Paris Really Cooks in New Michelin Ratings

When the editors of the Guide Michelin recently announced their new ratings of the best restaurants in France, all attention was focused on the restaurants that were promoted to the top three-star level: Guy Savoy and Ledoyen in Paris and L’Arnsbourg in Untermuhlthal, in the Moselle region. But the full list, officially released Friday, was notable on several other counts too.

This is only the third time in the last 30 years that more than two restaurants have been elevated to the highest level in the French gastronomic firmament in the same year. The two new three-stars in Paris bring the total there to nine, the most since 1934, when there were also nine. One of the newcomers, Ledoyen, served its first meal in 1791.

There were also significant demotions. The one that drew the most attention was that of Le Crocodile in Strasbourg, dropped from three stars to two. “No words can appease the pain that is eating away at our hearts and stifling our spirits,” Emile Jung, the chef/owner of Le Crocodile, said after the announcement. Jung won his first Michelin star in 1972, his second in 1975 and his third in 1989.

Of greater historical resonance, near the end of the list of 22 restaurants that were being demoted from one star to none, was La Mere Brazier in Lyon.

Four years ago, when Alain Ducasse won three-star ratings for his restaurants in Paris and Monte Carlo, most of the international food press trumpeted this “unprecedented” six-star feat. But it wasn’t unprecedented. More than 60 years earlier, in 1933, Eugenie Brazier, the first female chef to win three stars, also became the first six-star chef, with La Mere Brazier in Lyon and La Mere Brazier in Col de la Luere near Lyon. Both restaurants ultimately lost all their stars except the 60-seat La Mere Brazier in Lyon, which kept a star and was run by Brazier’s granddaughter, Jacotte. Now it has no stars.

Among the seven restaurants elevated from one star to two this year was Moulin de Mougins in Mougins. This reversed a decade-long decline in the kitchens of longtime chef Roger Verge, one of the founders of the nouvelle cuisine movement. Verge won his third star in 1974, then lost both it and his second star in the 1990s.