robert brown

Liz, I would think it is to the detriment of the clientele if the dining room team (and the chef) is hazing certain members of their team. Why would a chef whack the wrist of a waiter if the waiter needs to carry on his duties at peak level? Regardless of the circumstances, I felt bad for the Senegalese waiters. You will be a better judge than I am of how much luxury dining in France has declined in recent times since you visit more establishments in a year than I do. I believe that the pace of the decline has picked up over the past several months, but it certainly started well before this past February. I am anxious to get your impressions next month. Cabrales. You most likely give a higher weighting to the cuisine than I do when determining the overall quality of a restaurant. No wonder the chefs love you!!! (How do you put the smiley faces on?). We all know, however, how bad service can often undermine a chef’s handiwork As for the air conditioning, or lack of, at the Moulin de Lourmarin, last summer my wife and I sweated through a lunch in the dining room. Because everyone dined on the terrace when we were there 10 days ago, I do not know if the dining room is now climatized or not. It is hard for me to imagine a restaurant in the warmest part of France during the height of the travel season receiving a third star when it makes people suffer though a meal. (In all fairness, I have to say that our hotel room at the Moulin had serious air conditioning). Bux and Steve. On this thread and the Mirazur one, the discussion seems to point to the matter of what constitute the “baseline” of up-scale dining. Can we eat, enjoy, feel good about, and so forth, the fruits of talented chefs in a situation in which there is little or no choice, and where the food and the client is served in a maladroit or haphazard fashion in plebian surroundings?

Miguel, the place struck me as more European. Have you been, or are you going?

In search of three-star dining as we remembered it a dozen years ago, my wife and I have decided to make a return to visit to Hotel-Restaurant Les Freres Troisgros after a 20-year hiatus. ( A look at their menu from Cabrales’ souvenir menu collection indicated that Pierre Troisgros and his son could still be doing it the old-fashion way.) We are booked for dinner and a night’s stay this Thursday. Although we have a car in our garage in Nice, the thought of making two six to seven hour drives in two days was daunting. This is why we decided to take the train to the restaurant, whose slogan in the old days was “en face de la gare”. By going and returning on a workday, we were able to avail ourselves of a special fare called “Decouvertes a Deux”. It gave us a discount of about 30% from the full price ticket, making the cost of two first-class, round-trip Nice-Roanne tickets, including the TGV supplement on the Nice-Lyon portion, about $280. (The rails are high speed only between Marseilles and Lyon, however). My questions are: Does anyone who has dined at Troisgros recently have any words of wisdom about ordering or anything else? Has anyone made some interesting gastronomic train rambles in France that they wish to recommend?

Bux, at the time my wife's "C" note disappeared, a Pont Royal employee told my wife that she wasn't the only person to have been robbed in the recent past. It happened two years ago, not three.

As I was saying in the "Last Restaurant in France/Mirazur" thread!!! That a chef the stature of Robuchon creates a restaurant of the sort described above to make his reappearance in public says a lot, I think. Don't stay at the Pont Royal. They removed all the old French charm when they redid all the rooms and made them smaller and tasteless. My wife also had a $100. bill taken out of her suitcase. As a result I still have two free nights coming to me that I haven't used in the three years since.

Marty, welcome to the site. You look for, and are aware of, the same attributes I do in serious French restaurants. I look forward to your future exploits and commentary. (When was your first post, as now I see you joined in March? Welcome nonetheless). Cabrales, you know how much I revere and respect you. I rarely disagree with you. However, I don’t see eye-to-eye with you about Loubet, although it may be largely because we were there at a different time and had a different quality of experience. Nonetheless, the Moulin’s revelation of its reservation policy was a result of my asking what it was. Perhaps the woman on the phone would have gotten around to explaining it to me. My guess is that it was spelled out on their reconfirming fax that for some reason they were never able to successfully transmit to me. But even then, that is too late, having already given her my credit card information. I cannot find the policy spelled out on their website either. Yet even when she told me five days before I was to arrive that they had only one room left, she did not say that if I canceled and they could still sell the room, they would refund my money. For someone like yourself who travels the length and breadth of France every year, having an establishment keep your deposit for future use when canceling as little as 24 hours prior to the reservation date is “ a good thing”. But what about the majority of clients, some far-flung, for whom a trip to Provence is a once or twice in a lifetime event whose circumstances change 20 days prior to their reservation? In the alternate example I cited, Hotel-Restaurant Troisgros, and the one you mentioned, La Cote St. Jacques, both are quite a bit more humane than the Moulin’s. As for prices, these are discoverable on the Moulin’s web site, which reproduces the two “menus” with prices A fair notion of them is also presented in the usual guide books The point I was trying to make is not that the prices were high purely on an absolute basis. (They are three-star prices as Marty said, but the Moulin’s prices are not the highest in France); they are high and not commensurate with the level of service and the spirit of generosity of the house. You appear to be giving great chefs a level of autonomy and supremacy that says to the hands that feed them, “Take it or leave it” It is just this kind of attitude that leads to what I experienced in Lourmarin and why, I believe, the Loubet family, and an increasing number of other chef-restaurateurs, now has to make these ordering rules (again no one told me that if I arrive after 1:30 p.m. or 9:30 p.m., I could not order a “degustation” menu), create these one-sided room reservation policies, and economize on the number and professionalism of the employees. As for complimentary dishes, who knows these days what is complimentary and what is not. There are so many little dishes coming out prefaced with the words “compliments of the chef”, it is hard to figure out. If everyone in the restaurant is getting them, does that mean you are still getting special treatment? It sounds as though you did get extra dishes when you were there. But were they dishes that otherwise would have gone to waste, made in anticipation of special situations, or was the giving of them indicative of treatment that you would receive today? Is that we did not receive special treatment another indication that “Family S.A.” as the Loubet empire of 2-1/2 hotel-restaurants and a boutique calls itself is feeling the heat of the major decline of tourism in France? Is it possible the serving staff was too stretched out to want to serve more dishes and keep the tables occupied longer than necessary? I saw what I saw. After many years of patronizing these kinds of restaurants regularly, my depth or length of experience picked up the manifestations of an enterprise in a less-than-robust state of financial well being, which I was made to pay for both with my wallet and my spirit.

