The MICHELIN Guide

After working decently for many years without requiring account, they've pulled the rug with a recent update and now force you to hand over personal information just to view restaurants. There is absolutely no reason to suddenly start forcing users to make an account except to harvest their data. If they wanted to use features where an account would be necessary, such as for saving restaurants or leaving reviews, they would obviously just create one. Edit: the developer responded with straight lies. Accounts were not required before an update shortly before my review; I used it regularly without. The reasons they give are obviously nonsense. Viewing the same information on their website does not require an account. Forcing users to sign up is obviously just a cynical ploy to collect personal data.

Admittedly, the content is sparse, which makes it kind of hard to justify this as an app rather than just accessing it on the web. But I really like the idea of a genuinely curated experience. Every other booking site will add everything as if it’s the best restaurant or hotel imaginable, but most are, by definition, around average. This app cuts away all of that so you can focus on what’s good. Now, I think they still need a bit more, and maybe what they could do is have “value picks” and other qualifiers (Bib is good though it doesn’t do quite the same thing) to allow them to have more options but still retain the credibility for the things they list as 1+ stars. It’s a tough, thankless job to be the one company being honest and rigorous with their reviews in a world where volume reigns supreme in business models, so I feel for them.

This app is an excellent way to find some of the best restaurants and restaurant experiences out there. I love food pictures and being able to see what some of the offerings are at each place, as well as getting a sense for the ambience. If there is a reasonable way to get more pictures of each location that would be the cherry on top of an already great app.