Indeed,
the example of chef Bernard Loiseau, who committed suicide in 2003 amid
speculation that his restaurant was about to lose its third star, is often
cited to demonstrate the hold the Red Guide has on chefs.
Photo by Getty Images.
But
some chefs see the patronage of Michelin as an unwelcome weight that prevents
them, they feel, from innovating and one which raises customer expectations to
unreasonable levels, where even the slightest imperfection is greeted with
incredulity.
Chef
Karen Keygnaert of Belgium’s A’Qi restaurant recently spoke to Munchies about
her desire to return her star because it “brings along a whole circus that’s
outdated. If there’s even a crease in the menu card or a crease in the
tablecloth, people soon end their sentence with: ‘I don’t think that belongs to
a star restaurant’... You lose the freedom to do what you want as a cook.”
The
only problem is, you can’t technically return a star. “You can agree with it or
you cannot, but you can’t give it back. That’s not an issue ... kind of an
urban myth,” said the Michelin Guide’s International Director Michael Ellis in
an interview with Vanity Fair in 2015. Keygnaert came up against a brick wall
trying to return hers: “It’s a very closed, absolutely not transparent
institute. You can’t even ask them for an explanation. You have no right to an
answer; they are untouchable,” she says, having written to Michelin and
received no reply.
Keygnaert
is not the first chef to ‘return’ her stars of course. Marco Pierre White famously
returned his three Michelin stars after becoming disillusioned with the
Michelin world and the pressures associated with it, questioning why inspectors
with inferior culinary knowledge to himself were judging him. In 2014, Julio
Biosca of Casa Julio, close to Valencia, returned his star, describing the
Michelin system as “burdensome,” while Skye Gyngell of London’s Petersham
Nurseries Cafe famously described a Michelin star as a “curse” after falling
foul of diners incensed about the restaurant's shabby chic aesthetic, despite
having been open for seven years before gaining its first star. She later
closed the restaurant.
Photo by Trou/Wiki Commons.
And
then there’s Frederick Dhooge of 't Huis van Lede in East Flanders, Belgium,
who gave back his star in 2014, arguing that he should be free to cook fried
chicken if he wanted to and Le Lisita in Nimes, France, which decided to
relinquish its star in favour of a more relaxed brassiere style.
Chefs
willing to speak out are in the minority of course, and for many, a star, then
two, then three will still be the pinnacles of their careers, and can make the
difference between survival and closure.
Perhaps
there are some rides that are just too difficult to get off once you’re on.
By FDL