Book Notes on Food Guides - Rounds 2 & 3

[fresh_a]

After all the brouhaha concerning the Michelin Guide, this looks to be an interesting read...

[Jonathan Day]

It does look interesting. Translation of a few sentences of the Amazon.com writeup:

This exciting investigation was carried out "from the inside" by culinary professionals; they shed light on the collusions, the power games, the loves and hatreds, the ambivalent relationship between chefs and critics, the importance given to ratings (stars), the methods of gastronomic guides ... in two words, the food business!

The authors state that the French fascination with gastronomy has gone too far: "Of course gastronomy is an art, but today restaurants are the primary medium of entertainment for the French. They ought to know what goes on both in the dining room and the kitchen, even if it isn't all that savoury."

[Bux]

For the moment, I'm just fascinated that they chose to title their book using the English "Food Business." It's probably appropriate in several ways. English is becoming the European business language. See also Felice's post aoubt le Fooding in the Food Events in Paris thread.

[John Talbott]

I thought I would add some more impressions of two recent publications touched on in Michelin, Schadenfreude and Remy. For simplicity and to avoid confusion between subject and verbs, I’ll refer to the author of “Food Business” as the “authors” rather than Olivier Morteau, since as PaulBrussel said, the book is actually written by three food critics. N.B. These are not “book reviews,” but rather “bloc notes;” and whatever errors of translation and misinterpretation occur, they are mine alone not the authors’.

Warning: If you are checking this site just to find out which book to buy for this summer’s trip to France, you’re out of luck, but you can skip all the pedantry and go to the last paragraph of the first review (as you always do) where some hints are given as to whom you can best trust.

“Food Business: La face cachée de la gastronomie française” Éditions Générales First, was published in February 2004 and was written by three food writers who publish under the pseudonym Olivier Morteau. It is an interesting and easy read and I thank PaulBrussel for recommending it.

As I mentioned elsewhere, the first chapter is devoted to an exploration of Bernard Loiseau’s suicide, raising the issue which they explore in greater detail later on – the mostly adversarial relationship between chefs and their critics.

The second chapter starts out with some history. The authors relate how the first critic in France, Grimod de la Reynière, an aristocrat, developed a lot of enemies as soon as he started writing in 1803. He was followed by critiques in revues and newspapers; culminating in the “Michelin”’s adding food comments to its Red Guide, 20 years after it began. By 1953, there were enough food critics to have an association of such individuals. When Gault and Millau burst on the scene in the1960’s, they were largely seen as revolutionary, with predicable results; they were detested by the traditionalists and loved by the new chefs. In this history section, the authors note that throughout the chef/critic wars a basis of criticism of the critics has always been their lack of training, certification, etc., since they are essentially self-proclaimed experts. Another interesting issue concerns what writers write about; for example, the authors quote Jean Miot as differentiating between chroniclers who write-up only restaurants they can speak well of (a style he is supportive of, saying the worst one can do is to be silent) versus the journalist or critic, who calls them as he (usually male in France) sees them, refusing to “lie by omission.” Another contentious issue is whether an anonymous diner is treated less well than a known critic. They retell the stories of disguises worn by G & M and note that even when Christian Millau wore a moustache, he was spotted. Finally, they discuss paying for the meal, summing up the argument by introducing us to a fact of life: when Ducasse invited the press to lunch (free), only Emmanuel Rubin (who heads up the “What’s new” ratings each week in “Pariscope”) and Alexandre Cammas of “Nova” didn’t show. Much of the rest of the 2nd chapter is taken up with the sniping of chefs towards critics, such as their complaint that critics can criticize a single thing they don’t like that may have lasted a minute (an example, the music played while waiting for a table) while the chef works 100% on producing food every day. They sum up the chef’s sentiments that food critics need restaurants to exist but chefs don’t need critics.

