For many chefs, receiving a Michelin star for their restaurant is a lifelong dream. But chefs in Texas haven’t had much hope of the same recognition until earlier this year. In July Michelin announced it would be covering Texas, or at least the major cities in Texas, for the first time. Earlier this month, many hopeful chefs and pitmasters received invitations to Michelin’s big announcement event on November 11 in Houston. Two of those pitmasters were almost left out after a mix-up from the Michelin communications team.
Ernest Servantes is the pitmaster and co-owner of Burnt Bean Co., in Seguin, the number four barbecue joint on our most recent Top 50 list. Like many other restaurateurs, he and fellow co-owner David Kirkland received a request for information about their restaurant and photos of their dishes from Michelin in late September. On October 15 they were elated to get an invitation to attend an event in Houston where Michelin will announce the restaurants it’s chosen to recognize in Texas. But two days later, a new email from Michelin rescinded the invitation, citing only “human error” as an explanation.
Chuck Charnichart, pitmaster and co-owner of Barbs B Q, in Lockhart, was excited to get the same invitation. “I originally thought we weren’t in contention for it,” she said, noting that Lockhart isn’t in a major city. The geographical boundaries for consideration in the Texas Michelin guide aren’t clear. Michelin is receiving $2.7 million over three years to judge our restaurants (and hotels); half of that sum is coming from the state, and the other half is reportedly being paid equally by the cities of Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. One would presume the understanding is that the restaurants recognized would be limited to those cities and possibly their suburbs. Back in August, we didn’t include Burnt Bean Co. in our Michelin predictions because Seguin is so far outside of San Antonio. In 2023 the highly regarded Annette restaurant, just outside Denver, missed out on Michelin recognition because it was five hundred feet from city limits.
A week after Charnichart received the Michelin invitation, she clicked the link to RSVP for the event but it didn’t work. She reached out to the sender of the original email and was sent a vague message similar to the one Burnt Bean Co. received regarding “human error.” She said, “I just really wanted to celebrate with the Goldee’s guys,” referring to Goldee’s Barbecue, our current number one barbecue joint, which was also invited by Michelin. Now an honor she hadn’t even considered was being taken away.
“It was a kick in the gut,” Servantes said about that last email. He and the team were dejected, calling it “the biggest disappointment of my culinary career.” I reached out to a Michelin media relations contact to seek an explanation last Friday. And while they didn’t directly respond to my emails, on Tuesday morning, Servantes got a call from a number in France. He picked up, and a woman with a heavy French accent apologized. The call from Elisabeth Boucher-Anselin, communication director for the Michelin Guide, was the first response he’d gotten from Michelin that wasn’t an email. She apologized for the mistake and asked the Burnt Bean team to attend the award event. A mistake was made, Boucher-Anselin told Servantes, but “the selection committee did not make a mistake,” she explained. Burnt Bean Co. was back in the fold.
An hour later, Charnichart received an email from Boucher-Anselin. “I’m desperately trying to reach you,” she wrote and offered a similar apology. She assured the Barbs B Q team that “the Michelin Guide’s inspectors fell in love with your restaurant” and invited them once again to attend the ceremony. We’ll have to wait and see just how much they loved Barbs B Q and Burnt Bean Co. on the evening of November 11.
Barbecue will be well represented at the awards ceremony. Many pitmasters have celebrated their invitations publicly, and a few others have informed me they were included. All of our top ten barbecue joints in major metro areas have been invited, including Goldee’s Barbecue and Panther City BBQ, in Fort Worth; Truth Barbecue, in Houston; Franklin Barbecue, LeRoy and Lewis BBQ, and Interstellar BBQ, in Austin; Cattleack Barbecue, in Dallas; and, of course, Burnt Bean Co. In addition to Barbs B Q, 2M Smokehouse and the Barbecue Station in San Antonio, Brisket & Rice in Houston, Corkscrew BBQ and Rosemeyer Bar-B-Q (the only truck on the list) in Spring, Kemuri Tatsu-Ya in Austin, Killen’s Barbecue in Pearland, and Smoke’N Ash BBQ in Arlington are also in the running.
It’s no surprise that barbecue is popular with the Michelin folks. Sure their roots are French, but the press release announcing the upcoming Texas guide listed “award-winning barbecue, locally sourced seafood and steaks, and savory Tex-Mex” as the cuisines that most excited the inspectors. But receiving a Michelin star for smoking meat would be unprecedented. For over a century, the Michelin Guide has awarded one, two, or three stars to the finest restaurants, and, more recently, has included a Bib Gourmand award to excellent restaurants that are also a good value.
In the U.S. there are currently seven barbecue joints with a Bib Gourmand. Worldwide, the only restaurants in the barbecue category to receive a Michelin star are Oretachi No Nikuya, a Japanese-style barbecue restaurant in Taiwan, and Burnt Ends, an Australian-style barbecue restaurant in Singapore. If any of the barbecue joints in Texas are awarded a star, they’ll be the first to do it by serving American barbecue.
On the Nourish podcast earlier this year, Boucher-Anselin described five attributes required for a restaurant to be recognized by Michelin: quality of the product, mastery of cooking techniques, the harmony of the flavors, the personality of the chef being expressed in their cooking, and consistency throughout the menu and throughout the year. After enjoying two incredible meals at Burnt Bean Co. over the past two weeks, I’d say the joint has nailed all of those attributes, and if I were putting money on any barbecue joint to receive a star from Michelin, it would be Burnt Bean Co.
Before Servantes was reinvited to the Michelin event, he told me, “Even though we’re not in it on a technicality, they came and visited us and considered us Michelinworthy. That’s the thing we’re taking from this.” Now that Michelin has made things right, maybe Burnt Bean Co. will be taking home much more than a moral victory on November 11.
