PARIS takes its place as the culinary capital of the world very, very seriously. Famously snobbish, its restaurants are high temples to excellence, and the city is not slow to remind people of the fact.
Now, there has been a challenge to that sup
remacy, and it has come from within France itself. For the third year in a row, a famous Parisian institution has been demoted from the top rank of three-star Michelin restaurants. To make matters worse, an upstart seafood restaurant from unfashionable Marseilles has stolen in.
The 2008 Michelin Red Guide for France will hit bookshops tomorrow. It sees the venerable Paris establishment Le Grand Vefour, which has been serving gastronomes, politicians and decision-makers since 1784 and opens on to the Palais Royal gardens, falling to just two stars.
Its place has been taken by Gerald Passedat, whose seafront restaurant Le Petit Nice in France's second city, Marseilles, boasts fans including the singers Iggy Pop and Sting.
Le Petit Nice is the only new restaurant to be awarded the guide's ultimate three-star accolade this year. It is also the first time an establishment in the Mediterranean port has been honoured.
Mr Passedat, 47, is the third-generation chef at the helm of the restaurant. His father won a first star in 1979 and a second in 1981.
He took over the kitchens of Le Petit Nice in 1990, but it took a decade of experimenting with avant-garde cuisine before he decided to make the Mediterranean his "vegetable-garden". "I realised that the sea was my destiny. It was right there in front of me and I hadn't seen it," said the chef, who used small local fishermen as suppliers, rediscovering long-forgotten ocean species.
Mr Passedat said yesterday that he felt "a great joy and a certain pride" to be admitted to the lofty three-star club, but insisted "the star is not an end in itself".
"I will use it as a creative springboard. It's a beginning," he said, adding the Red Guide had rewarded an "honest cuisine, a cuisine of taste, of the sea, of the Mediterranean".
Le Grand Vefour is a two-century-old bastion of French cuisine and a regular haunt of Paris politicians, writers and artists. Distinguished guests have included Napoleon, Victor Hugo, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Andre Malraux.
It was the third year in a row, however, that the Michelin critics took aim at a great Paris institution. The Taillevent lost its third star last year, while the Tour d'Argent – considered France's oldest table – was downgraded to one star in 2006.
"To have three stars means you are one of the 68 best restaurants in the world, and that requires great consistency," said Jean-Luc Naret, the guide's director, of Le Grand Vefour and its chef, Guy Martin: "We warned (him] last year of a small decline in that regularity."
Founded in 1784, Le Grand Vefour has been struggling to hold rank since the death of its three-star chef Raymond Oliver in 1983. His successor Mr Martin, 50, won back a third star in 2000, only to lose it again this year.
Le Grand Vefour boasts one of Paris's most romantic and spectacular dinner decors: a festival of wood-panelling and gold, gilded mirrors, stucco and frescoes, overlooking the tranquil gardens of the Palais Royal.
But Mr Naret said his "inspectors have not been finding three stars in Mr Martin's plate for the past 18 months".
"Every chef knows exactly what takes place in his kitchens. There is always a good reason for losing a star," he said. Anonymous inspectors from Michelin had dined at Le Grand Vefour ten or 12 times in the past two years before deciding to demote it.
Mr Martin worked his way up from humble beginnings – in a pizza parlour – to running Le Grand Vefour. His newest project is Sensing restaurant in Boston, but he had no comment on his Parisian rebuff.
REACHING FOR THE STARSTHE Michelin guide was first published in 1900 for French motorists, and now sells about a million copies of its red guides each year. They contain no adverts, allowing publishers to claim independence from restaurant owners and hotel chains.
Michelin created its three-star rating system in 1931, but suspended it between 1939 and 1950 "because of the difficulty in procuring quality ingredients".
The French edition currently lists 3,569 restaurants, of which 26 have three stars, 68 have two and 435 have one. Michelin publishes Red Guides for more than 20 destinations worldwide. The 2008 French guide sees top chef Joel Robuchon, who has restaurants in France, the US, the UK, Japan and Hong Kong, beating his rival, Alain Ducasse, by earning a second star for his L'Atelier (The Workshop) in Paris.
This brings his total number of stars to a triumphant 18 and makes
Mr Robuchon the holder of the greatest number of Michelin stars worldwide.
The longevity record for the highest rank is held by the Tour d'Argent, awarded three stars for 51 years in total, but demoted to two in 1996.
LE PETIT NICELE PETIT Nice is a 13-room hotel and restaurant that was founded in 1917 by Germain Passedat.
It's picturesque white building, originally called the Villa Corinthe, overlooks the sparkling blue waters of the Mediterranean near the old port of Marseilles.
Today the restaurant is run by Germain's grandson, Gerald Passedat. It was Germain's son and Gerald's father, Jean-Paul Passedat who first brought renown to the restaurant, garnering its first stars in 1979 and 1981, according to the restaurant website.
Speaking yesterday on French television, Mr Passedat said that he felt "great emotion, respect and honour for my family, clients and team".
Mediterranean fish such as tub gurnard, rockling, dentex and others form the backbone of Mr Passadet's cuisine, notably in his modernised version of the traditional bouillabaisse, a local fish soup.
His interpretation includes seven fish and shellfish, depending on the catch, and his menu features delicacies from the sea that he feels have been overlooked, including sea anemones.
"It's a great family story," said Jean-Luc Naret who oversees the Michelin guides, which first began in 1900. "Gerald Passedat has taken his grandmother's recipes and updated them. He knows how to work with classic recipes and how to modernise them."
Moving to the top level in France may increase revenue by 30 per cent to 40 per cent as reservations from international clients jump, according to Mr Naret.
Against that, there is always the risk of any restaurant concern which hits the headlines – the loss of its local flavour.
The full article contains 1123 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