The title of the 3rd chapter is “The dictatorship of ‘Michelin,’” which pretty much sums up the chapter. Stars first appeared in1923; Bocuse was the first post-war chef now living to achieve three in 1965. The gain or loss of a star translated into a 30% change in business and those chefs who pushed the limits (Meneau and Lorrain) and lost a star, suffered at the cash register. Word of mouth suggested that the décor, toilets, napery or silverware counted as much as the food and chefs responded to the rumors. The authors give example after example of elevations after changes: Bocuse with toilets, Savoy with renovations, etc. Noticeable to the chefs was the fact that foreigners were and are more responsive to “Michelin”’s ratings than natives. The authors point out several inconsistencies made by the “Michelin;” one chef was sanctioned for misattribution of where products were from but another restaurant kept its stars after the chef left, some chefs get promoted quickly (the Pourcels), others equally well thought of (Bras), wait years, etc. They note that Hiramatsu didn’t even have to wait the normal year, he got his first star 4 months after he opened (that’s even counting the normal time it takes to print the guide once sent to a printer). Stuff such as the aforementioned, pushed by Cammas, Rubin and Crouzet’s attack on the “Michelin” in 2002 as having passed its prime, led to its devaluation. Then came the death of Loiseau and the wait for whether “Michelin” would downgrade it. (Ironically, in my opinion, is the fact that Dominique Loiseau, his wife, argued that nothing had changed and therefor they should retain their stars, but Loiseau prided himself on constantly innovating, changing and pushing the envelope – oh well). Seventy-three pages into their book, the authors first mention the dirty little secret of French restaurant ratings, that the big guys and big hotels spend a lot of money, not just on napkins and flowers but on press agents. Well-known but beautifully told here are the yearly visits that the big chefs make to “Michelin”, described as either on a level of importance of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs’ meeting with his ambassadors at the Quai d’Orsay or as being summoned to the principal’s office (my liberal translation of Loiseau’s statement that “On n’est pas à l’école). While the chefs may poo-poo the importance of the visit publicly, it surely sounds scary. The bottom line of the authors’ argument is that the “Michelin,” by its slowness to reflect change, its obeisance to aristocracy and tradition and its overwhelming power, shapes cuisine rather than honestly reflect it, although the authors can get few chefs to publicly state so. A juicy passage states that the red guide is a cult; with a god (the Director), a dogma (anonymity), a rite (regular visits), and a sacrament (the secrecy). The authors comment that it’s tough when reading the “Michelin” to tell the difference between a nice middling restaurant in the provinces and that run by a young creative chef on the rise. And, in a paragraph that will please most eGulleteers, the authors praise Yves Cambdebord’s independence from the “Michelin” and disregard of their wishes. They also praise Christian Constant and Christophe Chabanel for going against “gastronomic correctness.” The authors note that of the ten 3-star restaurants in Paris, seven are really run by big investor-groups, only two by chefs and one is privately held. The authors are scathing about the red guide’s refusal to indicate how they judge restaurants and especially why they don’t downgrade obviously tired establishments (my translation). They state that the red guide is followed slavishly by Americans and those chefs wishing our custom know this; on the other hand, François Simon says you might as well keep rereading the 2002 guide because the 2003 one is no improvement. While venerables like Daguin say they never once recognized a “Michelin” man, others say it’s easy because they ask for the toilets before the menu and give you advice about the sauces. The authors state acidly that to be an inspector it’s enough to have failed a career in administration. One restaurateur who insisted on anonymity for “fear of reprisal” said that most restaurants are only visited every two years. However, those to be promoted or downgraded are visited “a number of times,” and those with three stars are visited 12-15 times. The authors note that for 35 years there have only been three directors of the red guide (who arbitrate decisions and disputes) but that the newest actually does have hotel school training and he has promised reform and has even initiated a “style book.” Because Pascal Remy’s book “L’inspecteur se met à table” was published after “Food Business” and has spilled the beans about his estimate of the number of inspectors in France, I won’t go over the authors’ math calculations, but they were pretty clever in figuring it out (p. 98). They also dispute “Michelin”’s reputed sales figures calling them inflated.

