Why a Shanghai Restaurant Closed the Day After Being Awarded a Michelin Star

The prestigious Michelin Guide landed in Shanghai on Wednesday, doling out some 35 stars in its first installment in a city in mainland China.

But if you find yourself in the massive Chinese city and want to splurge on the Michelin experience, you'll now have just 34 stars to choose from—one restaurant that was awarded a star closed just a day later because it was operating without proper licensing.

Taian Table was forced to shutter its doors just hours after winning one of cuisine's highest honors because it didn't have business or catering licenses, according to the Shanghai Daily. The restaurant, which is headed by the German chef Stefan Stiller and serves European fare, had been operating in a residential building since April. Though the restaurant had applied for permits upon opening, catering operations can't be located in residential structures, and neither license ever came.

"When my friend and business partner Ji Wen Yuan and I started this project early this year, our idea and concept was to build a small place to entertain our friends and to have some foodies and chef friends around to create new and creative dishes," chef Stiller told Shanghai Daily, saying they never intended to violate any laws. A new larger space is currently in the works in a different building.

Shanghai Daily sent a reporter to the building and found residents who had been unhappy with the restaurant's presence. "The restaurant is a nightmare for us all for months," a resident said. She added that a noisy fan kept her up at night and the smell of cooking oil and smoke "seriously pollutes the air."

The Michelin Guide has been expanding in Asia, with guides for Singapore, Taipei, and Hong Kong launching in the last seven years. But in Shanghai, there's been some pushback from local chefs and gourmands, with complaints that the guide features more Cantonese restaurants than restaurants serving Shanghainese food.

In its defense, the guide said the second-most heavily featured cuisine on the menu is Shanghainese. And there's some fine-dining variety: Shanghai's only three-star restaurant, T'ang Court, has just six tables, while a two-star destination, Canton 8, has a set menu for just US $7 and caters to locals, making it the cheapest two-Michelin-starred restaurant in the world. At the opposite end of the two-star experience is Ultraviolet, an "immersive" restaurant that pumps perfume at diners and makes use of audio and visual effects.

Shanghaiist notes that not everyone was happy with a new restaurant like Taian Table getting a star, perhaps at the expense of other longstanding restaurants serving Chinese food, and cites a Chinese website that suggests the forced closure may have been no coincidence—Taian Table's enemies may have ratted on them. It's a poignant reminder that all's fair in the cutthroat world of fine dining.