On a summer’s day in the picture-postcard Provencal town of Lourmarin, you can, in the hotel-restaurant Le Moulin de Lourmarin, feel the uncomfortable heat coming from owner-chef Edouard Loubet’s bank loans. Well before I put the first morsel of Loubet’s food in my mouth, I had several times already felt a sting of stinginess that lasted throughout my entire stay. When I phoned for a hotel room and ask what the cancellation policy is, the receptionist told me that if one cancels less than 21 days before the date of the reservation, the establishment would keep the full cost of one night’s room as a credit for a future stay. (At Hotel-Restaurant Troisgros, for example, it is a much more considerate seven days.) When I told her that this was not a problem for me because I lived part of the year within reasonable driving distance, but that other Americans (let alone Asians and Australians, among others) might have a problem returning, she said that this was how it was. For practical purposes then, it is a case of use it or lose it. When I arrived, I felt the next blast of “froideur” in the chilly greeting at the front desk and the perfunctory explanation of the facilities in our hotel room by the luggage handler—but no educated one for the wrinkled sheets and pillowcases on the bed that made my wife question their freshness and that took three requests and two hours to replace. The “ haute bourgeois” quality of the fixtures, fittings, and construction of the hotel rooms and the distinct lack of the wherewithal to give them some charm and style fortunately does not carry through to the restrained yet tasteful décor of the public rooms. If you are at the Moulin de Lourmarin just for dining (it does attract many gastronomes with its Guide Michelin two-star rating and talk of Loubet being a future three-star chef) then you do not encounter its tight-fistedness (unless you notice that the tablecloths, too, are not well-ironed) until you have sat down and read the small print on the menu. One line informs you that if you arrive after 1:30 P.M. for lunch or 9:30 P.M. for dinner, you cannot order any of the prix-fix menus, but instead are restricted to the exorbitantly priced (average price of around 60 euros a dish), full-portion “a la carte” dishes. This is what happened to my wife and me last summer after being stuck in bad traffic on the Autoroute east of Aix-en Provence. The printed line below that admonition then states still another rule that I never encountered in any restaurant: If you want to substitute a dish on one of the two fixed menus, you have to pay the “a la carte” price for it, although you are served, according to our maitre d’hotel, a full portion. The most unfortunate consequence of bad, inept, and maladroit service is the way in which it diminishes the enjoyment of good food. At the Moulin, the food at times can be remarkable. Yet dining there is much like watching a great actor in a bad play with an inept supporting cast. Instead of being swept along through the meal and concentrating on consuming interesting food, the service brigade’s ineptness becomes a profound distraction. It quickly became apparent that Loubet has put together as cost-efficient a group as possible, with little regard to skill or experience, that consisted almost entirely of very young servers, two Senegalese men who did much of the lifting and carrying and to whom none of their colleagues would speak; and a prancer and dancer sommelier who was patronizing (though to his credit always there for a refill when you needed it) and assumed that no one could know anything about wine. (The wine book is bulked up with thick pages and large, well-spaced type and is replete with overpriced wines nowhere ready for consumption. Nonetheless a white Marsannay from Bruno Clair pleased us, as did a red Savigny-les Beaune from Michel Juillot that together came in for under $100.) At times, the proceedings became rather comic. At the start of service, Loubet came bouncing out onto the terrace dressed in tight black trousers and a Provencal peasant’s top that was a beige, heavy-linen version of Seinfeld’s Puffy shirt. At a few inches over five feet tall, possessing a sullen personality and speaking with a lisp, Loubet is not the most charismatic chef around. He wished us a good appetite without breaking stride. Providing the biggest, though amusing distraction was watching the Senegalese waiters carrying large, heavy trays and standing frozen, waiting until another waiter or two takes the dishes to the table. Just as often as not, the man bearing the tray waits in vain until he finally has to put it down on a serving table. It becomes a game of “Will They Stop Whatever They are Doing and Come to the Rescue?” and an exercise that is sure to stop most dinner conversation. In between the goings-on with the men in the beige uniforms (and the two woman servers who looked as though they had been hired straight out of junior high school) is Loubet’s culinary outpourings. First, it should be noted that the chef is a practitioner of the new way in the selection and number of dishes in expensive restaurants. I call it the "New Dining quid pro quo" in which the customer pays up for his food and allows the chef to dictate what he or she eats either with expensive fixed “menus”, (at the Moulin they are now 121 and 152 euros) or very expensive “a la carte” dishes, which are offered in fewer number than several years ago and priced to dissuade people from ordering them. In return, the customer receives not just the several small portions of the menu or the two “a la carte” dishes, but half a dozen or more small “amuses gueules”, “entremets” and introductory desserts to sweeten the pot or ease the financial pain. However, there is a self-serving motive to this seeming generosity: