NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Feb 2001 15:16:01 GMT User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.0 (PPC) Xref: usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu rec.food.restaurants:53007 In article , Michael Sierchio Someone wrote: >[ I'm more than pleased to see that smug blankety-blank taken down > a peg. -MS ] Although it takes a certain amount of self confidence to run the sort of operations Decasse runs, I've not particularly thought of him as any more or less smug that your typical star in or out of the restaurant world. His comments about NYC as he was opening AD/NY indicated he subscribed the popular theory that if you can make it in NY, you can make it anywhere. At least in his published comments to the press, he didn't come off nearly as smug as he was depicted by the those writing about his restaurant later. It's also worth noting that the press seems to conveniently forget that Ducasse was the second chef in French history to garner six stars at once with two restaurants. He set no record, but merely equaled the previous record. I was surprised to see the "fact" restated again in Gourmet some time back after the NY Times printed a retraction. I've not eaten in either his Paris or Monte Carlo restaurant but his NYC restaurant offered as flawless a meal and service as I could expect anywhere. The cost over the next contender may have been more easily justified by the luxury of the service and the fact that there is only one sitting (you have the table for the entire lunch or dinner time) than the difference in food between Ducasse and the other high end luxury French restaurants in NYC, but it was clearly not excessive in context. That said, I agree that the top guy always becomes a target to tear down or to emulate. Needless to say, here in the states we have more than a few chefs trying to run as many restaurants as Ducasse and some of these same chefs are practically franchising their name, or the name of their restaurants. Most of them have not been able to maintain a consistent quality across the board. >The International Herald Tribune | http://www.iht.com/articles/11731.htm > >Monday, February 26, 2001 > >At the same time, Marc Veyrat, who had already been awarded three >stars for his restaurant near Annecy in the Haute-Savoie region, won >three more stars this year for La Ferme de Mon Pere, in the skiing >resort of Megeve. It was the only French restaurant promoted to >three-star ranking by Michelin this year. > >Mr. Ducasse, who last year opened a restaurant off Central Park >South in New York, lost one of the three stars he held for his Louis XV >restaurant in Monte Carlo in the latest edition of the guide, which has >been renamed the Red Guide this year and will go on sale Friday for >135 francs ($19). But the chef kept his three-star rating - the ultimate >accolade - for his restaurant at the Plaza Athenee in Paris's Eighth >Arrondissement. In all, this year's guide awarded a total of 21 three >stars - one less than last year - 75 two stars and 410 one-star >ratings. The other three-star restaurant demoted a rung was La Cote >Saint-Jacques, run by Jean-Michel and Michel Lorrain in Joigny, in >the Burgundy region.
France