A celebrity chef in France is suing the legendary Michelin Guide for downgrading his restaurant from the highest honor of three stars because, he claims, the inspector incorrectly believed cheddar cheese was baked into his signature soufflé.
Chef Marc Veyrat, 69, who operates La Maison des Bois in the French Alps, has claimed that a confused Michelin inspector stripped him of his third star for substituting English cheddar cheese in a traditional French soufflé. “I’ve been dishonored,” Veyrat said of the downgrade, accusing the guide of sending an inspector with an unsophisticated palate. “I put saffron in it, and the gentleman who came thought it was cheddar because it was yellow,” Veyrat said. “That’s what you call knowledge of a place? It’s just crazy.”
The Michelin Guide issues its Red Book for regions, countries, and cities around the globe on an annual basis. Three stars are reserved for the best eateries in the world and are granted only if a restaurant is deemed by the inspectors of serving “exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey.” Inspections are conducted anonymously, and Michelin is renowned for the secrecy of its evaluation process.
It was not clear how Veyrat came to the conclusion that the anonymous inspector had misidentified the cheese in his soufflé, which is typically made with reblochon, beaufort, or certain French tommes, as it is not mentioned in the guide’s published review of La Maison des Bois.
The guide has been in continual operation for more than a century and a source of stress for chefs seeking critical acclaim. The guide was initially launched by Michelin, a French tire company, to increase demand for tires as drivers traveled to the recommended destinations. The legendary late chef Paul Bocuse, a pioneer of nouvelle cuisine, once asserted that “Michelin is the only guide that counts.”
“It’s worse than a wound,” Veyrat said of Michelin’s judgment. “It’s profoundly offensive. It gave me a depression.”
Attorney for the chef Emmanuel Ravanas claimed that the lawsuit intends to force Michelin to reveal the evaluations to assess their accuracy. “For decades, Marc Veyrat has been used to having his cooking graded, evaluated and compared, and he knows quite well that you don’t own a star for life,” Ravanas said. “He accepts it all, as long as the criticism is accurate.”
Michelin was not immediately receptive to Veyrat’s request and bemoaned his persistence in the matter. “[Michelin] understands the disappointment for Mr. Veyrat, whose talent no one contests, even if we regret his unreasonable persistence with his accusations,” a statement said. “Our first duty is to tell consumers why we have changed our recommendation,” it said. “We will carefully study his demands and respond calmly.”
The loss of Michelin stars is said to have been the primary motivation for the suicides of chefs Bernard Loiseau in 2003 and Benoît Violier in 2016.