The extra dishes are those that can be prepared in advance, or are small versions of other dishes on the menu, and serve the purpose of allowing today’s economy-size kitchen brigades extra time to make the dishes that require meaningful time to prepare. Some of these little dishes showed Loubet at his best. The first two “amuses-gueules” sent the meal off to a flying start. The first was a cold mousse of giroles in a wild fennel sauce that, “a la Adria”, combined warm and cold. Following this was a boudin of conger fish in an herb sauce that the four of us thought was the best small dish of the meal. (Three reasons for whatever lack of specificity in my describing certain dishes-- beyond trying to be good company for my dining companions-- is that the servers unemotionally rattled off the composition of each dish, speeding off so quickly to play catch-up at some other table so as not to give anyone a chance to ask questions or have something repeated; the establishment ignored my two communiques to provide me a copy of the restaurant menu; and it still has the spring menus on its website). Three of us had the plate of warm foie gras and the terrine of foie gras of duck that was part of the 121 euro menu. (My wife ordered the larger portion a la carte). It is a dish that has been available for the past year. Served with a green apple jelly and caramelized rataffia, the dish is otherwise what it is—something that is served in scores of restaurants, though not usually together. The “warm” foie gras was tepid, even after a waiter replaced it after realizing it had been sitting on the serving table too long The other “a la carte” dish was a small piece of langoustine in a sauce of rhubarb that my friend’s wife pronounced as “okay, not great.” The two “menu” takers each received a rouget, the preparation being forgettable, as evidenced by my inability to recall how it was prepared.. Everyone then received a palate cleanser ( “La Pause Provencal Selon Edouard Loubet”) of tomato sorbet in a blanched zucchini that was unappealingly acidic and icy. ( Having experienced the finesse with which Alain Passard handles tomatoes, I found Loubet’s to be crude. It is a throwaway dish that should be thrown away.) The “plats de resistance”, as the French call the main course, were without doubt “pieces de resistances”. These were two meat dishes, one of pork, the other lamb chops, that were as succulent as you could ever hope to have. The “menu” provided discs of pork tender loin in a sauce of wild cumin that were so soft, tender, and delicious that they must have come from a piglet slaughtered at the youngest permissible age. The only criticism was the small amount we received in the menu portion: four slices, each of which was not much larger than a Necco wafer. The two women ordered the spectacular dish my wife and I shared last summer, the “cote d’agneau” smoked in “sarriette” or “poivre d’an’ (Summer savory) that the waiter shows you in its cooking pot surrounded by the herb. (Last summer they presented it smoking; last week, not). Even though it must be ordered by at least two people at 75 euros each, it is worth the splurge since these lamb chops may be the most tender and flavorful that you ever have. Both “menus” include free reign over a large number of cheeses from Provence and elsewhere in France. The number of varietues is large; around 40, I would guess. Whether or not you receive any given cheese in peak condition is the luck of the draw since some had been recently replenished and others, to judge from their cracked rinds and discolored interiors, needed to be. Desserts are not the strong suit of Le Moulin de Lourmarin. The 121 euro menu came with small portions of several desserts including some that were on the "a la carte" menu. One of these was a “millefeuille” of rhubarb with a grapefruit sauce. My wife’s a la carte selection, which she found predictable, was four small pots of “crème brulee”, each made from a different herb. This particular dish was fundamentally a reinterpretation of what Marc Veyrat serves in his restaurant on the Lake of Annecy. In fact, Veyrat’s hand is very much in evidence at the Moulin from the way Loubet has himself photographed wearing a forager’s hat and carrying a basket to collect herbs, to the use of esoteric herbs, spices and vegetables of the region that are grown in Loubet’s garden, to presenting a bevy of small dishes and a large “chariot” of cheeses. Judging from my last meal five years ago “Chez Veyrat”, Loubet’s mentor is a more inventive, skilled and consistent chef who runs his restaurant with solid professionalism and a spirit of generosity. The present state of Le Moulin de Lourmarin is bittersweet. A chef who puts forth the best food in Provence is is own worst enemy.. No one, such as a skilled maitre d’hotel, general manager, or a family member is in evidence to makes her or himself readily available to clients or to troubleshoot immediate problems. It is the most extreme case of a phenomenon I have often seen in the sphere of restaurants and small hotels: the country bumpkin or provincial personality trying to make it in a world of those who are more sophisticated or cosmopolite. Yet, Loubet is a hardly a talent one should avoid at all costs. My recommendation would be to visit Le Moulin de Lourmarin in the off-season (the establishment is closed from late November to mid-December and early January to the end of February), spend the night elsewhere, order “a la carte” (the aforementioned lamb chops would be worthwhile having), allow for a large bill, cross your fingers, and do not expect to be treated as anything more than grist for the proverbial “Moulin”. In the meantime, the hope is that Loubet begins to concern himself more with forgotten clients than with forgotten vegetables.

