Chasing Michelin: 47 Restaurants. 12 Months.

I’m not starting this project for noble reasons.

Not for cultural preservation. Not to elevate the national discourse. Not to bow at the altar of fine dining.

I’m doing it because I want to eat.

Because somewhere between appetite and ego, I decided I want to sit in every single restaurant in Malta listed in the Michelin Guide and find out what that little red book actually means here.

There are 48 of them. Or 47 now, depending on how you count the recent casualties. It’s a tidy number. Small enough to be possible. Big enough to ruin me.

And I’m giving myself one year.

Eight stars exist in this country. Seven kitchens that carry that quiet, heavy symbol. But the Guide is bigger than the stars. It’s Bib Gourmands. It’s “recommended.” It’s the places that made the cut and the ones that didn’t. It’s a system. A hierarchy. A suggestion of authority.

So I’m going through it. All of it.

One by one.

The rules are simple.

If there’s a tasting menu, I’m ordering it. No edits. No polite substitutions. I’ll eat what they want to show the world. If there isn’t one, I’m spending one hundred euro, what a properly hungry man could reasonably destroy in a single sitting. A hundred euro worth of ambition, butter, technique, ego, whatever fits on the table in front of a reasonably hungry man.

I want the full ride. The amuses that arrive like little riddles. The bread course that pretends it’s humble but isn’t. The sauce that took three days and a broken intern to make. I want the rustic places with stained aprons and blunt knives. I want the temples where the plates look like architecture and the staff move like synchronized swimmers.

And I want to know if it’s earned.

Not the star. Not the ceremony. The experience.

Is it worth rearranging your life for a reservation? Is it worth the quiet financial shame of the bill arriving face down? Is it better than the tiny place down the street run by a woman who’s never heard of a guidebook but knows exactly when the lamb needs to come off the heat?

No fluff. No ceremonial reverence. Just the plate in front of me and whether it earns its place in that book.

Every restaurant gets an article. Every restaurant gets a video. Not a travel brochure. Not a tantrum. A dissection.

This isn’t about tearing anyone down. The people in those kitchens are working, really working. Burns on their wrists. Twelve-hour shifts. Marriages under strain. I respect that. Deeply. This isn’t about punching down.

But Michelin is power. And power deserves inspection.

I’m chasing the thrill of it, the quiet before the first course lands. The smell of stock hitting hot porcelain. The moment you taste something and feel your brain light up like you’ve been handed a secret.

I’m chasing the disappointment too. The overworked foam. The dish that tries too hard. The room that feels more expensive than it feels alive.

Rustic or rarefied. White tablecloth or wooden bench. If it’s in the book, I’m going.

Somewhere between the first course and the final bill, we’ll find out whether the Guide is documenting something real, or just teaching us what we’re supposed to admire.

Forty-seven restaurants.

Twelve months.

One by one.

Chasing Michelin.

And this time, we’re keeping score.