The High Cost of Winning a Michelin Star

Two out of every five Michelin-starred restaurants close their doors within a few years of receiving the honor, a statistic so counterintuitive that it forces us to ask what, precisely, the star confers and what it destroys. A 2024 study by Daniel Sands, then of the UCL School of Management, tracked New York City's elite restaurants that had opened between 2000 and 2014 and earned a glowing review in The New York Times. Sands found that receiving a Michelin star significantly increased a restaurant’s likelihood of closing compared with equally acclaimed restaurants that never received one: 40% of Michelin-starred restaurants had shuttered by 2019, against roughly 20% of their unstarred but similarly lauded peers. One reason: The arrival of the star and crimson plaque can alter the entire local food ecology around a restaurant. Suppliers and vendors, aware of a kitchen’s new status, often increase prices. Landlords like to raise rents. Staff, suddenly more marketable, must be paid more to be retained. The kitchen, chasing the standard the star implies, tends to reach for costlier and rarer ingredients. Every plate becomes more expensive to produce, yet few diners can absorb the esca...