{"id":314804,"date":"2026-06-21T13:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T13:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/314804\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T13:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T13:45:10","slug":"a-grouper-sandwich-town-like-st-pete-shouldnt-chase-michelin-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/314804\/","title":{"rendered":"A grouper-sandwich town like St. Pete shouldn’t chase Michelin stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the summer of 2022, my family was in London for Queen Elizabeth\u2019s Platinum Jubilee<\/a>. I caught COVID on the back end of the trip, and the rules then required ten clear days<\/a> before I could fly \u2014 so my family went home on schedule and I didn\u2019t (I know, ten days alone in the Mayfair section of London; life can be hard).<\/p>\n

Sick for a day, maybe a day and a half. Then I had the city to myself, and a London that, unlike the America at that time, had decided to get on with living. I walked everywhere. It was the front end of the health kick I\u2019m still on four years later. And nearly every day, I wound up at Claude Bosi\u2019s Bibendum<\/a> \u2014 the bar, the oyster bar, the caf\u00e9, the dining room, whichever would have me.<\/p>\n

On my first trip, I had to ask the ma\u00eetre d\u2019 why the place leaned so hard into the Michelin thing \u2014 the Michelin Man in the stained glass, on the posters, pressed into the butter. He explained that the building was Michelin\u2019s old London headquarters<\/a>, an Art Nouveau pile on Fulham Road that opened in 1911, its three stained-glass windows<\/a> built around the Michelin Man and the Latin toast Nunc Est Bibendum \u2014 \u201cnow is the time to drink.\u201d That Bibendum is simply the Michelin Man\u2019s name in French.<\/p>\n

\"\"Michelin House on Fulham Road, the tyre company\u2019s 1911 London headquarters \u2014 and home to Claude Bosi\u2019s Bibendum, where the author spent eight days of a 2022 COVID layover.<\/p>\n

I was, despite a father who cooked for a living, gloriously ignorant of how this system works \u2014 a guide that started in 1900 as a tire company\u2019s scheme<\/a> to get Frenchmen driving more, and wearing out their tires faster. (Bosi has since closed Bibendum; I caught his new room, the two-starred Brooklands<\/a>, over New Year\u2019s.)<\/p>\n

I admit the bias up front because I\u2019ve since become a star chaser myself. I\u2019m trying to dine my way to 100 Michelin stars this year. Half the year gone, I\u2019m somewhere north of 30. I\u2019ll need to pick up the pace.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Michelin recently unveiled its first statewide Florida selections<\/a> \u2014 Miami leading with 18 stars<\/a> and the Panhandle finally on the board. Tampa didn\u2019t gain a star and lost one, Lilac at the EDITION, sliding from five to four. Visit St. Pete-Clearwater had paid $180,000 over two years<\/a> of hotel-tax money just to be eligible \u2014 on top of the roughly $1.5 million<\/a> the state\u2019s tourism boards spent to bring the guide here in the first place. And as one writer put it, you can pay Michelin to visit your town, but not to hand you stars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The hometown news was familiar: for the second year running, not one Pinellas County restaurant<\/a> \u2014 St. Pete to Tarpon Springs \u2014 earned a star, as the Tampa Bay Times\u2019 Helen Freund<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the part my fellow boosters won\u2019t want to hear: I don\u2019t disagree with the verdict. There is no St. Pete restaurant that has earned a Michelin star. Service here doesn\u2019t hold a candle to New York, New Orleans, or San Francisco, and consistency between visits \u2014 the same dish, the same way, on a Tuesday in August \u2014 is the whole ballgame in Michelin\u2019s math.<\/p>\n

We are a transient state with a transient workforce, grading out worst on the one thing the inspector cares about most.<\/p>\n

Twenty-odd years ago, Chris Ponte\u2019s Caf\u00e9 Ponte<\/a> in Clearwater ran the kind of room that could\u2019ve earned a look \u2014 the mushroom bisque alone was worth the drive across the bay \u2014 but Ponte was the exception that proved the rule.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a land of grouper sandwiches, stone crabs, and waterfront seafood done right, of fast-casual and the early-bird two-for-one. Nobody sits down to a tasting menu at 5:30 p.m. on a 95-degree afternoon.<\/p>\n

The one genre that does translate is omakase, which is exactly why K\u014dsen and Koya<\/a> hold their stars \u2014 and even the best omakase in Pinellas, Sushi Sho Rexley<\/a>, will tell you it lacks the Tampa polish.<\/p>\n

But chasing the rating can also wreck a kitchen. Look no further than Ebbe<\/a>, where a chef who won a star inside a year is now rarely in the building<\/a> while his staff walks out and the Times documents the wreckage. Even losing one hurts: when Lilac fell off, Visit Tampa Bay\u2019s Santiago Corrada told the Times<\/a>, \u201cYou never want to see any of your friends go through that.\u201d And Il Ritorno\u2019s David Benstock \u2014 the consensus front-runner, who got nothing \u2014 put it best to the Times<\/a>: \u201cThis doesn\u2019t define us.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s right. It doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

And maybe that\u2019s what I keep missing while I sulk over Pinellas. Here\u2019s where Visit Florida earns real credit, and where I\u2019ll gladly eat my disappointment. The statewide deal has not bestowed a star in St. Pete \u2014 but it dragged anonymous inspectors, and their French expense accounts, into corners of this state that would otherwise never get a serious look. That\u2019s what the money actually bought<\/a>: not another laurel for Miami, which never needed the help, but a first-ever glance at towns that had never been in this conversation<\/a> at all.<\/p>\n

