I went to the Michelin Awards 2025
What was it like?
I thought it was a phishing scam when the invite dropped into my inbox. So riddled with imposter syndrome am I. But it wasn’t. It was real. I was invited to attend the 2025 Michelin Awards ceremony in Glasgow. I cleared my diary.
A trip to Glasgow is exciting in itself. I’ve been many times with my bands over the years. But anyone in a band knows you arrive, park the van, load equipment, sound check, piss about, play the gig, watch the other bands, grab some cheap food and drive home again. I have been to many places in the UK on tour but not really been there. So we decided to stay for two nights and have a mooch.
Glasgow has changed a lot since I was last there almost a decade ago. It feels bigger. It’s a FOMO-inducing dining destination now. Picking places to eat was made easier by us being there Monday-Wednesday. So many places we wanted to go to were closed. Oh well, we must return ASAP (as we say about everywhere we go). I won’t go into the incredible food we ate here, but you’ll find it popping up in my best dishes for February.
It’s a city of extremes. Grit and glamour. Art and graft. Google Maps did its usual trick of taking us the, er, scenic route. We spotted a mural of Billy Connolly playing a banjo on the wall of an apartment block as we wandered through Anderston, where we learned he was born, on the way to trendy Finnieston. Anderston reminds me a lot of Hulme, a stone’s throw from where I live.
We visited a couple of beautiful art galleries and lots of music shops and enjoyed some traditional music in a proper Scottish pub. I found a great wine shop too.
We stayed in a glam hotel called House of Gods. A place where it’s always midnight. Low-lit corridors and lounges; dark wood; animal print; and Art Deco monkeys everywhere. Our room had a four-poster bed with the option of a red light inside, a fun contrast to the very Scottish woollen blanket throwover. House of Gods feels glamorous but a bit tongue-in-cheek. Like Moulin Rouge meets Austin Powers.
We were lavished with treats on arrival: chocolates and rose petals on the bed, champagne coupes and prosecco on the bedside table, cocktails on the rooftop bar, and a button you can press for cold milk and warm cookies to be delivered to your door. Service is as friendly as it comes. There are whispers this place will open in Manchester at some point. Though when that will be is uncertain.
But what of the Michelin ceremony? It’s been a long time since I was so excited about an event. Glasgow really pulled out the Scottish stops. I have never heard so many bagpipes - or been so close to the loud fuckers. But oh the drama, the excitement of walking into the ridiculously grand Kelvingrove Art Gallery down a red carpet flanked by pipers and fiery torches. I panicked and hardly took any good photos.
I did get an awkward, unflattering photo with Bibendum, the Michelin tyre man before grabbing a glass of Charles Heidsieck champagne to steady my nerves. I stopped to gaze for ages at Dali’s astonishing Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus). I bumped into friends and did a bit of chef spotting. Ooh look there’s Hrishikesh Desai, there’s Lisa Goodwin Allen, there’s Simon Rogan, there’s Michael Wignall, there’s John Chantarasak, there’s that bloke who does Top Jaw. I said hi to Tom and the team from Skof, who were nervous - they needn’t have been.
As I waited for the ceremony to begin. I amused myself making mental lists of the different aesthetic categories of (mostly male) chefs I’d seen: the ones with little round glasses, the ones with neck tattoos and mullets, the ones with slicked-back silver hair, the bald ones with a belly that’s an advert for how delicious their food must be… The Scottish journalist sitting next to me added under her breath, ‘the ones who wear turtlenecks’ to my list.
The ceremony was two hours long (no drinks allowed inside) and I got too emotional as I always do at things like this. The chefs get a jacket (thanks to our sponsor…) to put on as they collect their awards, this was the only thing that slowed the pace besides one person having gone to the loo (or the bar) when their name was called.
It was a rapid affair. I missed the chance to capture much footage of Skof winning its star, putting my phone down and cheering instead. Skof really deserves the accolades and it’s a wonderful thing for Manchester to have another star.
What I love is how Tom Barnes and his crew have created a tasting menu full of things you actually want to eat. They’re not grinding down a cabbage, dehydrating it, rehydrating it and serving it as a Rubik’s cube. Instead, the seasonal ingredients are carefully chosen for their inherent qualities and cooked with reverence and skill. Don’t get me wrong, some of the dishes look like miniature ornamental gardens. But it’s respect for good produce first and theatre second.
