Michelin Guide Names German Woman Editor-in-Chief

The prestigious French Michelin restaurant guide today named a German woman editor-in-chief, the Telegraph reports. German cuisine has a stereotype somewhere along the lines of overcooked sausage and sauerkraut, so the news that Juliane Caspar will become the world’s most powerful restaurant reviewer has been greeted with some shock in foodie circles.

It's “like Mercedes calmly announcing that it has appointed a female Martian to the head of its development division,” wrote one German critic. But some applaud Michelin’s shift of focus away from the Paris establishment: “It shows a new open-mindedness of spirit,” a French three-star chef said. Caspar does not give interviews and has rarely been photographed: “It would make it impossible for her to do her job,” a Michelin spokesman explained.