Three French chefs received the most coveted prize in top-level gastronomy on Monday when their restaurants were awarded three Michelin stars in the 2015 edition of the guide, the French Foreign Ministry announced.
Yannick Alleno’s Parisian “Ledoyen” and French chalet restaurant “La Bouitte”, run by father-and-son team Réné and Maxime Meilleur, joined the pantheon of top eateries in the self-styled home of gastronomy.
Réné, 64, and Maxime, 39, were awarded the prize for their “extraordinary” skills with fish, said Michael Ellis, director of international guides for Michelin.
The guide also hailed the Alpine chalet restaurant as “generous, authentic and full of emotion.”
Diners at ‘La Bouitte’, located at an altitude of 2,500 metres (8,200 feet), can feast on a menu that varies from trout, scallops and crawfish to frogs' legs with black garlic and watercress, duck foie gras escalope, sweetbreads and venison.
Three-star cuisine does not come cheap, however. A three-course “surprise” menu at “La Bouitte” will set you back about 115 euros, while an eight-course meal comes in around 225 euros.
Away from the snowy mountains, "Ledoyen", near the capital's famed Champs Elysées, retained its three-star status but with new chef Alleno at the helm.
Alleno was praised for his skill with sauces, particularly for an extraction technique that results in a pure jus with intense flavor.
“We found Yannick Alleno at the top of his game,” said Ellis. “The techniques have been mastered in extraordinary fashion. The concentration and explosion of flavor are quite simply remarkable.”
A soufflé of smoked eel with a watercress reduction and a brioche of pike with celery extract were singled out for special praise.
While the champagne corks were popping there, others were left crying into their soup as they were demoted to "mere" two-star status
The "Arnsbourg" in eastern France was relegated from three stars to two following the departure of chef Jean-Georges Klein.
And "La Cote Saint-Jacques", in central France, had a star removed due to a "lack of consistency in certain dishes."
The Michelin guide is the most renowned restaurant guide in the world, with just one star making or breaking a restaurant. The top prize is three stars, signifying that a restaurant is worth a “special journey.” Two stars is for a restaurant that is “worth a detour”, and a one star restaurant is a “good place to stop on your journey.”
The 2015 guide crowned 26 three-star restaurants in France, one fewer than last year. Worldwide, there are 111.
There were 80 two-star restaurants (seven of which were new) and 503 one-star restaurants (37 of them making the grade for the first time).
In total, there are now 609 Michelin-starred restaurants in France.
Source: FRANCE 24 with AFP