Chapter 4 recounts the predictable response to 40 years of “Michelin”’s monopoly on food guides given in Chapter 3, pitting Gault & Millau yellow guide against the jolly red giant. G & M’s start was modest in 1962, but by 1970 they had not only begun what would become for years a monthly magazine but an annual guide to rival the “Michelin,” albeit using 4 chefs’ hats and 20 points as maximums. In opposition to “Michelin”’s bare bones “name, address and serial number,” they wrote detailed and flowery (some thought too much so) descriptions of the setting, welcome, plates, and prices. The authors recount again the birth of the “Nouvelle Cuisine,” G & M’s give and take with Guérard, Chapel, Blanc and Senderens, and their respect for using seasonal products, that were not overcooked and were served in reasonable portions. In vast contrast to the inspectors from the “Michelin,” G & M were easily recognizable, made friends with chefs and publicized their standards as the Ten Commandments. The authors repeat what was widely known in the food world even then but less well known by Mr. Average Diner, that “everything could be bought” and that the boundaries between personal and professional roles were blurred, to say the least, but they maintain that G & M were at heart bohemians, so while they played “the game,” they never ripped anyone off. Their description of how G & M parceled out 15-20 regions to “barons” who ran them as protectorates where every restaurant in the area’s inclusion/rating/etc depended on these seigneurs soon became “very dangerous,” territorial and “very perverse.” The authors say if you call “Michelin”’s folks inspectors, G & M’s are “investigators.” Rather than being salaried at the “Michelin,” G & M’s reviewers were freelance or were paid royalties. They quote one champagne owner as saying that some were double agents, serving as both correspondents and wine sellers and at least one made the connection clear to a restaurateur. I must assume the authors’ and their publisher’s lawyers vetted this manuscript before publication because there have been no libel suits, but André Gayot, G & M’s #3 who left G & M “precipitously” for the US to become the publisher of GaultMillau in the “Anglo-Saxon” world comes in for some pretty rough comments (pps. 111-112). [Moderator's Note: Subsequent to the posting of this review, we have been informed by André Gayot that he has not only brought suit, but that on May 11, 2004, The Court of Nanterre (Tribunal de Grande Instance de Nanterre) has ruled that allegations made against M. Gayot were not supported by a serious, comprehensive and objective investigation and that in consequence they were defamatory. Radio France confirms this on their web site where on June 16, 2004, they reported that "The Tribunal has ordered First Editions (the publisher) to pay a provisional sum of EUR 10,000 to André Gayot, as recompense for the damage to his name. The court also ordered the suppression of the incrimating passage in any new edition of the book and for a notice of the court's decision to be placed in any unsold copies."] Also, if you’ve ever wondered how those Gault & Millau labels got on wine bottles and other products at Monoprix, the authors have the answer – they come thanks to a company called “Gault&Millau bis” run by two friends of Gault’s. Starting in 1984 there were trial separations of the two and by 1986 a “divorce.” “This was painful for the two comrades but fatal to Gault & Millau.” They note that the enterprise has been bought and sold several times, each time more catastrophic than the last. One investor apparently bought G&M to further his candidacy for mayoralty of Cannes. (I’m not making this up, see p. 114.) Some readers may recall the period during which the magazine replaced numbers and toques with goofy smiley/grumpy faces; and certain of you may be interested in which prominent politicos (you must remember Dominique de Villepin from his pre-Iraq invasion days) and entrepreneurs (you certainly know Jean-Marie Messier, late of Vivendi) became entangled in this mess, but too much of it is too “inside” to be of wide interest and too painful to detail, although it is more than a bit amusing to read. If you read French and love a good laugh, do read the section between pages 112-120; it surely beats most of what passes for humor these days. As the authors did with the “Michelin,” they performed a bit of math regarding expenses and revenues, numbers of correspondents and restaurants, etc. GM itself reports it only visits every two (goal) to three (probably more real) years and relies (as do “Michelin” and “Routard”) on questionnaires for prices, etc. The authors credit the Internet site of an American newspaper with the discovery that the preparation of the Guide is actually performed by a little company not by GM. However, at present, the authors say that even with its current much diminished distribution (16,000), its quality has improved. The concluding pages of Chapter 4 are sad; the authors try to rescue Gault and Millau’s (the people not the brand) reputation despite the nonsense perpetrated by its subsequent owners over the past fifteen years. They note that Gault at 70 was still an adolescent toodling about town in his new canary yellow Peugeot 406 but that only two chefs (Oger & Le Divellec) showed up at his funeral in July 2000, (despite the semblance of closeness with and to such luminaries as Bocuse, Troigros and Guérard). They end the chapter by quoting José-Marie Espiessac in “le Figaro” who said essentially that all guides have to fiddle with the ratings or they wouldn’t generate the publicity to generate sales. But everyone seems to agree that G&M has a bit to go now to regain its lost credibility.

