
Chef gives up a Michelin star, reflecting hardship of ‘the Other France’ - SREinSF
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/world/europe/france-chef-michelin-star.html
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albertogui
Would it have been possible to change to a cheaper menu while still keeping
the Michelin star? There's plenty of affordable — and even cheap — Michelin
starred restaurants.

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notatoad
Maybe, but there still would have been the worry that the star was scaring
people away.

Also, I could be wrong but I thing the "Michelin starred food truck" and other
cheaper starred restaurants are all outside France, in France there's still
much more of a common standard that Michelin starred restaurants feel they
need to live up to including experience and price.

And of course, it's much better to renounce the star than to lose it.

~~~
carlob
This. For example, I talked to the chef of the restaurant that won Le
Fooding's best chef in 2017 about his older restaurant and there is a whole
movement in France called bistronomie, which is all about serving great
creative food, without the trapping of the luxury restaurant. That is no
tablecloths, no hierarchy of waiters, just a bistrot, but with Michelin level
food.

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keithpeter
>> _“Maybe the star scared people,” Mr. Mathus said. “I understand. He’s
saying, ‘Don’t be scared to come here.’ Here, it’s simple people, with modest
incomes.”_ <<

100+ euro menus in a town of 18,000 sounds _ambitious_. Above quote from
previous mayor sounds about right to me.

~~~
DanBC
Bray in Berkshire (UK) has a population of less than 10,000 people, but
contains two of the UK's 3 star restaurants.

~~~
lacogubik
Being 5 miles from Windsor castle and also from Eton college might have
something to do with it. Heathrow is only 15 miles away on motorway. Bray has
about 300 millionaires and Windsor around 900 [1] (few other villages from
that list are also just short drive away).

[1] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10054043/Top-
te...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10054043/Top-ten-most-
affluent-villages-in-UK.html?frame=2561506)

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olivermarks
This is another canary in the coal mine example of the rapidly shrinking
middle class in the western world IMO

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daveFNbuck
There are only 18,000 people in this town. To hit his goal of 60 diners a day
would require the average person in town to visit more than once a year. How
many middle class people are going to spend $130 on an entree on an average
Tuesday night? I've never spent that much on a meal and my income is too high
to be considered middle class in the US.

~~~
mc32
There are about four Michelin starred restaurants within a 30km radius, there
are also other towns within that radius, so its a little more complicated than
one town of 18,000 one Michelin starred restaurant. Also menu items started at
30 and went up to approx 110 euros.

~~~
seszett
> _menu items started at 30 and went up to approx 110 euros_

Is it another restaurant than this one
[http://www.jeromebrochot.com/media/original/575147df7d79e/ca...](http://www.jeromebrochot.com/media/original/575147df7d79e/carte-
entrees-viandes-desserts-jerome-brochot.pdf) ?

Prices are rather reasonnable here, on the expensive side but I would consider
eating there. While a menu where items go from 30 to 110 euros is completely
out of the question for anyone I know.

~~~
mc32
No, that's it. The prices I "sampled" were from 29 to prix fixe 130 (which I
erroneously wrote as 110, but close enough)

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meri_dian
For anyone who has reached the free article limit for NYTimes, while the
article is loading just cancel loading in your browser (this works for me in
mobile). The limit popup won't appear and you'll be able to read the article.

~~~
Gargoyle
Paying for a subscription also works.

~~~
cpach
Sure. Might not be an attractive option though for people who already
subscribe to multiple newspapers. [Edited for clarity.]

~~~
hateduser2
Or for people who don’t care about morals and just want free stuff.

~~~
abiox
i submit that if you transmit data to me, i have a right to observe it. the
immoral thing is to expend my bandwidth, cpu and memory with data and content
you're obscuring.

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willlll
"He could no longer pay for the personnel, produce and precision that go into
charging one-star prices." Apparently the NY Times can no longer pay for the
precision that goes into subject-verb agreement.

~~~
brchr
This sentence looks fine to me vis-a-vis subject-verb agreement: "[personnel +
produce + precision] go."

How do you think it ought to read instead?

~~~
8note
I think he thought produce was a verb and not a type of raw food

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abiox
perhaps i'm uncultured swine, but the first i've heard of 'michelin stars' is
when a few of these sorts of articles popped up. does it really matter?

how much do the stars impact a restaurant's business? i usually just talk to
people (even strangers) and ask for personal recommendations.

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antisthenes
I've never understood the point of Michelin stars or their relative value,
compared to, for example, 500 5-star yelp or trip advisor reviews.

The last thing I care about is advice on food from a tire company. In fact if
it wasn't for Gordon Ramsay related conversations, I would have never known
Michelin Stars are an actual thing.

~~~
stephencanon
You can easily buy 500 5-star yelp reviews. You cannot easily buy a Michelin
star.

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viridian
Can you? I thought yelp and google were very aggressive about burying
businesses for this sort of thing. Maybe you could go on fiverr or something
and collect a few, but there's no way that yelp doesn't catch 500 fraudulent
reviews. They are way too aggressive with false positives as is, such that a
good third of my actual reviews are hidden.

~~~
stephencanon
Yelp is notorious for asking business owners to pay to bury bad reviews. You
don’t even need to buy good ones if you can sink all the bad.

Trip Advisor was recently in the news for having a #1 restaurant in London
that didn’t even exist.

AFAIK, there have been no such scandals with the Michelin Guide in recent
memory.

~~~
antisthenes
In spite of all that, Michelin guide is just about as relevant to the average
person as the spot price of uranium.

When was the last time you heard "this is not a michelin star restaraunt, I
won't eat there" ? The answer should be never.

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Jabbles
I am missing something. The chef believes that in order to maintain his star
he must do something different to what he was doing to achieve the star in the
first place?

I am not an expert on Michelin guides, but that seems unlikely.

Consider the recent news of the street hawker getting a Michelin star:
[https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/singapore-cheapest-
mi...](https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/singapore-cheapest-michelin-
star-restaurant/index.html)

I wonder if his new menu will be cooked well enough to earn him a star?

 _He has cut his prices and is offering a more down-to-earth cuisine of stews,
including the classic blanquette de veau, and serving cod instead of the more
expensive sea bass._

~~~
norswap
From what I always heard, the Michelin Guide has very very particular demands
on your service. It has to be so and so. It's not only how it tastes, but also
the formality with which it is served. (This has to be checked though.)

It's indeed strange about the hawking stall, but I suppose the standards are
not the same abroad as domestically - or for a stall for that matter.

Having been to 1-star restaurants thrice, and to gastronomic restaurants a few
more times, I have to say the distinction isn't that helpful, and didn't
reflect the quality of the food or service. For contrast, Trip Advisor is a
better discriminator for lower-level establishments, even if it has its faults
as well.

~~~
twoodfin
No. While it’s impossible for imperfect humans to completely separate the meal
from the overall experience, Michelin claims that its star ratings are solely
based on the cuisine.

On the other hand, diners often have a certain level of expectation of the
service and ambiance surrounding a meal that costs as much as is typically
required to economically produce Michelin-ranked cuisine.

