Jesse Burgess on debunking Michelin Star myths with ‘Knife Edge’ and why Indian food keeps pulling him back 

Ever wondered what a Michelin Star actually means, or what earning one of the highest honours of the culinary world tells you about the food on your plate?

For roughly a decade, British food and travel content creator Jesse Burgess has been trying to get closer to the people who know the answer from the other side of the pass. He is the co-founder of TOPJAW, the food platform he runs with filmmaker Will Warr, where he has interviewed chefs, actors, and food obsessives about the restaurants they genuinely love returning to. TOPJAW has grown into a global food platform with more than a million followers, giving Jesse a career spent moving between the people who make great food and the people who know where to find it. Now, as the host of Apple TV’s Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars, he is following the most gifted chefs from around the world to find answers to the considerably more nerve-racking question: what does it take for a restaurant to convince Michelin that its cooking belongs among the very best on the planet?

Executive produced by Gordon Ramsay through Studio Ramsay Global, Knife Edge follows chefs as they try to earn, retain, or increase their Michelin Stars. The first season travelled through restaurants across the United States, Europe and Mexico. Season two follows 16 restaurants across several countries, including Gareth Ward’s Ynyshir in rural Wales and Nathan Davies’s Vraic in Guernsey. Jesse and the team also get unprecedented access to Michelin inspectors, whose reports help determine whether a restaurant receives a Star while their identities remain hidden from the chefs they are judging.

The anonymity has been part of the Guide’s system since 1933, which has naturally given Michelin inspectors an almost folkloric status in the culinary world. They book restaurants under assumed names, pay their own bills, and can return for another meal when a decision requires more evidence. Michelin says they assess five things: the quality of the ingredients, the execution of the cooking, the chef’s personality in the food, consistency across the menu, and consistency between visits, but Jesse has discovered that much of the folklore is considerably more colourful than the actual job. 

“There are a lot of myths around Michelin, which have been really fun to kind of debunk or find out the truth,” Jesse says. He had heard that a dropped fork could count against a restaurant if somebody did not pick it up quickly enough, while another rumour claimed that an inspector forced to queue for the toilet could lose the restaurant its Star. Neither is true. “The inspectors are effectively there just to judge what is on the plate in front of them,” he adds. 

The Star still has real weight for the people working inside Michelin’s system, even though Jesse knows plenty of chefs who work just as hard without ever chasing one. “A lot of people working in the restaurants of this style, and of this ilk, are very hardworking people,” he says. “But there are also very, very hardworking people in restaurants that don’t have aspirations of a Michelin star.”

In its first season, Knife Edge took Jesse through restaurants including Nōksu, a Korean restaurant hidden inside a New York subway station; Coqodaq, a Korean fried-chicken restaurant; Chicago’s Cariño and Smyth; Copenhagen’s Aure; Sweden’s Knystaforsen; London’s Caractère; Mexico City’s Em and Máximo; and California’s Pasta|Bar and Harbor House Inn.

In its sophomore season, Jesse explores Ynyshir in rural Wales, and Vraic in Guernsey, among others. Apple describes the new season as 16 restaurants at pivotal points in their Michelin journeys. Jesse says the basic selection philosophy has remained much the same. “I don’t think a huge amount has changed in terms of the restaurant selection from season one to two,” he says. The casting team, led by Gia Ramsey, was looking for “great stories”, which is why the likes of Ynyshir and Vraic stood out. 

Ynyshir is Gareth Ward’s legendary 16-seat restaurant in Eglwys Fach, on the west coast of Wales, where he serves a roughly 30-course tasting menu built around Welsh produce and Japanese influences. Gareth and his wife Amelia own the restaurant, which holds two Michelin Stars and has made the remote Powys countryside a destination for diners travelling specifically to eat there. Jesse says he might never have visited the area without it. “It has drawn so many people to that part of the country who never would have known about it” he says. “It’s a glorious, gorgeous part of the country, but it is a long way away from a lot of the major cities. And that tale of creating this crazy world in a very remote part of Wales, and all the trials and tribulations and challenges that come with that is incredible”.

Meanwhile, Vraic is Nathan Davies’s restaurant in Guernsey, the Channel Island where he relocated after leaving his Michelin-Starred restaurant SY23 in Aberystwyth, and formerly working as head chef at Ynyshir with Gareth. Nathan moved with his family and members of his Welsh kitchen team, building Vraic around Guernsey’s local sea produce. The island had not held a Michelin Star since 2009, making the move a considerable gamble. “He’s taken his entire team,” Jesse says. “People have moved onto an island that only takes 20 minutes to get from one side to the other” because they believe in Davies and his cooking. And that commitment is what Jesse believes Knife Edge wants to explore. “It’s not just about striving for a Michelin star,” he says. “It’s all these other decisions and sacrifices and commitments and crazy steps that make these really engaging stories.”

So what does the Star give them? “The Michelin star is a wonderful justification,” Jesse explains. “It is a real accolade, a pat on the back that affirms that you have committed, strived, learned, honed your craft, and now joined this club of other Michelin star restaurants that are considered some of the best in the world.” 

That idea of justification is important to how Jesse sees Michelin’s relevance today. A chef can spend years refining a menu, or training a kitchen and building a restaurant around a particular standard, yet there is no universally recognised point at which someone can say the work has reached a particular level. Michelin provides that marker for restaurants within its territory. Jesse calls it “a wonderful badge of actualisation.”

The catch is that Michelin’s map remains notoriously incomplete. “Obviously, the Michelin Guide isn’t everywhere,” Jesse says. “It isn’t in India, for example” — the omission is a big one because “some of my favorite meals I’ve ever had are in India,” he explains.

It all ultimately boils down to the food itself, and Indian cuisine seems to keep pulling him back. “I love the sort of curries that you get in the south of India,” he says. “The stuff that is very coconut-based is a lot lighter, creamier, and somewhat sweeter at times.” He is also fond of Punjabi food and the tandoor. “The flavours just aren’t as deep and rich and as smoky” in the versions he had encountered in the West, he says. “I just like that dry spice and those punchy flavours.” 

His favourite Indian meal came from a place he had never heard of and would probably never have sought out. During his Rickshaw Run across the country with Will Warr, the pair arrived late at a guesthouse in an unspecified dry state. The owner told them there was only one thing available: a paneer curry made by his mother. They were, Jesse remembers, probably the only guests in the hotel. He had already been eating Indian food for weeks, so this was hardly the thrill of a first encounter. “I would like to go back to the state just to have this one curry because it blew my mind,” he says. “It was the best paneer curry of my life.” He also remembers Mumbai fondly; specifically the Butter Chicken Factory, which he admits “is probably really silly to you guys. But it was awesome.”

He was in India eight years ago but there is no return date on the calendar yet. “I can’t point to a plan as yet. But I will be there before long. I can’t let it get to 10 [years].” 

Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars Season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV

Published – September 29, 2026 07:08 pm IST