The Michelin guide is an international list of restaurants that an expert jury has evaluated as exceptional and worth traveling to. For many businesses, getting a so-called Michelin star is “the most” they can achieve.
Before, it was enough to be a great restaurant and Michelin found you – at least briefly. Thanks to this award, for example, the Prague restaurant Field by chef Radek Kašpárek or the La Degustation Boheme Bourgeois restaurant by Oldřich Sahajdák received awards. But in 2022, Michelin stopped cooperating with countries that do not contribute to inclusion in the guide, and the organization no longer issued recommendations for the Czech Republic.
Part of domestic chefs, including Kašpárek or Zdeňko Pohlreich and Jan Punčochár, she was slightly upset by this and began to demand that the government pay the fee. Fialo’s cabinet finally agreed to them last July. He decided that over 50 million crowns will be spent on cooperation with the Michelin Guide over the next five years.
It won’t be clear until autumn
Ten months after the approval, however, cooperation has not progressed much. In April, the initial analysis of the state of Czech gastronomy only began to emerge. Michelin wanted 3.7 million crowns for it, according to the contract concluded by the Ministry of Regional Development.
“Based on the initial analysis and diagnosis of the state of gastronomy, where the potential of Czech gastronomy will be evaluated, a decision will be made on the further development of cooperation. More detailed information should be available during the fall of this year.” explained Kateřina Beránková from the CzechTourism media agency for Blesk. She is in charge of promoting tourism in the Czech Republic.
The analysis should select individual businesses that will be evaluated by Michelin in the second phase. The contract states that the Czech side can supply its own list of recommended restaurants, but Michelin reserves the right to ignore it. Enterprises in regions where CzechTourism wants to attract foreign tourists are primarily to be evaluated. The date when the whole process will end is not known.
“Given that the Michelin Guide is a really strong card that could be a long-term attraction for tourists, not only in Prague, but also in other regions, it was decided that through this step the Czech Republic can support tourism in this respect. And last but not least, to help regions outside big cities,” notes Beránková.
The opposition was angered by the fee
Both the government and CzechTourism are convinced that the invested money will be returned – when the Czech Republic appears in the guide again. For example, Hungary and Slovenia boast that the move actually brought tourists to them.
However, Fial’s cabinet made the decision at a time when it was looking for savings and the ministers were arguing over a much smaller amount than 50 million crowns. The expenditure was thus a red rag before the eyes of the opposition. “Here is clear evidence of how you manage. The Czech Republic will pay a fee for the Michelin Guide. Are you kidding yourself? Who will pay for this again? You take people’s money, and you give 54 million for Michelin?” ANO head Andrej Babiš got angry in the House of Representatives during the discussion of the consolidation package.
Even Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) admitted in the program Ptám se, Mr. Prime Minister on Blesk.cz that at first he was not very inclined to the idea of cooperation with Michelin, but in the end he changed his mind. “When I first heard it, I was against it and swept it off the table. It took my colleagues a long time to convince me, but they did. And the reason is simple, on the one hand, we have very significant income from the gastro industry, in terms of what tourists leave behind in the Czech Republic,” said the Prime Minister.
