Not gone, just hidden: sustainability without findability

I believe the heart of this discussion has nothing to do with Michelin as such, but with a clash of principles. Sustainability asks for access; gastronomy is built on selection. The one wants openness, leave no one behind; the other lives on scarcity, on rarity, on a limited circle. There is nothing wrong with exclusivity in taste. It only becomes a problem when we lock sustainability inside it.

You see the same tension in other sectors. Construction uses LEED and BREEAM, open and testable standards that anyone may inspect. Architecture prizes like the Pritzker are pure honour. Both have value, but nobody confuses one for the other. Sustainability belongs to the first domain: visible, traceable, verifiable, as with The Sustainable Restaurant Association. Michelin, by definition, stays in the second. Once sustainability remains a narrative and does not become a findable choice, we lose more than a filter. We lose access, and access is not a detail.

It is often suggested that the guest is not waiting for this. That taste beats principles. But that is an assumption that is getting harder to hold. In market research by Deloitte, EY and Eurobarometer the same pattern keeps returning: people want to go greener, but only as long as the information is available, understandable and tangible. Not when they have to guess.

I recently saw a poll inside a sustainability network, and the result stayed with me. 18 percent said they actively consult the chef or the website about provenance. 53 percent said they sometimes deliberately choose a restaurant on the basis of values. But the most telling to me was this: 24 percent said they pay attention to sustainability at home, but not when eating out. Not out of indifference, but simply because the information is not there. That is exactly the point: awareness stalls when transparency is missing.

What is often forgotten in this discussion is that many chefs in the higher segment are long past symbols. They work directly with farmers, build fermentation rooms, explore forgotten grains, cut waste to the bone. Not out of marketing, but because craftsmanship leads to responsibility on its own.

And precisely there lies the dilemma: those who work at that level rarely communicate it at length. Many of these chefs hide their impact out of modesty, or because their world still revolves around recognition within a closed circuit. You only see it if you already know the story, and the wider public does not have that story. Chefs often feel nothing for green icons, but they do feel something for visibility. They do not want a throne or a stamp. They want guests to be able to see what sits behind their choices, a spotlight on their impact, not to be proven right but to be understood. The problem is not that the wrong audience sees them. The real risk is that the right audience never finds them.

European regulation is moving in one clear direction: more transparency, less legal room for vague sustainability claims. The EU Green Deal, the Farm to Fork strategy, the coming empowerment directives against greenwashing all say, in essence, the same thing: whoever communicates sustainability must be able to show what it rests on.

That is where it pinches. Michelin's power lies in mystery: anonymous inspections, no public criteria, no methodology. That works for prestige, but sustainability asks the opposite: accountability. An icon without explanation no longer fits the spirit of the time. The guest does not want to believe, but to understand, and without explanation, inspiration turns into silence. Perhaps that is why the filter disappeared: not because impact is less relevant, but because visibility legally starts to look like a claim. Only, what leaves sight also leaves the conversation.

The EAT-Lancet Commission, an international collaboration of scientists on food, health and planet, stressed again in 2025 that food is not only an agricultural question but an information question. The Planetary Health Diet they set out is not a uniform diet, but a framework that asks for local translation. In the update they state emphatically that sustainable food only works when it stays culturally anchored, in regional food cultures, tastes, habits and forms of hospitality.

That is where gastronomy takes responsibility. A dish is not a numerical outcome, it is an interpretation of place and time. EAT-Lancet does not say everyone must eat the same; it says everyone should be able to understand what is being eaten, and what impact that has. Not a moral appeal, but an invitation to awareness. More and more guests want to know where something comes from, when it was harvested, how many animal components are still needed, not to check up, but to place it. What am I tasting, where do I stand? A symbol alone cannot tell you that. A system that makes impact visible can. So findability is not an extra. It is part of the cultural translation EAT-Lancet points to, and without visibility even the best intention stays useless to the guest who wants to choose. And choice is the core of culture.

Ironically, recognition for impact in gastronomy is actually growing. Since 2020 hundreds of chefs have been honoured for taking responsibility in their kitchens, and every year new addresses are added in France, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom. The movement grows, but access shrinks. The green star remains, but the filter disappears. Impact is reduced to narrative, not navigation. For insiders it stays visible; for seekers the trail fades.

Elsewhere I see the opposite happen: chefs and guides that pull impact out of the wings and let the public watch, not through perfection but through openness. We're Smart, for example, ranks restaurants on a scale of radishes, not as a stamp but as a visible score on vegetable creativity and seasonal thinking, publishing its criteria openly and inviting the sector into the conversation. The same with Food Made Good by the Sustainable Restaurant Association: not about stars, but about evidence, how many waste streams are reused, which producers are supported, how much of the menu is plant-based. No mystery, but method. You may argue about what is sustainable, but you can only make it a conversation once it is visible.