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I have both a sweet tooth and savory tooth that takes me places. Not just to restaurants, but to cities, to hidden corners, to conversations I wouldn’t have otherwise had.

Sweet pulls me toward → nostalgia. Toward memory. Toward softness. It’s comfort, indulgence, and pure romance.

Savory pulls me toward → complexity. Depth. Umami. The layered, the structured, the super disciplined.

Together, they make me curious about what’s behind the door with no sign.
About the chef who sources one ingredient from a mountain I’ve never heard of. About the city known for one dish, perfected over decades…

This sacred multi-disciplinary tooth of mine is a savior when it comes to standards.

Because taste (when taken seriously) refuses average in presentation, in service choreography, in spatial narrative, in sourcing, timing, and in everything the guest feels but cannot immediately name.

The Michelin star did not begin as a rating or standard for restaurants.

In 1889, Michelin, a world-famous premiere global rubber and tire manufacturer set out to boost car usage and thus tire sales. Michelin’s radical innovations already included removable pneumatic tires for bicycles and cars.

At the time France only had 3,000 cars in the country.

So, they released The Michelin Guide to help drivers develop their trips with maps, how to change a tire, fill up on petrol (gas), and a listing of places to eat or rest for the night.

For two decades, the guides came at no cost just plain inspiration to drivers, until the day André Michelin found his beloved guides being used as a stool. Concluding that “man only truly respects what he pays for,” he relaunched the MICHELIN Guide in 1920 as a new, purchasable edition, priced at seven francs.

The reinvention of the guide included:
→ a list of hotels in Paris
→ lists of restaurants, categorized
→ a complete cease of advertisements

And here is where it gets really tasty….
They also recruited a team of mystery diners to visit and review restaurants anonymously.

It was created to encourage travel, to give drivers reasons to go farther. To discover inns and explore towns. To chase something worth the fuel.

→ More travel meant more worn tires.
→ More worn tires meant more replacements.
Makes sense?

The Guide eventually introduced stars:
⭐ Worth a stop
⭐⭐ Worth a detour
⭐⭐⭐ Worth a special journey

Look at this language.
It’s not rated from best to worst or highest to lowest.

“Worth a journey.”
The product was never the tire.
It was the journey.

The star simply gave people a reason to move. And once movement begins, commerce follows.

So in the end, Michelin didn’t sell tires.
They sold destinations. They engineered your appetite and let the road handle the rest.

The question isn’t what you’re selling. Whether you’re in real estate, education, fashion, or luxury, that’s just the surface. The deeper question is: what journey does your product quietly depend on?

Sell the journey, not the tire.

If you’re in real estate, you’re selling proximity and possibility.
In education, transformation.
In fashion, identity.
In luxury, access to a higher standard.

Michelin understood that if movement increased, tire sales would follow. So they elevated what was worth moving for.

The real strategy is finding the smart, almost invisible ways to increase demand without ever mentioning the product itself. The most powerful growth ideas are structural and indirect. Hiding in plain sight.

You just have to be clever enough to see them.

xx

…much like Muku New York, the quickest receiver of a Michelin star in New York. Led by award-winning Chef Manabu Asanuma, whose experience spans celebrated New York kitchens like o.d.o. and Uchu, along with top counters in Japan and Taiwan, Muku is a study in restraint, seasonality, and precision. Inspired by the elegance of kaiseki but not confined by it, the restaurant centers on goho, the five essential Japanese cooking techniques: raw, grilled, simmered, steamed, and fried. Nothing is added for spectacle. Every ingredient has purpose. The result is cuisine that is clear, disciplined, and quietly inventive, a philosophy of purity that feels distinctly its own in New York.

What I adore about this special shopping experience:
⚫ Technique at its core: Every dish reflects deep training and restraint rather than performance.
⚫ No unnecessary flourishes, just precise, seasonal ingredients allowed to speak fully.
⚫ Muku isn’t trend-driven Japanese dining. It’s a philosophy of purity that honors where it came from.

It’s an elegant reminder that less, in the right hands, is everything.

About Our Featured Partner

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