It was in the late 1980s that the Guide Gault & Millau began trumpeting the culinary talents of the young chef Jacques Chibois, who was then in charge of the cuisine at the Royal Gray restaurant in the Gray Albion Hotel in Cannes. I was fortunate to have a lunch there in the early 1990s, and I have always remembered the meal as being one of the most light and effervescent ones I had ever had. Soon thereafter, Chibois disappeared for what seems like close to three years as he looked for a suitable spot for his own hotel-restaurant. The result is the Bastide Saint-Antoine on the outskirts of Grasse where the kitchen has remained a two-star one for close to ten years. My three meals there have never been bad, nor have they been as good as the one I had at the Royal Gray. While a few dishes pleased me, overall I have never sensed the excitement and the brilliance of my first Chibois meal in Cannes. In fact, I find visiting the Bastide a rather cold and not-embracing experience. Thus, it was with a mixture of skepticism and curiosity that my wife and I went the other evening to Menton to have dinner at the recently opened “Mirazur”, which bills itself as “Le Bistro Contemporain de Jacques Chibois”. We arrived at Mirazur from Italy by way of the upper road from Ventimiglia, as opposed to either the continuation of the coast road or the Menton exit of the Autoroute. No sooner had we passed the now-abandoned border crossing at Menton were we at the restaurant parking lot. I estimated that Chibois’ restaurant was French by about 10 yards. Formerly a “bar de la frontiere” that also was called “Mirazur”, the two-level white concrete structure appeared to be 1970’s Le Corbusier “brut”. Its situation, however, is anything but. From its perch high above the Mediterranean, the diners view the lush vegetation, typified by palm and cypress trees, peculiar to the area between Ventimiglia and the border; the lights of Menton; and the coastline as far as Cap-Martin, a few miles away. Built on a slope, you can enter Mirazur either from the lower entrance where there is a bar, or from the top level where there is a large terrace that works its way around the building and an indoor dining room. When we were there, the terrace tables were all taken while the interior dining room was all but unoccupied. Just as Mirazur virtually has one foot planted in France and the other in Italy, so does it in terms of traditional fine French dining and the international style of new restauration. In the mode of most of today’s new restaurants, Mirazur offers this summer a fixed 60 euro menu called “Tomates et Herbs Fraiches” comprised of an appetizer, fish course, meat course and a dessert. Yet, as if the restaurant had an old-fashion large kitchen brigade, Mirazur puts forth ten appetizers, a dozen main courses, and nine desserts as well as an unspecified vegetarian menu on request. Other than a few dishes that carry a supplement such as the various catches of the day that are roasted and served in olive oil (15 euros extra), each diner chooses an appetizer, main course, and dessert for 40 euros. In other respects, the restaurant is ‘ a la mode”. The wait staff is young and matter-of-fact, but well-informed when questioned.The wine list is mostly French, but with quite a few of its nearly 100 choices being Californian, Australian, Italian and New Zealand. The large majority on the list is low-to-medium priced. The range is 16 euros for a white Cotes de Provence to 160 euros for a 1998 Lynch Bages. About a dozen Champagnes and eight dessert wines are also offered, with a Cristal Roederer ’94 in magnum for 400 Euros and a half-bottle of Villa Pillo, a Vin Santo from Chianti for 80 euros leading the price brigade. Cote d’Azur cuisine in the hands of the right chef at the right restaurant has a certain quality that I have always thought of as “light and bright”.(If I had to guess where stylish Cote d’Azur cuisine started, I would say at the Moulin de Mougins in the hands of Roger Verge more than 30 years ago.) Unlike the rustic, soulful food of some of other regions of France, great Cote d’Azur food glistens and sparkles from olive oil, fresh fish, vegetables (particularly tomatoes and zucchini) and herbs. The dishes are often conceived with a multi-color palette, shiny surfaces, and several main and secondary ingredients cobbled together in “gateaux”, “tians” “terrines” and “fondants”. Although my wife and I had a small percentage of the available dishes, the menu lists some Italian influence with beef carpaccio in pesto oil and a vegetable focaccia; polenta with olives and squid; and a risotto with shellfish, none of which we ordered. As for what we tasted, which was the tomatoes and herb menu and two savory dishes a la carte, we had mixed results. However, there are two kinds of mixed-result meals; one that can tell you that the restaurant in question will never be better than average, and another that strongly suggests there is more interest than with what your palette has met. Mirazur definitely falls into the latter. My wife’s first dish, “Presse de Morue et Jus de Tomates Rafraichi a la Corianre, Crème Glacee a la Moutarde was served in a glass and consisted of three layers. With your spoon, you are meant to do what I call the “Adria Dive”—digging your spoon through to the bottom of the glass and lifting out all the layers: in this instance pressed codfish, tomato juice with coriander, and a cold mustard cream. It was cool and refreshing but overly sweet. The second dish of the menu was roasted Daurade on a bed of zucchini, tomatoes and basil. It offered nothing great, but nothing offensive either. However, the best dish of the menu, if not of the evening was minced rabbit served on a peeled, de-stemmed, and unseeded tomato with a salad of coco beans and confit of tomato, a vinaigrette of tomatoes and juice of pureed chives. The flavors and contrasts of textures and ingredients were worthy of a much more expensive dish at Chibois’ flagship restaurant in Grasse. Her “menu” ended with an interesting, but not memorable dessert of a tomato gazpacho that included the juice of red fruits, goat’s milk sorbet and peppery mint. While my wife’s dinner was a mixed affair, my smaller a la carte style menu was winning. It began with a quail served in quarters accompanied by a side of creamy celery and a salad of almonds and shallots. It was an earthy conception that went down easily. This was followed by a piece of “maigre”, a small fish similar to bar, roasted on a lemon-scented bed of wild fennel heightened with a “jus” of onion and roasted cumin. The fish was impeccably fresh and perfectly cooked and the flavors around the wild fennel perfectly matched. My meal ended with a relatively simple but clever dessert: The famous Menton lemon in four preparations--two scoops of lemon sorbet, a citrusy sour lemon cream, a confit of lemon and two long, wide strips of a lemon meringue biscuit. My instincts tell me that we will be seeing many more of the kind of restaurant Mirazur is as upper-class, luxury dining finds itself with fewer and fewer takers: modern, casual, and offering innovative food at medium-level prices. I look forward to having at least one more meal before this summer is through. In so doing, I hope to reach a more definitive opinion as to just how satisfying it is. In my book, however, Mirazur is off to a promising start.

