One Michelin Star Forever

I had a level system. Level 8, Level 9, Level 10 - tracking what Claude Code and I could do together, proving progress. And it felt satisfying, levelling up like that.

Then I noticed I was spending more time maintaining the level than doing the work. And the levels were scattered through my documentation - “Level 12” here, “Level 14” there - violating my own principle: keep metrics out of the wiki.

The Problem with Levels

Here’s what happens when you build a level system. You hit Level 11, you announce it. And now you’ve got something to defend.

Achieve, claim, defend. That’s the cycle. And the defending is where your energy goes - not into getting better, but into protecting what you’ve already claimed. It’s the gamification trap dressed up as progress.

The levels worked for what they were designed to do. But they created a ceiling. And ceilings create strange incentives. Once you’ve claimed Level 15, you start filtering everything through “does this threaten my level?” instead of “is this actually good work?”

Marco Handed His Stars Back

This is the bit that changed my thinking.

Marco Pierre White earned three Michelin stars - the highest rating, the thing every chef supposedly wants. Then he handed them back. He told the inspectors not to come anymore.

Why? Because the stars had become the point. He was cooking for the inspectors instead of cooking for the guests. And the recognition was distorting the work itself.

One Star, Forever

So here’s what I landed on. One Michelin star. Worth the stop. The cooking is sound.

Not “working towards three stars.” Not “currently one, aiming for two by Q3.” Just one star, forever, getting better.

This gives Claude Code the same anchoring that levels did - a sense of where we are, what standard we’re operating at - but without a ceiling to defend. The improvement is perpetual. The claim is absent.

Does this feel like giving up? It’s the opposite. When you’re not defending a level, all your energy goes into the work. And when you’re not chasing the next badge, you can focus on whether today is actually better than yesterday.

The calibration can be written once and never needs updating. “One Michelin star, no couverts, working towards three” stays true whether it’s January or December, whether we’ve shipped ten features or a hundred. No more chasing through files to update “Level 14” to “Level 15.”

Why Kitchen Language Works

Once I’d landed on Michelin calibration, I noticed something else. Kitchen metaphors were doing more work than business language ever had.

Mise en place isn’t a productivity hack. It’s wisdom earned in real kitchens under real pressure. Decades of cooks learning that preparation beats scrambling, that everything in its place means smooth service when tickets start firing. When I tell Claude Code “mise en place before we start,” that phrase carries weight. It installs behaviour more cleanly than “let’s prepare first.”

And the same thing happened across the whole system:

• The pass - the final check before anything goes to a client. Not “quality assurance” but the pass, where Marco would send back anything that wasn’t right.
• Covers - clients aren’t accounts or users. They’re covers. Thirty maximum, because that’s what one chef can serve properly.
• Service - Monday isn’t client work day. It’s Monday Service. The kitchen is open. Covers need feeding.
• In the weeds - when you’re behind and overwhelmed. Not “capacity constrained” but in the weeds, because that’s what it actually feels like.

These phrases come from kitchens where people earned scars. They carry the weight of real pressure, real consequences, real standards. And that weight transfers.

Compare this to the language most businesses use. “Optimising workflows.” “Leveraging synergies.” “Actioning deliverables.” It’s the linguistic equivalent of a microwave meal - technically food, but nobody’s queueing for it. Kitchen language has terroir. Business language has committees.

What This Means

If you run a small business, you already know the kitchen. You know mise en place even if you call it something else - getting your invoices straight before month end, prepping materials before the job starts, having answers ready before the client calls.

And you know what it feels like to chase the wrong metrics. Revenue targets that make you take bad clients. Growth goals that stretch you past what you can actually deliver. Levels to defend instead of work to do.

The one star philosophy is simple. Be worth the stop. Do sound work. Keep getting better.

That’s the whole job. Not hitting arbitrary numbers, not defending claims you’ve made, not impressing inspectors who show up unannounced.

Marco figured this out decades ago. The stars were never the point. The work was the point.

If your business is worth the stop - if your cooking is sound - that’s enough. That’s more than enough. That’s the thing most businesses never achieve because they’re too busy chasing the next level.

One star forever. The rest is just getting better.