French food still reigns supreme in the UK, and if you want proof you need only look at the might of the Michelin Guide, says Matthew Fort.

Gordon Ramsay has managed to hold on to his three stars in London for the seventh year running. Photograph: Gerry Penny/AFP/Getty

Just as we have the BBC, the French have long regarded la cuisine as an extension of foreign policy by other means. World domination may still elude them even here - the Italians, Spanish, Chinese and Indians have proved remarkably obdurate, but in the UK, in spite of Jamie's Italian odysseys and Thai, Chinese and Indian restaurants colonising our high streets like rooks, French cuisine reigns supreme.

If you need proof, look at the annual brouhaha stirred up by the arrival of latest Michelin Guide. The papers are always full of it - who's gone up; who's gone down; why; why not; and what's it all mean about the state of British cooking? Some chefs are bounding around their kitchens with uninhibited glee. Others are staring at their boots wondering where it all went wrong.

The reverence which Michelin is accorded by the restaurant industry has always been something of a mystery to critics, food writers and gastronauts alike. Its annual appearance is usually the trigger for an explosion of xenophobic griping masquerading as thoughtful comment and trenchant analysis. We have guides of our own - the Good Food Guide and Hardens being just two - but the fact is that the French do it better. The Michelin Guide may be gnomic in its utterances (although it is making tentative efforts to be less so these days), but it is better resourced, more thorough, more authoritative and, curiously, more sensitive to changes in the restaurant scene, as its early championing of the gastropub and The Fat Duck proved.

Of course it doesn't always get it right, and there are those who say it never gets it right. It is particularly strong on those restaurants which have some connection, no matter how remote, with French cooking culture, and sometimes absolutely bonkers about those that do not. But generally speaking, it is the most dependable of all guides because it doesn't rely on some kind of public inspectorate as the others do.

At a time when cities of the world compete for tourist lucre, where your city stands in the restaurant pecking order is accorded considerable respect, not least by the town worthies themselves. The fact is that Michelin is the only global brand when it comes to restaurant guides. Zagat has tried to make it outside New York, and its never really flown. Time Out publishes guides to Paris and New York, but no one really gives a hoot. By smartly following Mies van de Rohe's "less is more" dictum, Michelin has established an unassailable dominance. Its judgements have the weight of ex-cathedra papal declarations, very much de haut en bas. We may not like it, but we will read it.