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This study aims to explore how haute cuisine excellence is and can be self-represented on the websites of three-star restaurants and juxtaposed onto the websites of external authoritative food guides.

In total, 26 French Michelin three-star restaurant websites and their reviews in the prominent Michelin and Gault and Millau dining guides were examined. This data was then processed using lexicometric software.

Five semantic universes emerged, showing that restaurants and dining guides do not emphasize the same elements of culinary excellence. While restaurant websites emphasize the charismatic leadership role of the chef through family history, professional recognition and vicarious learning, the two iconic guides are far from rating the criteria they claim to: For the Michelin Guide, criteria other than cuisine appear central. Conversely, Gault and Millau, far from its nouvelle cuisine principles advocating democratization at lower cost, insists on fine products.

It remains essential for restaurants to use a repertoire of cultural components and symbols, capitalize on the charismatic and architectural roles of their chef and showcase fine products that are representative of classical cuisine. Storytelling and dynamic narrative add-ons, regularly updated on large-audience social media, appear central to increasing restaurants’ perceived value, communicating innovation and attesting to their singularity and uniqueness.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study to overlap the lexical perspectives of three-star restaurants and iconic guides’ websites.