Chapter 5 concerns itself with the pluses and minuses of reviewing - but in truth reveals few minuses. It begins by saying that it’s well understood that the only chefs who seem unhappy with the guidebooks are those who got bad reviews. The authors entitle one subsection “It takes two to tango” (my translation) and despite the chefs’ statements to the contrary, they play the game too, because they know all too well that reviews bring business, even a 12/20 helps the caisse. As Simon says, nobody forces the chefs to issue you invitations, “comp” you and your guest to meals, give you gifts, slap you on the back, etc. But it works both ways. In the subsection “Press lunches,” they talk of the role of public relations’ firms in handling not only lunches but also weekends at Relais & Chateau’s, wine-tastings and cocktail parties. They come up with the astounding (to me) figure that 2-5 invitations a day are issued to food critics. Not surprisingly, for openings, there are all the trappings of photos, descriptions etc. They note that some critics “hunt” in bands with their “rabatteurs” (you look it up, this is a family website), while others like Pudlowski, work alone. Another staggering number, publicity for Ducasse’s epicerie “Be” in 2002 alone generated some several hundred articles. Lest you think the authors were tough on the red and yellow guides, listen to these quotations (by others) about Pudlowski – he’s a literary critic passing as food critic; he loves silk and palaces; and he’s the perfect mirror of a bourgeois gourmande. They detail his multiple sources of income, his habit of regularly changing publishers, etc. But they also give it to Jean-Luc Petitrenaud, who reviews for at least 5 publications. However, they are complementary to Jean-Pierre Coffe, who doesn’t talk about restaurants, ironically, since he’s one of the rare critics with actual restaurant experience, but rather of produce. Likewise, they like Périco Légasse who largely deals with good produce. At this point, halfway through the book (p. 148), they discuss Claude Lebey (really Claude Jolly), “the godfather” of the profession, who has written, edited, directed, served as an middleman – in short – “done everything, eaten everything, seen everything” in the business. His reputation was secured in the 1970’s when he signed up for the publishing house of Chez Albin everyone from Guérard to Maximin as well as G & M, Pudlowski and Simon. The godfather role apparently stems from his knowledge of everyone and role as headhunter who is able to hook up chefs with restaurants, etc., as if they were soccer players. The two guidebooks that bear his name are thought by the authors though to resemble reference guides more than food guides do. Now over 80, he’s unable to turn away from the game. Then there’s Marc de Champérard, whose “Guide” doesn’t cover anything but good “restaurants de terroir” and who is described as a hedonist. Like the other guides, the authors question the sales figures put out by Champérard’s publisher and note that he gets either not much or indeed bad press outside of a few regional papers. And then they finally get to François Simon, who has been mentioned at least twenty times before and has been quoted by the authors with a fair degree of respect. He is described as the opposite of Champérard and as “inénarrable” (priceless, too funny for words) and bringing a sharp, correct and literary style to gastronomic criticism. Although he wears a mask on TV and prides himself on going to restaurants undetected, he interviews chefs face to face for “Le Figaro” (and thus those guys at least know what he looks like) and he received a Chevalier-ship publicly from ex-minister Catherine Trautman in 1999 in the presence of many chefs including Senderens and Hermé. They note that he also pays his restaurant checks (apparently practically the only critic in France who does). The one zinger the authors aim at Simon is his association with the Zagats, whose guides the authors criticize as not the most reliable. The authors do not escape from the French tendency to love conspiracy theories; they posit the possibility that certain chefs can in essence stuff the ballot box chez Zagat, thus skewing the results. The remainder of this chapter deals with the “secondary” critics, “Bottin” (ex-“Kléber-Colombes”) which tests only a few hundred restaurants a year but claims to get 12,000 letters a year on which they truly judge them (the authors note that Bottin “dangerously” follows the other guides and has never discovered a single restaurant), Jacques Gantié (the Pudlowski of the South)’s column “Saveurs” in Nice-Matin and his “Guide Gantié” (he is described as representing nothing but liking bullfighting, women, cigars and bon vivants) and Roland Escaig’s “Bible” which has no stars, no chefs hats, no forks, etc. In a subsection entitled “Grandeur and décadence,” the authors note that the gastronomic press and guidebook business is in trouble at present: the costs keep going up but revenues from advertising are down; nobody can truly keep a national team of reviewers; thus all the guidebooks rely more and more on the local press. However, since businesses and holiday destinations depend on the guides, regional committees of tourism are forced to support the publications, whether by providing train tickets, cars, hotel rooms, etc. On their part, to create “buzz,” and ultimately sales, the guides increasingly “find” new young chefs who are elevated rapidly to star status. Then there’s the inflation of the pure numbers of places covered. The authors imply that the guides fiddle with the ratings, too, to create “events,” not agreeing with each other’s upping or downing. They condemn one writer (unnamed) for a national daily who is at the same time an author of a guidebook and represents restaurants to the media. Things get so tangled that one press agent noted that one guidebook listed his personal telephone number instead of that of the restaurant he was promoting, but that year he got so few phone calls that he knew that the guidebook was pretty useless. The authors also note that it’s hard for critics and their wives, who are wined and dined by and with the chefs, to write a bad review of the restaurants. More – each year the guidebooks are launched with a champagne buffet costing 75-80 Euros apiece for several hundreds of persons, the bill footed by a champagne company. Another tale – the authors recount that in October 2003, Pudlowski called up a number of chefs and implied that they were being considered for the award of laureate of the year - the hitch, to be chosen, they had to put on a dinner for 400 persons; and apparently only one chef (Jacques Decoret) refused. The authors say that one of the few groups that refuse to play the “buy the critic one or several dinners game” is/are the Costes. You’ll either have to believe me when I say that the authors give a lot of ammunition to those who feel that the food criticism racket in France is just that and the critics are really on the take, or read pages 164 and 165 yourself. Some of the tricks they recount that the critics use are simply juvenile – such as one national journal’s critic’s reputation for reserving a table for three when the critic always dines with only one other person – but wants the extra elbow room. However, the authors note, “sometimes he pays.” Another always eats with some celebrity and several of his or her friends, justifying it as good publicity for the restaurant. This same personage makes sure to have a good cigar with his digestif; spends entire weeks at Relais & Chateau’s; drinks only the finest bottles of wine, etc., etc. Who knows if any of this is true or even true about one person, but it sure sounds like chapter and verse, especially when the authors “explain” this behavior as due to the underpayment of the critics – that’s got to be their public excuse. The chefs on their part excuse their largesse either on simple fear or their pretext that they get valuable advice on dishes from the critics (sure!). The authors also say that a well-known ruse by free-loaders pretending to be critics is to state that you’re a reviewer for some little-known Anglo-Saxon guide, or a confidential one or one that has limited circulation.