In Orlando, the restaurant I think is the best in the state \u2014 Capa<\/a>, sitting atop the Four Seasons, overlooking all four of Disney\u2019s parks, with the most exciting view of any restaurant in Florida \u2014 lost its star this year<\/a>, a call I can\u2019t begin to make sense of. Knife & Spoon<\/a> at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes lost its star a couple of years back, and at the time I understood why: the service was sporadic, and the offerings didn\u2019t match the family-resort, albeit high-end, market. For what it\u2019s worth, having dined at K&S several times over the last year, I genuinely believe it has earned the star back, with some of the best dishes I had all year and a much-improved service level. And if the inspectors do head back to the Ritz, may I suggest they visit my favorite restaurant in the state, Highball & Harvest<\/a> \u2014 which, because it must feed the hotel\u2019s large audience, may not serve the absolute highest-end ingredients, but its fancied-up Southern food is always delicious, its brunch is wonderfully indulgent (I had the much-in-vogue fried chicken with caviar recently), and it\u2019s run by an always-on-point, welcoming staff.<\/p>\n

In Jacksonville<\/a>, an inspector wrote up The Bearded Pig<\/a>, a San Marco barbecue joint, and Rue Saint-Marc, a French room whose chef called the nod a win not just for his restaurant but for the whole city. Over at Amelia Island, Salt<\/a>, one of our family\u2019s favorite restaurants, deservedly took the statewide Service Award. In St. Augustine, Bar Citra<\/a> and Sunday<\/a> landed Bib Gourmands out of the gate \u2014 the kind of recognition, the Bar Citra owner said, that tells a small staff somebody finally sees what they\u2019re building. Tallahassee<\/a> got Black Radish and The Huntsman, which so many of my friends in The Process speak highly of; Pensacola, a sandwich counter called A Mano Panino working off house-made schiacciata.<\/p>\n

None of these places had ever registered with Michelin. Now, for the first time ever<\/a>, a cook in the Panhandle can hang a cherry-red plaque on a one-way street and watch the book fill up.<\/p>\n

That is worth every dollar of somebody\u2019s hotel-tax money \u2014 the one check in this whole arrangement I\u2019m glad got written.<\/p>\n

Some of what I miss is just memory. I can still summon the glory days of the Maritana<\/a> Grille at the Don CeSar, before that grand room got stripped down to something more resort-casual. There was a time when some of us thought Rococo<\/a> and its vaunted wine list \u2014 a perennial Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence \u2014 might be the St. Pete name that finally popped nationally. Worthy, sure. Of course the region\u2019s real wine landmark still sits across the bay: Bern\u2019s<\/a>, a Grand Award winner since 1981, playing a different sport entirely.<\/p>\n

(Of all the restaurants in Tampa Bay, it\u2019s Bern\u2019s, with that wine list and dessert room, that most lives up to the Michelin definition of \u201cworth a stop\u201d \u2014 and I say that as someone who really doesn\u2019t like the food there.)<\/p>\n

So forgive me if I can\u2019t summon much hope at home. The rooms that get close don\u2019t last here. Caf\u00e9 Ponte ran 18 years before COVID and a lease fight finished it. Baba and Barbouni<\/a> \u2014 seven years in the Grand Central District, exactly the kind of ambitious, well-run operation you\u2019d build a guide around \u2014 serve their last plates July 3. Il Ritorno is a very good restaurant, maybe the best in downtown, but I don\u2019t think it would stand out if it were in a bigger city.<\/p>\n

Lorene\u2019s Fish House<\/a> closed this month after 32 years. Red Mesa Cantina<\/a>, after 16.<\/p>\n

I ate at Mei<\/a>, the new Nordic-Japanese room downtown with real pedigree out of K\u014dsen, on a soft-opening night last week \u2014 flavors that could stop you cold, a kitchen still finding its feet \u2014 and I\u2019ll pull for it exactly the way I pulled for all the others, while bracing for the night the lights go dark.<\/p>\n

Chasing a Michelin star in a town built for grouper sandwiches and sunsets isn\u2019t ambition. It\u2019s a fool\u2019s errand.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Ed. note: This story was drafted with assistance from AI. Editorial judgment, sourcing, and final review were performed by Peter Schorsch and the Florida Politics editorial team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the summer of 2022, my family was in London for Queen Elizabeth\u2019s Platinum Jubilee. I caught COVID…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[33978,130986,130987,130988,130989,130990,3090,130991,122409,575,84940,29805,130992,101744,97716,32588,15772,113184,596,18792,202,204,203,199,201,200,130993,1704,7412,7413],"class_list":["post-314804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-berns","tag-bibendum","tag-cafe-ponte","tag-capa","tag-chris-ponte","tag-claude-bosi","tag-dining","tag-ebbe","tag-florida-restaurants","tag-food","tag-helen-freund","tag-il-ritorno","tag-knife-spoon","tag-kosen","tag-mei","tag-michelin-guide","tag-michelin-stars","tag-omakase","tag-pinellas-county","tag-restaurant-reviews","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-sushi-sho-rexley","tag-tampa-bay-restaurants","tag-visit-florida","tag-visit-st-pete-clearwater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}