Two French restaurants tasted the ultimate accolade in top-level gastronomy on Monday, winning three coveted Michelin stars in the guide’s 2015 edition.
“La Bouitte” in the French Alps, run by father-and-son team Rene and Maxime Meilleur and Yannick Alleno’s Parisian restaurant “Ledoyen” joined the pantheon of top eateries in the self-styled home of gastronomy. Rene, 64, and Maxime, 39, were awarded the industry’s top prize for their “extraordinary” skills with fish, said Michael Ellis, director of international guides for Michelin. The food Bible hailed the Alpine chalet restaurant, located at an altitude of 2,500 metres (8,200 feet), as “generous, authentic and full of emotion.” The fishy delights on the menu include trout, scallops and crawfish, while meat eaters can tuck into frogs’ legs with black garlic and watercress, duck foie gras escalope, sweetbreads and venison. But such three-star cuisine does not come cheap. A three-course “surprise” menu will set you back 115 euros ($130), while an eight-course banquet weighs in at 225 euros.
Away from the snowy mountains, “Ledoyen”, near the capital’s famed Champs Elysees, retained its three-star status but with a new chef, the 46-year-old Alleno, at the pass. Alleno, who already won three stars in 2007 for his work at Le Meurice in Paris, was cited for his skill with sauces. He has perfected an “extraction” technique for sauces, resulting in an ultra-pure jus with an intense flavour. “We found a Yannick Alleno at the top of his game,” said Ellis.”The techniques have been mastered in an extraordinary fashion. The concentration and explosion of flavour are quite simply remarkable,” he added. He singled out for special praise a souffle of smoked eel with a watercress reduction and a brioche of pike with celery extract. While the champagne corks were popping there, others were left crying into their soup as they were demoted to “mere” two-star status. The “Arnsbourg” in eastern France was relegated from three stars to two following the departure of chef Jean-Georges Klein. And “La Cote Saint-Jacques”, in central France, had a star removed due to a “lack of consistency in certain dishes.”
The 2015 guide crowned 26 three-star restaurants in France, one fewer than last year. Worldwide, there are 111. There were 80 two-star restaurants (seven of which were new) and 503 one-star restaurants (37 of them making the grade for the first time). In total, there are now 609 Michelin-starred restaurants in France.
(Paris–AFP) – (c)Source Relaxnews
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