Chapter 6 is about all about money and the chefs (as if the rest of the book isn’t). I faced it with some trepidation and I was not disappointed. I guess if you’re a chef or an investor or never read “Burgundy Stars,” you might be curious how much everything costs and what the numbers of covers are, etc. However, luckily, before the authors get to those specifics they give some more current history. The authors attribute many changes in the environment of French cuisine to the “new Cuisine,” among them, chefs becoming creators not executors, moving out of the kitchen into the dining room, and out of the restaurant into the TV studios and magazines. This led to developing and improving their properties, reaching its apex with construction of heliports for the rich and famous. Then they expanded; Vergé, already possessing five stars, moving into the US and Japan; at least 8 others followed. Most recentlycame the annexes, endorsement of products and other lines of business, such as hotels, boutiques, books, etc. Artists were transformed into businessmen, all the while denying their venality, what the authors several times refer to as a code of “omerta.” If asked, “how much do you make?” the response was “art has no price.” Chefs’ salaries “often passed 150,000 Euros.” In working with Casino (the Troigros) and Monoprix (Martin), they not only made more money; they became “showmen.” With all this, they inevitably lost touch with cooking; Ducasse admitted that the majority of chefs have not made a dish in 20 years. The authors only list four chefs (Boyer until he retired, Pacard, Thorel & Passard) who have stuck to their pianos. Apparently chefs’ magazines are replete with ads and/or articles on “industrial” products available to substitute for the actual thing. They do compliment Savoy, Rostang and Dutournier for having smaller bistrots in Paris where you can actually eat well. Not that they’re doing it for charity; Savoy is calculated to make fifteen million Euros a year, of which 2/3rds come from his spin-off’s. The authors conclude that the frozen meals carrying big chefs’ names, purchased in supermarkets, are no better than brand X. Next they discuss the chefs’ books, which have increased in numbers and revenues greatly in five years (in 2003 there were 300 new titles with sales of six million). The more prolific turn out a book a year. Once again, no one admits venality; it’s all to educate the public and fulfill a “passion.” The authors say that in the 1980’s chefs were stars, but in the 1990’s became magazine personalities, often cherished as the French “exception” to the big bad American cultural wolf. As one might expect, sometimes the books are authored by the chefs, sometimes ghostwritten and sometimes written “with” someone. They also note that the books range from being devoted to cooking seasonal products to being devoted to one thing, e.g. olive oil. The authors then write several pages on each of the big guys (not a woman there, until Flora Mikula emerges briefly on p. 218) who have gone from being just a chef to a brand-name; they are not surprisingly: Bocuse, the emperor of Collonges; Loiseau, the king of marketing (NB, the day I wrote this paragraph I received a letter from Mme Loiseau inviting me to Saulieu for a special night, dinner & breakfast for just 225E; his expertise lives!); Guérard, spa man; Robuchon, just plain Joël; Blanc, the first in his town; Ducasse Incorporated; Veyrat, under his hat; the Pourcel twins and others. This is where it got boring for me with more numbers - of revenues, books sold, meals served, etc. - than I needed to know. But for those interested, the numbers are all there on pages 191-212. The last pages of the chapter are devoted to a discussion of the tightening profit margins which they date to Gagniere’s bankruptcy in 1996 in St Etienne, “forcing “ (my interpretation) the chefs to get ever closer in bed with the banks and investors. André Daguin, better known to Americans now as Ariane‘s father than as the former chef in Auch and head of the French restaurateur association, is quoted as saying that the independent chef is currently an “endangered species.” The authors make clear that in the big Parisian hotels, the principal investor/owner calls the shots and the chef is but the “booster.” The authors give numerous sad examples of talented chefs out on the streets due to disagreements with the “management.” They wind up on a positive note, however, stating that Ducasse has discovered the formula for success in picking top rank, well known hotels and writing contracts for his enterprises to his advantage; the investor/owner runs the hotel while Ducasse runs and profits from the restaurant.