Other Northern winners included Moor Hall getting its third star. I’m so glad I went a few months ago. It felt extravagantly expensive then - but worth it. Chef Patron Mark Birchall, who doesn’t strike me as an overly emotional guy, made a very emotional speech, opening with the words, “Fucking hell”.
Forge in Middleton Tyas, North Yorkshire won its first star and there were new bibs for The Schelly in Ambleside (from the folks behind The Old Stamp House), Engine Social Dining, Sowerby Bridge, and Bavette in Horsforth, Leeds (which has been on my to-do list for ages).
We’ll take Kirk Haworth (son of Nigel, 30 odd years at Lancashire gem Northcote and now at the wonderful Three Fishes in Mitton) winning the first ever star for a vegan restaurant in the UK, for Plates in London. He said, “It’s just about flavour. That’s all it’s about. Flavour, excitement, innovation.”
We’ll take John Williams winning a long-fought second star for the Ritz, too. He’s a South Shields lad. He gets probably the biggest cheers and standing ovation of the night and says in a quivering voice, “I’ve waited 50 years for this. I thought we’d been forgotten.” But most poignantly he makes a point of bigging up the FOH staff and their ‘art de table’ saying, “We all know the chefs but the service is the experience”.
Women taking the stage were notably few. Only Emily Roux of Caractére is in the press photo of the winners, albeit front and centre. A star also went to 33 The Homend in Ledbury which is co-owned by Elizabeth Winter and her husband James. When Jasmine Sherry from Fish Shop Ballater Scotland was awarded the Michelin Service Award she said, “I thought I was here for my husband”.
Ash Valenzuela-Heeger won the Young Chef Award saying, “I’m not sure how young I am any more but I am pleased.” The restaurant she co-owns with her partner Erin, Riverine Rabbit, has gone to the top of my list of places to eat outside of Manchester.
But a video on the importance of women to Michelin leaves me cringing a bit. In it, women are asked about their image; one woman talks about how long it’s been since she had her hair cut. They are also asked about having children, which prompts Clare Smyth of three-star restaurant Core to say she doesn’t like kids (*gasps from the audience*) and has a dog instead. When was the last time you heard a male chef answering questions like this?
The brilliant Adejoké Bakare of one-star West African restaurant Chishuru in Fitzrovia displayed the characteristic self-deprecation we women all seem to be a dab hand at, saying: “Most of the time I’m winging it!” and Clare Smyth admitted, “I don't like taking risks. I always overdo things to make sure I’m good enough.” It left me feeling more deflated than empowered.
A sentimental, ‘we love women, we do’ video is not what women working in the restaurant industry - or women in general - need. We need to be respected and enabled to have careers where we are supported, challenged, championed, celebrated, represented, and allowed to lead in the same way that men are without our gender being pointed out at every available opportunity. There is SO much work still to do.
As the ceremony came to a close, we were shipped off in coaches to the other side of town. The rain poured. Someone shared their umbrella with me and I caught up with the team from Wild Shropshire who won a Green Star that evening. We had bumped into one another earlier when we were both having lunch at the same place. Everyone was fizzing with excitement.
Canapes and drinks are what was promised at the Old Fruitmarket but we got so much more at this music venue hosting the afterparty. Alongside the many free drinks: wine and whisky and saki and beer, was an astonishingly generous display of Scottish seafood. Everyone piled little wooden trays with lobster, langoustine, crab and more. It was an absolute treat.
There was more champagne and caviar scooped onto your hand. And yes, canapes, incredible ones: Scottish beef tartare, scallop ceviche, cheese tartlets, and on and on. Just before I left, I enjoyed watching Simon Rogan and Tom Barnes getting stuck into the cubes of cheese on display from some proud local cheesemongers.
I looked down from the balcony at the packed room full of revellers before escaping the intensity to go for a quieter cocktail at the rooftop bar of House of Gods. It’s rare to be in a room with so many people at the top of their game. I’m thrilled I was invited. Fingers crossed I get to go again next year.
What a treat - thanks for sharing! 🙌