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IT'S not just enthusiastic foodies who have been munching merrily away in Scotland's top restaurants over the past year. The Michelin Guide inspectors have also been visiting. In the past year the two- starred Andrew Fairlie, plus all of Scotland's eight one-starred chefs, have all unknowingly fed the very people who might just turn round and bite them later on this month, when the highly respected but much-feared 2007 Michelin Restaurant Guide is published.
Hitherto unstarred but up-andcoming establishments run by chefs such as Geoffrey Smeddle at the Peat Inn in Fife and Sean Kelly at Abstract in Edinburgh have also been visited. And in Glasgow . . . which has no Michelin stars at all . . . David Maskell at Michael Caines at ABode, Brian Maule at le Chardon d'Or and Paul Tamburrini at Hotel du Vin have also been inspected and are all thus the subject of intense speculation.
Nobody bar the mysterious Michelin editor yet knows who will lose, gain, add or retain a star.
And there's the rub. Will Glasgow, the self-professed City of Style and host of the Commonwealth Games in 2014, finally get its first Michelin star since 2003, the fateful year that the thricestarred Gordon Ramsay closed Amaryllis at One Devonshire Gardens and the one-starred Nick Nairn closed his eponymous city centre restaurant? Since The Herald first aired the vexed question of the lack of a star in Glasgow last October, heated debate has continued about which, if any, of Glasgow's chefs deserve the accolade.
Edinburgh has three Michelinstarred establishments and rumour has it that Martin Wishart might get a second star. Tony Borthwick of the Plumed Horse could regain his star, while Sean Kelly at Abstract could get his first . . . which could potentially bring the Scottish capital's total number of stars to six.
Does it matter if Glasgow, by contrast, ends up languishing once again with none?
"Any of the chefs working in Glasgow right now would kill for a Michelin star, because getting one means you're made financially, " says Ron MacKenna, The Herald's restaurant critic. "A Michelin star is a licence to print money. It guarantees you'll be busy for lunch and dinner every day."
Geoffrey Smeddle of the Peat...