Chapter 7 deals largely with the relationship between chefs and others: other chefs, foodies, Freemasons, politicians and TV. Chefs in general are individualists and often snipe at each other rather than cooperate. As only one example, Robuchon is reported by the authors to have said of Ducasse “I’m not like Ducasse who has five or six press agents.….me, I’m busy cooking.” They say that there is currently a real crisis in French cuisine, which was even reflected in the “New York Times'” article of August 10th 2003 suggesting that the innovative cooking was coming nowadays from Spain (e.g. El Bulli) not France. In contrast to the chefs’ wars against each other, they cite Ducasse’s project which involves inviting a young chef from the provinces to cook every two weeks at the Plaza Athénée. The authors then discuss the associations of chefs, which they describe as a little game or translated more liberally “a joke.” Le Divellac says running such a group is like herding cats (my translation of the sense behind his words). Their antics, coming together, then resigning, then splitting up again, are detailed on pages 230-238. Suffice it to say that the authors note that despite the great number of chefs’ organizations (grouped as Master’s, star-holders, Young chefs, the classicists, the modernists, provincialists, etc), their meetings, their courses and their prizes, not one has been truly effective. Then there are the brotherhoods, academies, circles and clubs of foodies, who meet periodically, best known of which is the Club of the 100. There is also much discussion of the link between the big chefs and freemasonry, which I’ve never fully understood anyway, especially why feelings get so heated, so quickly, when the subject is raised in France. The chefs are prominent among Freemason’s Lodges, generally keep a low profile advocated by the organization and only Robuchon advertises his affiliation. The next section deals with the chefs’ relationships with the politicos; from Giscard d’Estang to Chirac and indicates that the federally-supported national council for culinary arts, established by Jacques Lang in 1985, spends 1,500,000 Euros a year and questions - on what? One answer is the new “Harvard University of Cooking” in Reims established to promote such ideals as the French version of “slow food.” And finally, there are the relationships between the chefs and TV chains which go back to the days of Raymond Oliver in the 1950’s but have led to entire channels devoted to food (sound familiar?), all tied to one or more big chefs.

Chapter 8 carries the Franglais version of the book’s English title; e.g. “Le Food biz” and starts right out summing up the message, as: “It’s a business like any other.” The total for the industry is 27.33 billion Euros a year, but restaurant revenues amount to only 300 million Euros a year of that and the big guys (making over 60E a table) represent only 2% of the market. In another way of grasping the difference; there only 50 chefs who are the media darlings but 150,000 in total, working in some161,000 restaurants throughout France. By doing the math, the reader quickly sees that the bulk of business is generated by the likes of Flunch, Buffalo Grill and McDo’s. However, 25% of French people do not eat out at all, because it’s too expensive. The authors say that the traditional restaurants repel customers and imply that unless the gastronomic sector starts to change, it will be drowned out by fast food places and the chains. Ducasse says we must “scale down a bit, we’re not museums.” The next subsection deals with the restaurant chains of all sizes (eight to the hundreds) and types (fast food, brasseries, bistrots and “fine food”) and there’s no way I could list them all. But it suffices to say that while we may think we’re eating in a chef-owned little bistrot, we might be sadly mistaken. In the next subsection, the new sociology of the restaurant, the authors discuss changes in eating habits at present in France; noting that it’s not unlike the situation that exists between high fashion and ready-to-wear clothes. They note that someone can dine at a three-star restaurant for 200E one night and lunch at a Pakistani run sushi bar for 20E the next day; fusion cooking, trendy restaurants and hip places have all eaten into the chefs’ territory. With very different styles, goals and formulae Conran and Ducasse have both been successful. Conran, by attracting “beautiful people” like Madonna and Naomi Campbell pulls in 30 and 40 year olds to fill 750 covers in one restaurant alone. In Paris in 1997 and 1998 the Barfly, Spoon and Lô Sushi places introduced world food in a big way. Big investments (up to 10 million Euros); but big profits too. Now, décor is as, if not more important, than the food (rediscovering a wheel Michelin did a half-century ago). Now the investors hire the designers before the chefs and one no longer talks of restaurants but of places. Mme Loiseau quoted her husband as saying “French cuisine has lost its soul/spirit (both are implied); it’s no longer the chef or the product that counts; it’s the decorator.” And a handful of decorators do nothing but design restaurants. Again, the authors go on and on (pps. 282-283) citing chapter and verse. If that’s not enough, the new guys add disc jockeys and celebrities who are regulars or investors and everyone rocks all the way to the bank. A sad ending to the book, but wait, there’s hope.

