Customers rely primarily on peers’ restaurant reviews but also on pre-consumption ratings, provided by professional critics edited in legitimating institutions, such as dining guides. Few studies have analyzed the discourse of iconic guides describing the awarded restaurants. This study provides empirical data by examining the way culinary excellence is depicted in restaurants websites and the way dining guides report it in their own websites. The methodology of this research is a lexicometric analysis based on the exclusive club of three stars French Michelin restaurants. The results show that starred restaurants and guides websites do not approach culinary excellence the same way. The results firstly show that the restaurant websites do not emphasize on symbolic, aesthetic and hedonic values. Reversely, the Michelin guide does. Secondly they indicate that luxury products presence is exclusively anchored in the Gault Millau guide, far from the simple casual food that triggered their Nouvelle Cuisine approach. Thirdly, the chefs’ family anchoring is characteristic of the restaurants websites and their peers’ recognition of the restaurant websites and the Michelin guide. These results are discussed and recommendations for restaurant managers are formulated.

• Nathalie Montargot(CRM La Rochelle Business School, France)