Content Offered for Each Guide Per Restaurant
- Michelin - very brief reviews but the most extensive list of rated restaurants by a wide margin, the hardcover version adds a list of menu items

- Gault&Millau - much longer review than Michelin, hardcover version has headings for food, decor,..

- Gayot - similarly longer reviews, including headings for food, decor, etc.

- Andy Haler - the most thorough reviews, he will state why a restaurant received a certain rating where others do not

- Forbes- the best of the big guides for the amount of descriptions and covers food, decor, things to know, amenities,…

- WorldsTop50 - brief and to the point with headings best suited to each restaurant(history, chef, wine, vibe, signature dishes, what to order,…)

- Zagats - the briefest of reviews

Which Guide(s) or List Bests Reflects Your View and Desires?
Michelin is the oldest and more popular and more influential, while Gault& Millau and Gayot has been considered more food-focused due to the main system being based purely on the quality of the food.12 Gault&Millau and Gayot are focused on identifying the newest shiny 3-stars typically years faster than Michelin would award 3-stars. Michelin does the opposite, as it is very slow to give out 3-stars. Gault&Millau and Gayot are more static and much slower to downgrade, letting those who attain the 19 and 19.5 ranking status keep it. Arguably, some are kept much too long in some cases. I would argue Gault& Millau and Gayot could be overly chef-centric (for the top restaurants) for their ranking than it should be, whereas Michelin does not consider that. Put another way, Michelin relies more on a restaurant's execution and less on who the chef is and might be too fast to downgrade 3-star restaurants. Gault& Millau and Gayot are less concerned with execution and give more weight to the caliber of the chef. Finally, I prefer to dine at a restaurant with 'masterpiece' dishes from the most talented chefs in the world, with some dishes that are noticeably below expectations for their ranking, than another restaurant that does not have masterpieces but is consistent with no below-expectations dishes.

After 40 years of using Michelin and Gault&Millau and Gayot for dining at 24 Gault&Millau18-19 ranked restaurants in France and Switzerland and 43 Gayot 17-19 ranked restaurants in the United States, I prefer their constancy and accuracy of Gault&Millau and Gayot, which has been 95%+ spot on using the 1-20 scale. I have less trust in Michelin with its limitation of only a 3-star scale plus the consistency and scope issues, but I often use it where Gault&Millau is not available or as a confirmation tool for Gault&Millau ratings. When I want to know where the latest top innovative chefs are, I look to the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Finally, Andy Haler is also where I start for his more recent reviews in Europe, especially the restaurants he ranks as a 20 (see Europe ranking chart).

Where to Dine Summary