Steve Shaw: Somewhere in cyberspace I stand corrected. Steve P. I can’t get used to it. Some farmer with a stand outside of Entrevaux charged me 49 euros for a 2-1/2 kilo chicken, a jar of griottes in alcohol and a jar of confitures. (However, I can’t discount that there was possibly some “Here’s an American” premium built into the price). The CD comparison is a good one and supports the kind of behavior I have been discussing. Margaret, let’s see what it is like on your next trip. A friend from New York with whom we had dinner the other night noticed the same large uptick in prices when he bought food in the outdoor markets. I think my documenting the rise in restaurant prices since the publication of the 2002 Guide Michelin, the people whom I have discussed the matter with, and my own sense of the situation clearly demonstrates that something is afoot. I am willing to admit the possibility that price jumps are taking place almost entirely in small, unregulated businesses such as farm stands, and where pricing is more elastic such as in restaurants. I imagine that in the durable goods area, they are not. But as I am writing this for the benefit or enlightenment of those who purchase in France food in some form or another, I can’t help but notice that I am paying significantly more (almost New York City kind of prices now for cheese) for food than when I was here a year ago and in April. Liz, thanks for the quick reply and avoiding having my thread hanging by a thread, so to speak, for a couple of days. It is an interesting story you found. I am wondering though if anyone can verify what a friend told me the other day: that businesses were forbidden to change their price for one month after the day the euro became the sole legal tender. That would have been the period from February 17 to March 17. Cabrales, it is easy to notice that the menu at El Bulli is 115 euros and at comparable restaurants in Paris between 220 and 300 euros.

