In my view, Michelin stars are by far the most reliable published ratings around the world. They still are done entirely anonymously, and normalised by region. The stars are all about the food, and are distinct from the Toques (on a scale of 1-5) which concern themselves with luxury (or stuffiness as some here would call it). Whilst it's unlikely that you would get a 3*, 1 Toque restaurant, in theory the two scales are independent. Toques are more correlated with price, but any restaurant which gets even one star will put its prices up sharply, and expect to be pretty well full.