The epilogue discusses the future that is hoped for from the incoming generation of new chefs, who are sometimes only young in spirit, who have trained in the great kitchens, who can juggle food and finances, who innovate constantly and who use miso more than wine sauce. The authors give as examples Jacques Decoret (Vichy), Pascal Barbot (L’Astrance) and Gilles Choukroun (Le Café des Délices and now L’Angl’Opera), followed by a list of seven others of whom the ones in Paris are Christophe Beaufront (L’Avant-gout), François Pasteau (L’Épi Dupin) and Nicolas Vagnon (La Table de Lucullus). The authors insist that the revolution of this new generation began in Paris with the “gastro au bistrot,” or “néobistrot,” such as those run by Cambdebord and Constant following this formula: take some far out corner of town (in a gastronomic desert), a nice place that doesn’t cost a fortune, get an outgoing owner who’s the friendly face of the place and top it off with a recognized talent and prices that defy the competition. The symbol of this new breed is the absence of the toque, not because the chefs are unhygienic or aren’t serious about cooking and tradition but because it demystifies their role. They’ve earned their stripes and know what its like to be a flunkey in the kitchen, part of a regimented, dehumanized bunch of employees and they will do their best to break this mould. The authors maintain that these brigades of regimented underlings in the kitchens of the great restaurants resulted in neither the best food nor a respect for products and meanwhile, a lot of baksheesh passed between food purveyors and chefs or their seconds-in-command. The authors say that the new chefs refuse to play this game or maintain the code of “omerta.” They’re better educated, grew up in a more open society and are more open to innovation. They also don’t try to attract the demanding and fussy customers who slavishly follow the “Michelin” or “Gault and Millau.” They quote Nicolas Vagnon (La Table de Lucullus) as refusing the best bistrot award from Lebey because he wouldn’t organize the great buffet described in Chapter 6 and above. And it turns out that he hasn’t suffered financially for sticking to his principles. The new chefs are sure that word of mouth will fill their tables more than TV appearances. So if cooking and chefs can adapt, can reviewers? The authors think so. The new reviewer is more of a journalist, working, reporting, wondering, being curious, shaping, filtering, they say. They simply want to practice their trade honestly and freely, acting as a mirror, not as a shill. They remain anonymous, pay their checks and love food as much as eating it. So, to what should we foodies turn? They mention “Le Figaroscope,” “Nova,” “Zurban,” and “Gambero Rosso” in Italy, as well as the food writers Alexandre Cammas, Julie Andrieu, Emmanuel Rubin, spiritual son of François Simon and maybe Luc Dubanchet, with a new publication “Omnivore.” The authors end the book on a strange and not fully thought out note of hope for change; that is, that the future will not be formed by the mediazation of food, as was the Nouvelle Cuisine, but by the new chefs working together rather than against each other and they imply, that in the future, maybe even the chefs and writers won’t see each other any more as enemies either, since the “media are the motor for French cooking.”

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If you’re interested in another view of who these “new chefs of tomorrow” are, here’s one. The Routard “Petits restos des Grands chefs,” covers almost 200 restaurants of the “c.o.t.” It’s pretty, nicely written and while leaving some new places out (see my Digest) of May 17th where Jean-Claude Ribaut of “Le Monde” complains about their omissions - it does a pretty good job. The pluses are the pictures of restaurants and their interiors; you won’t wander into the wrong place. The minus is that there are no stars or numbers; thus, for example, the hugely over-rated Salon d’Hélène (Darroze) gets the same amount of space as the much mourned (by eGulleteers and others) La Régalade and vastly superior but goofily-named Ze Kitchen Galerie. It will inevitably be compared with “Le petit Lebey des bistrots parisiens” which has 340 restaurants, does give ratings and costs 4.40E less, but in fairness “Lebey" doesn’t cover la France profond and the “Routard” does.

Edited by John Talbott 12/28/04 to eliminate duplicative links and a spelling error.

