France’s 2008 Michelin Guide appears, some restaurants’ stars rise, a big one falls
March 4, 2008
In France, culinary stars rise and fall by the Michelin Guide, which doled out its coveted “stars” this past week to restaurants in France when it came out with its 2008 guide.
Michelin’s rating designation is serious business in France, where demotion by restaurant guide like Michelin’s “guide rouge” and others such as Guy Millaut have prompted ruined careers and even a suicide. In 2003 one of France’s most celebrated chefs has apparently committed suicide after his flagship restaurant was downgraded in a top restaurant guide. Bernard Loiseau was found dead at his country home, a hunting rifle by his side. His death came a week after the renowned Gault Millau restaurant guide cut its rating for his Burgundy restaurant.
Hopefully this will not be the fate of Guy Martin, the chef at Paris’s 200-year-old Le Grand Vefour, which tumbled from three stars to two in this year’s Michelin ratings. After taking the helm of one of Paris’ oldest and most revered restaurants, located in the historic Palais Royal, chef Martin finally guided the restaurant from two stars to three in the year 2000. The 2008 Michelin demotion comes as a painful blow, especially since it was the only three-star restaurant in France to be downgraded this year.
The restaurant dates back to 1784, and guests dine amid 18th century gilded decor and delicate hand-painted panels. The restaurant’s web site names Napoleon and his wife Josephine, as well as writers Victor Hugo, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Colette and Andre Malraux as diners.
In France, a country known perhaps more than any other for its dining, there are only 26 restaurants holding the coveted three-star Michelin rating.
Martin would not comment officially on the move by Michelin, but was reported to have told close associates that he feared reprisals by Michelin for his spending less time in the kitchen of Le Grand Vefour to pursue other projects and open other restaurants in Paris, and even one in Boston.
Inspectors dined at chef Guy Martin’s Le Grand Vefour 12 times in two years before deciding to downgrade it, said officials at Michelin, citing inconsistency in quality.
Like the power-mad, humorless restaurant critic in last year’s animated film “Ratatouille”, set in a Paris restaurant, the Michelin guide is both revered and feared by restaurants in France, whose reputation and business prospects are hitched for better or worse to their Michelin stars. Some in the culinary establishment in France have said the “Ratatouille” depiction was not far off.
This year in France, as Le Grand Vefour’s Michelin rating got more Petit, as Le Petit Nice went Grand.
The big winner this year was chef Gérald Passédat, whose Marseille restaurant Le Petit Nice became Marseille’s first-ever Michelin three-star eatery. The chef is a third-generation culinary pro in France. In a reverse image of Le Grand Vefour, Le Petit Nice was the only restaurant in France to be upgraded to Three stars this year.
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