Margaret, I have checked out a few wine shops recently. The best juice so far is at Caves Taillevent. I wouldn't call them "sympa" exactly, but they have a very good inventory, though not as large as the great NYC or SF stores since they are as ethnocentric as all the other shops. I don't know if they are the cheapest as I have found real bargains comingled with prices close to what one pays in the USA. They will fax you their inventory; at least they did to me. They cover the waterfront in terms of prices. A couple of others have caught my attention in the Guide Pudlo Paris guidebook, but I have not been to them yet.

The expression “The French Paradox” has been used in the past ten years to describe the discovery that the daily consummation of a moderate amount of red wine, as widely practiced in France, lessened the odds of having heart disease. These days, however, the real French paradox appears to be what has happened to prices of certain goods since the mandatory use of the euro. Last month I wrote about what I called “Eurocreep” in the context of restaurant meals. Having now spent additional time in France, I have found that this phantom inflation is highly pervasive at least as what people are charging for food, be they restaurateurs or farmers at the markets. I have even asked some French natives about it, and some say that food prices are as much 30% higher. One example (not a food one) my friend cited was a chain of stores similar to our 69 Cent Stores that changed its name from the “10 Franc Store” to the “Two Euro Store”: a difference of 31%. I am curious to know if anyone has read any reportage about this shocking form of inflation. Also, does anyone have an opinion as to what portents this form of economic behavior may have? What seems most distressing to me is that the French appear to be taking it in stride. There does not seem to be any agitation or protest. Does anyone think that there could be a delayed reaction if the European economy weakens and people finally realize that their household budgets have taken a major inflationary hit? More sinister, is the government turning its back on the situation for fear as to what it means for the fiscal discipline that the Eurozone has adopted?

Has anyone encountered the food-sniffing dogs at JFK baggage claim area or anywhere else in the USA? I asked a handler what the dog's name was, and she said she was forbidden to tell me. The pooch did pick up the scent from the residue of the food I bought to eat during the flight. But has anyone been made to fork over any food purchases as a result of being bitten, so to speak, by one of these dogs? (Beagles seem like the breed of choice).

Gavin, I am glad I can breath a sigh of relief after your meal at the Miramonte. I hate to give anyone a bum steer. I had the lamb dish last summer and enjoyed it as much as you did. We passed up the Villa Fiordaliso, but will now give it a go next time. I would be happy if you posted the menus of both restaurants.

Liz, thanks for the suggestion. The Michelin people are on to eGullet, but how assiduously I have no idea. However, I will send them an e-mail and see if they wish to clarify a rather ambiguous situation.

No. nor would I want to be. Not being able to watch the execution of service, observe life in the dining room, and see what other people are eating takes away a substantial source of the experience of dining in a great restaurant. The chef's table is the worst concept to have come down the fine dining pike in years. It is full of pretense. It reminds me of that old sign you used to see in men's rooms:" Don't throw your cigarette butts in the toilet, you don't pee in the ashtray."

Anil, I am curious to know how you found this out, or was it all over the media and I mised it. That kind of increase is quite staggering without some kind of intervention.

Steve, I am sorry I missed seeing your post until now. For some reason I saw Steve P's. I guess I didn't scroll up enough. Actually I was baiting you to see what you would write!!!!! I was only half-serious about the class action; but perhaps you want to take it on for the members of the class. Seriously, though, what do you think about the Michelin statement,etc.? Two more things: I have a vague recollection that years ago Michelin used to say that establishments in the Guide promised to hold their prices steady until the next year's Guide. I also remember that there were many more establishments that did not give their prices: These were listed in non-bold type. (Does anyone have a collecti0n of old Michelins out there that he or she could consult about this?) Second, is Michelin being misleading by raising expectations on the part of the reader when it publishes its price statement? What do you think? Or anyone else?

Bux, if I didn't see empty tables and a large shortfall of Americans at Arpege, the Chanteclair and Hostellerie Jerome, I would not have taken time to compose these posts and do the simple research (but time-consuming research nonetheless) involved. People apparently are not replacing those who are not going to the better restaurants. It has ramifications not just for your thrice-annual gastronomic excursions to France, but for all that trickles down in both economic levels of dining and dining in the entire Western world. As for the Michelin price policy, the main factor (not that I mean to pat myself on the back) is that no one in my experience ever noticed it in order to attempt to analyze it, as well as try to divine its practical implications. It is an intriguing document worthy of analysis and interpretation.

JD and Bouland, thanks for your perceptive and cogent comments. You are both on the money in what you have written. I would just like to reiterate, if I didn't put it across clearly, that while euro price increases in themselves may not deter an Anglo-Saxon from dining at fancy Paris restaurants, I was baffled to see on-going price rises in restaurants in an environment where there is: A decrease in the purchasing power of the dollar overseas. A fear of flying in light of terrorist activities and the threats of them. A boycott of France by the religious group that partakes ardently in its gastronomy. And a world-wide destruction of wealth (or feeling of wealth) that is causing many miliions of people to rein in their personal travel and entertainment spending.

