at the whole experience. Was it overpriced? Undoubtedly. Life-changing? Unfortunately, no. Should I have just bought an iPhone instead of treating my dad and stepmom to French food in Taiwan? Perhaps. And yet — there’s something to be said about embracing the journey instead of fixating on how much you paid for said journey. Because the true value of such a meal lies in the shared experience of savoring the unexpected and the stories told around the table — things you can’t buy or measure with money. Having said that, I will probably pick a less expensive journey next time.