For the lucky some, it may just mean the sacrifice of dinner at a restaurant with a one-star instead of a three-star Michelin rating.

Some chefs have refused Michelin ratings, out of fear that keeping the star becomes a straitjacket and limits creativity.

There is a surfeit of lists and charts focusing on the food, prices, features, specialties and, for many of them, Michelin ratings comparing 1993 with 1973.

"A two-star Michelin rating," Dover said cheerfully.

That could endanger our half-star Michelin rating.

Now revenues were stagnant at $4.5 million a year, and its coveted three-star Michelin rating was endangered.

It's not every day that you find a restaurant with both a Michelin rating and a New York City Sanitation Grade B in the window.

Though the annual Michelin ratings are officially released in April, this year's results were leaked in early February, well before Mr. Loiseau's death.

When the new Michelin ratings were released last week, Paris had lost a venerable three-star restaurant, Tour d'Argent, and gained a new one, Arpege.

Also say if you wish a one- two- or three-star restaurant (Michelin rating) or bakery.