It seems to me that the operative word in the statement is "maintaining". What about that? I singled out Arpege because they have one printed menu for 300 euros that has to be a recent replacement of the 214 euro menu that no longer exists. (For the record, there is also a 300 euro Chef's Special Menu, but it is obvious that if you ask the chef to prepare you something special or off the cuff, the Michelin statement does not apply.) Bouland is certainly right in the case of a restaurant offering three or four menus at varying prices. However, many restaurants offer two menus, and the prices of each appear to be listed in the guide in the form of two figures separated by a slash. Bux looks like he agrees with my "in-house" lawyer. What I do not fathom, however, is why have Michelin trys to distinguish itself with such a wishy-washy statement. I would like to see Michelin's Delphic Oracle, Derek Brown, chime in on this one. Does anythink we have a class-action suit against thousands of restaurants? And don't forget that this price statement is in every Red Guide regardless of the country.

Margaret, I included La Regelade and A Sousceyrac in my post to illustrate that "good, honest" restaurants are good and honest. I don't think I spelled it out, but that's why they were in there. It is pretty clear that the Ritzy places are the greediest. I also believe that if a chef-restaurateur plays around with prices, people should be concerned since it most likely means he or she (mostly "he's") is messing around with other parts of the restaurant. I believe that the price statement applies more readily to meals than to hotel rooms. It is not customary to hondle over the price of a meal or to ask for a free dish or better menu.

Bux, I would love someone at Michelin to tell us the purpose of the pricing statement. Is it to cover themselves, but from what? No other guidebook has such a statement. What is the user suppose to do if he sees a jump in prices? Does the statement about passing on the costs of increased goods and services apply to the establishments in bold letters? My wife's daughter who is an attorney thinks it is purposely not a rigorous statement so that the establishments will be willing to be listed without possible harm, but that the user feels the guide has his or her interests at heart. The part I put in upper-case letters, however, sure sounds to me that anyone carrying the guide is the beneficiary of a price freeze. Regardless, some of the price changes I saw since the guide was published were a lot more than a seven or eight month increase in goods and services.

Cabrales, some of the price increases are so egregious that they have had to be done with malace aforethought even a few months ahead of the Euro-conversion day. It is hard to know, as I intimated with one or two restaurants in the list, if the jump was from adding a larger "menu" and pricing it higher, or if people were taking advantage of the conversion. It has to be the latter to a much greater extent. The fact of the matter is that some of these chefs have gotten greedy. What is really telling is the continuous raising of prices after Euro Day that I saw in every restaurant but one that I have been to this past month. These restaurants have bumped their heads against limits; they have no room to manuever. They can't raise prices and all they can do know is offer less service or use cheaper products.

On page 20 of the 2002 Guide Michelin for France, the following appears under the heading of “Prices”: Prices quoted are for autumn 2001 and are given in euro (EUR). They apply to high season and are subject to alteration if goods and service costs are revised. The rates include tax and service and no extra charge should appear on your bill, with the possible exception of visitors’ tax (Upper case mine).HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS IN BOLD TYPE HAVE SUPPLIED DETAILS OF ALL THEIR RATES AND HAVE ASSUMED RESPONSIBILITY FOR MAINTAINING THEM FOR ALL TRAVELLERS IN POSSESSION OF THIS GUIDE. I read this in no other way than if one dines anywhere in France (and it is nearly impossible to find a restaurant in the Guide whose name is not in bold type) with their Michelin Guide in hand, a restaurant cannot charge you more for their special lunch menu or any dinner menu that is alluded to in terms of price in the Guide. Does it not mean that if I had ordered the 300 euro menu at Arpege and showed the maitre d’hotel my copy of the Michelin, that he would have been obliged to lop 86 euros off my bill? Does anyone see this Michelin policy as being anything different? Indeed, has anyone used his or her Michelin in this way anywhere in Europe to gain a formerly lower price, be it in a hotel or restaurant?

