“If a restaurant knows I'm coming, they will either be falling over themselves to pander to my every whim in the most annoying way, or they will organise a lynching party,” he says.

The first edition of the Michelin guide was launched in 1900 to help motorists in France to find a decent hotel and a good restaurant as well as a garage to repair their cars or change a tyre while touring the country. In those days there were no motorways and only 3,500 cars on French roads. It proved a brilliant initiative that gave Michelin a head start in the guidebook and road map publishing business.

The guide gradually established itself as the leading culinary reference book, not only in France but also elsewhere in Europe and more recently in North America and Asia. And as it gained a reputation for making or breaking restaurants by its arcane method of awarding stars, it steadily became a subject of controversy that has helped to increase both its notoriety and its annual sales.