The French Michelin Guide will be unveiled next week, but some stirring previews have already leaked. Two chefs will lose their third stars: Christopher Coutanceau and Guy Savoy, the sacred prodigy and pillar of contemporary French cuisine.
The News
The news of Guy Savoy's resounding downgrade in the company of another three-starred chef, Christopher Coutanceau of La Rochelle, and several two-starred names: l’Alpage, Jean-Luc Tartarin and Michel Serran comes as a shock.
Guy Savoy @Laurence MOUTON
The director of all editions, Gwendal Poullennec, explained that these are exceptional restaurants, so the decision, personally communicated on Feb. 27, the closing day, is the result of thoughtful reflection, matured at the end of numerous visits. After all, stars, as he always stresses, are not given away in ownership but must be conquered every year.
Christopher Coutanceau @XAVIER LEOTY, AFP
The impression is that with this move, the MICHELIN Guide intends to disentangle itself from other guides and rankings, as perhaps also happened in Italy with the Camanini case. Savoy has, in fact, been firmly at the head of the Liste, a world ranking issued by none other than Quai d'Orsay, the French foreign ministry, for six years. A guide of guides whose algorithm, based on 970 ratings, has always rewarded, perhaps not surprisingly, the country's chefs and Savoy above all. Thus came a timely comment from Philippe Faure, founder of La Liste: "Neither guest comments nor professional criticism suggested that the quality of the Guy Savoy restaurant had declined." The great chef, for his part, said, "So far, I had only had the best moments in my career. This year we lost the game, but next year we will win again."
A child of the arts, Savoy took his first steps in the family restaurant La Buvette de l'Esplanade in Bourgoin-Jallieu, his hometown, where his mother served dishes as rustic as they were comfortable in a bucolic setting. After an apprenticeship in a pastry shop in the village, on April 1, 1970, he entered Maison Troisgros in Roanne, where he met another chef pre-destined to success: Bernard Loiseau, a commis at the time, with whom he struck up a friendship. Together, they followed Lasserre and Louis Outhier to Paris.
The first restaurant opened under his name in 1980, but by 1987 it was already making moves, with two stars in the boxes. And in 2000, a complete makeover was carried out under the sign of contemporary art, a great passion of the chef's, cultivated with Europe's largest collector and his great friend, François Pinault. An investment rewarded with a third star in 2002. His motto? "Cooking is the art of transforming products into joy."
Source: ouestfrance.fr
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Cover photo: @Ed Alcock- NYT