Before February 17 of this year, the day that the euro became the sole legal tender of France, the media raised the possibility that many businesses would use the changeover to take advantage of consumer confusion and unfamiliarity with the new coin of the realm by using this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to raise prices. When I was briefly in France six weeks after the changeover, I felt a noticeably increase in the prices I was paying for food, both in the markets and in restaurants. Now that I have returned to France for an extended time, the increase in prices, irrespective of the fall in the U.S. dollar, feels more palpable and insidious than ever. To describe this new form of inflation, I coined the expression “Eurocreep. To describe the cheats who engage in it, I modified it slightly to “Eurocreeps.” For us Americans, switching from francs, liras, pesetas, and so forth to euros is relatively easy given the similarity to dollar amounts. For a French person, especially an older one, the transition can be difficult, especially when one has to multiply by 6.5595 to arrive at the precise value in francs. On the shopkeeper level, I think this opportunity is what motivated the rise in prices we felt when shopping at the outdoor food markets.. In the haute-cuisine sector, however, my wife and I suspected that some chefs and restaurateurs, being given the opportunity to change their prices from francs to euros, said to hell with making an exact transition from francs to euros; let’s just make new prices in euros since nobody will know what our old franc prices were. In order to document as best one is able how restaurateurs behaved in terms of prices in the transition from francs to euros, I selected several restaurants in Paris and compared their prices in 2001 in francs in terms of what would have been the price in euros to their 2002 prices in the new currency. To do this, I used this year’s and last year’s Guide Michelin and noted the price of the most expensive “menu”, as this was the only cost that is a constant one, unlike an a la carte meal that varies from diner to diner. For the sake of consistency and as a check, I also noted the price that each restaurant reported to the Guide Gault-Millau. I restricted my survey to well-know Parisian restaurant; all of the three-star establishments except L’Ambroisie, which does not offer a prix-fixe menu, and a few bistros and other restaurants that eGullet members like to go to: 1. Grand Vefour. This three-star restaurant somehow went from 990 francs (150.92 euros) to 221 euros. However, the Guide Gault-Millau lists their most expensive “menu” for 2002 at 178 euros. Who knows what to believe? Did the restaurant up the price considerably or add a more ambitious menu? 2. Carre des Feuillants. A two-star restaurant that kept its “menu” price the same (134 euros) according to Gault-Millau, but raised to 158 euros, according to Michelin. 3. Chez Pauline is a classic bistro without any stars, but frequented by many tourists. It raised its menu from 28.11 euros to 40. 4. A Souseyrac, a well-know bistro serving cuisine of Southwest France virtually held steady, going from 28.20 euros to 30 euros. 5. Helene Darroze, a one-star, actually lowered its top “menu” price from 129.58 to 109.75 euros. 6. Arpege. The three-star restaurant of Alain Passard reported the same 214 top “menu” price to both guidebooks. Wait, however, until you go there. (More about this below). 7. Jules Verne. This two-star restaurant in the Eiffel Tower kept their 2001 110 euro menu unchanged this year. 8. Petrossian, a one-star restaurant, had a 600 franc (91.50 euros) “menu” that jumped to 136 euros in the Michelin, although they reported a price of 53 euros to Gault-Millau. Why would they have done that? 9. Taillevent, the revered-by-Americans three star, seems to understand the economic times. Their “menu” price is unchanged at 130 euros. 10. Lucas-Carton. The classic Art Nouveau restaurant of Alain Senderens upped the ante for its top prix-fixe from 129.58 euros to 229. 11. Alain Ducasse at the Plaza-Athenee. He must count on Americans as he actually lowered his “menu” cost a bit from 259 to 250 euros. 12. Ledoyen. The latest Parisian three-star (this year) raised its “menu” cost from 109.75 euros to 192 (195 in Gault-Millau), but with wine included this year. No doubt there is a “third-star” premium involved. 13. Pierre Gagnaire. The three-star chef may have started thinking about when he went bust in St.-Etienne. His most expensive “menu” price took a nosedive from 366 euros to 215 in the Michelin and 168 in the Gault-Millau. What’s going on? Perhaps he thought over 300 euros for a prix-fixe was no longer a good idea. 14. L’Astrance. Only one star, but the hottest thing going in Paris. In 2001 they reported a 57 euro menu with wine included (not very good wine if my meal there a few weeks ago is an indication). This year they reported 75 euros. But wait until you read further on. 15. Guy Savoy. Along with Ledoyen, a newly-crowned three star in Paris. It posted only a three euro increase in its top “menu (171) to Gault-Millau, but 200 euros to Michelin. Savoy must not have known a third star was coming when he sent his information to Gault-Millau. 16. La Regalade. This revered bistro devoted to food from the Basque region kept its price of 30 euros unchanged. The Eurocreeps may have seemed, on paper at least, busy at work, and as bad as they appear, here’s some more disheartening information gathered fresh from the field. Every restaurant I have been to in the past month, with the exception of La Regalade, has raised its top “menu” price since the publication of the 2002 Guide Michelin. The expensive menu at Arpege is 300 euros, not 214; the “menu surprise” with wine included at L’Astrance is now 90 euros instead of 75. In Nice, Le Chanteclair restaurant at the Hotel Negresco reported a top “menu” price of 90 euros. We paid 115; and the Hostellerie Jerome reported their “menu”(it has only one) at 44 euros when, in fact, they are charging 50 euros. (It almost goes without saying that they raised everything else they serve as well). If I were a journalist being paid by a newspaper or magazine to research this matter, I am sure that every chef I would question about this insidious form of inflation (or price-gouging) would say that they are offering more in their menus than they did last year. I cannot believe this is happening now. Any chef who does it in these conditions (especially with their bread and butter Americans staying home) is a very bad businessman. Should the tourism decline continue, this could be very bad for serious dining in France. It appears that many chefs have painted themselves into a corner by offering less and charging more. Areas in which to cut back seem few. Meanwhile those of us whose lives are completely denominated in dollars are the ones truly getting less for more. However, there may be a short-term remedy whose implications are striking; indeed I can hardly believe that something so obviously placed and so unnoticed or remarked about exists. But if my reading of it is correct (and I see no other way to interpret it), its implications are profound. Now turn to Part III: The Guide Michelin Price Policy: Can It Make Chefs See Red?