It was one of the more extraordinary things that I have done in my life. It started when Michelin called me to discuss something confidential.

If you know how the Michelin Guide works then you will know that everything they do is confidential. Their inspectors are not gifted amateurs who like eating out. They are hardcore professionals who work full time for Michelin and eat at least 300 meals at restaurants every year. They are famously anonymous and because nobody recognises them they can pretend to be ordinary customers out for a good meal when they visit restaurants. Because restaurateurs may become familiar with some faces, Michelin mixes it up, sending inspectors from other countries to assess restaurants. So, if you run a Southern Italian restaurant in, say, Seoul one of the guys who reviews it may have flown in from Naples.

No outsider knows what the inspectors decide, or how the final decisions about stars are made or even how many inspectors have visited the restaurant. Nothing is revealed except for the stars themselves which are announced at annual functions in the 50 or so locations where Michelin operates.

So, when Michelin told me that our conversation was totally confidential I was not surprised. But what they said next did surprise me. The inspectors had finally decided to award three stars to a restaurant in Dubai, something they had not done for the three years that Michelin had been in Dubai. But now, in their fourth year, they were finally ready to take the plunge.

Gwendal Poullennec, who is international director and the boss of the guide, was going to make a special trip to Dubai to tell the lucky restaurant two days before the formal announcement. Would I like to go with him to the restaurant when he broke the news?

Would I? Of course, I would!

They would tell me the name of the restaurant they said only if I agreed not to tell a soul.

At this stage I had a........

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