South Australia’s Michelin stars have been awarded, and that deserves a proper celebration.
Behind that recognition are years of work. The preparation, the late finishes, the difficult services and the attention to detail required to do something exceptionally well, repeatedly.
Once the celebrations settle, those teams return to the familiar work of preparing for the next service. Only now, more people are watching.
Hospitality was already demanding before the stars arrived. Delivering consistently excellent food and service was already difficult. Recognition brings enormous pride, but the challenges of running the restaurant remain. In some ways, they become more pronounced.
During my time as People Director at JKS Restaurants in London, and training the original front-of-house team at the Fordwich Arms in Kent, I worked alongside people with extraordinary commitment to their craft. The care and effort behind those restaurants extended well beyond what guests saw during a meal. From that perspective, I think the conversation about what comes after a star deserves as much attention as the celebration itself.
A restaurant can gain international recognition and still have someone call in sick on Saturday morning. It can have a full reservations book and still struggle to recruit the right person.
Experienced staff move on. New people need time to learn. Costs need managing, equipment breaks and leaders have to make difficult decisions about where to allocate their time.
These are familiar hospitality challenges. The star does not solve them. Yet the expectation is that the restaurant will continue to deliver at the standard for which it has just been recognised, whatever is happening behind the scenes.
For guests, the award may also change the significance of a booking. Someone might travel specifically to eat there, save for the occasion or arrive with expectations shaped by other Michelin-starred restaurants.
Although Michelin awards its stars for the cooking, guests bring expectations about the whole experience. The team may be doing the same work it did the week before, but that work now carries greater scrutiny.
And alongside the joy of gaining a star can come the fear of losing it. When people have invested so much in a restaurant, that is understandable. The recognition matters to them professionally and personally.
It represents years of effort, and they want to protect it. But that creates a significant responsibility for the people leading the business.
How do you sustain the ambition and attention to detail that brought you here, while managing the anxiety that there is now something to lose? “Keep doing what you’re doing” sounds straightforward. In a restaurant, it takes considerable work.
The team that earned the recognition will change over time. A long-standing manager might leave. A section may be taken over by someone less experienced.
The person who quietly held everything together during a busy service may no longer be there.
Maintaining consistency through those changes requires deliberate attention. New colleagues need to understand the standards and have enough time and support to reach them. Experienced staff need opportunities to pass on what they know. Managers need to notice where the team is stretched and respond before that becomes the accepted way of working.
Even in a restaurant that has already proved how good it is, there is always another person to develop, another menu to understand or another responsibility to hand over. Training is part of the ongoing work of maintaining the restaurant’s standard. Yet when the business is busy and everyone is under pressure, it is easy for that time to be absorbed by more immediate demands.
The same is true of leadership development. Being an excellent operator does not automatically prepare someone to manage the pressure felt by a whole team.
Managers need to be able to delegate, give clear feedback and address small inconsistencies before they become habits. They also need to recognise when asking people to try harder will achieve very little because the real issue is staffing, preparation or workload. An award makes those decisions more consequential. It does not make them easier.
There is also a danger that concern about retaining a star begins to dominate the way people talk about their work. If every correction carries the weight of “we could lose the star”, an already demanding environment becomes harder to work in. High standards require honest conversations. People need to be able to say that they are unsure, that they need help or that something is not working. Leaders need to hear those things early enough to act on them.
For owners, that means looking carefully at what the team needs to sustain the performance being asked of it. If demand increases, can the restaurant accommodate it at the same standard?
Is there enough management support? Is the business allowing time to develop new staff, or relying on experienced people to keep absorbing the extra work?
These are questions restaurants were asking before Michelin arrived. The recognition gives them greater urgency. None of this diminishes the achievement. South Australia should be proud, and the teams recognised should have the chance to enjoy what they have earned. But as we celebrate the stars, we should also recognise the ongoing effort required of the people behind them.
Consistency depends on their skill, preparation and judgement, supported by leaders who understand what they are asking of them. The next service still needs to be exceptional. The challenge is making sure the team has what it needs to deliver it, and to keep delivering it long after the excitement of the announcement has settled.