Edited December 28, 2004 by John Talbott (log)

[Bux]

Whew, and I mean that in the best sense. I might have asked for more paragraph breaks, but there's nothing I would have liked to see left out. It's too much for me to respond to any particular part. I suspect we could start a dozen or more serious threads in reply. I know that as I read your "notes," I kept thinking of threads all over these boards to which I'd like to quote lines or paragraphs of your post. You've done us all a great service here again.

[bleudauvergne]

John, thanks for this! It's next on my list. I'll most likely get a copy this We and read it next week.

[paulbrussel]

Thanks a lot for this excellent saummary!

Last weekend I finished reading this book.

I found it much more interesting then Rémy's book, because it covers a much wider range. (Rémy's book is very nice, but gives almost only a very worthwhile view on living as an inspector for Michelin during 16 years.)

Of course it is in a way, I think, a reply to the article of Lubow in the NYT, which article is mentioned in the book, but the author isn't.

If you follow a bit GaultMillau / Nouveau GaultMillau magazine, you can see many known details. The chapter on chefs and their incomes is e.g. mainly based on an article in this magazine a few years ago.

Anyway, the three authors seem to be very well informed. Their ideas about the future of French cuisine is nevertheless for me heavily influenced by the ideas of Alain Ducasse.

[A Good Critic]

Mr. Talbott recommends Olivier Morteau’s anonymous book “ La face cachée de la gastronomie française”.

Mr.Talbott who does not seem to question the overall content of the book “assumes, says he, that the authors and their publisher’s lawyers vetted this manuscript before publishing because there have been no libel suits, but André Gayot who left “precipitously” for the US to become the publisher of GaultMillau in the Anglo-Saxon world comes in for some pretty rough comments”.

Would Mr.Talbott also read the press he would be aware of the verdict of the Court of Nanterre (Tribunal de Grande Instance de Nanterre).

On May 11, the Court ordered all the books to be recalled and a disclaimer to be inserted stating that the allegations against André Gayot were defamatory and to pay $12,000 €uros ($14,500) to André Gayot. In case of a reprint the text concerning André Gayot must be deleted.

In an interview with Agence France Presse, the publisher said he would abide by the Court decision and that the book would not reprint due to weak sales.

The Court judged that the allegations contained in the book were not supported by a serious, full and objective investigation.

This statement applies to most of the content of the book in which factual errors. can be found at almost every page leading to erroneous and detrimental conclusions.

This mud throwing may be exciting for gullible and distant readers. In reality the mediocre and defamatory pamphlet is a childish plot- immediately brought out by the French press (see Libération dated April 9, 2004) conceived of by three hungry free lancers trying to put themselves on the map of gastronomic journalism. Not telling the reader who they really are- but everyone in the food world knows their identity, after bashing their predecessors, they hail themselves as the rescuers of the modern gastronomy and try by the same token to promote a couple of stodgy collapsing publications

No wonder the public did not bite this gross hook and that the publisher admits in his interview to the Agence France Presse that the sales are weak and that the book is out.

However, considering the dishonesty of the trio of writers, André Gayot is suing the presumed authors of the book in the Criminal Court.

[fresh_a]

I agree with Paul that this is a very interesting and well-informed book. I enjoyed reading it, and believe it was quite successful as I see it in virtually every bookstore in the Paris and Ile de France region.

[John Talbott]

I appreciate the comments made about the "impressions" of the book "Food Business" I originally posted June 2nd after Paul Brussel and Robert Brown asked and/or implied that someone might summarize the book. I think the issue about legal action over defamation of character may represent an interesting "cultural difference" between the situation in the US and France. I have been told by European and French lawyer-friends that as opposed to the US, where fact checkers and lawyers are involved in the pre-publication process of everything from the Washington Post's Watergate series to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, in France such vetting is not normal; rather the process occurs after the fact, and the situation, such as occured in Nanterre, is common. Perhaps someone with legal training and experience in both countries, who like myself but I suspect not all the commentors, has no conflicts-of-interest, could comment. It's also interesting that I purchased the book in France 17 May, a week after the Nanterre judgment, and it surely did have all the André Gayot stuff within with no disclaimers.

Disclosure: I am not nor have I ever been a lawyer. None of the litigants nor defendants are known personally to me. I have only taken two courses in the law and those in the quite distant past.

P.S. However, I do read the newspapers and following up the perhaps totally incorrect (according to A Good Critic) assertions in "Food Business," (I assume including those concerning the past, present and fate of Gault and Millau in Chapter 3), it is interesting to note that Reuters, picked up at the least by both Liberation and Metro, reported Friday, July 9th, that Christian Millau was ordered to take down his 200 square meter villa on the slopes over Saint-Tropez and pay 150,000 Euros, because he had built it on completely unconstructable land with an illegal construction permit. So the story is not over.