The 2016 Michelin guide to restaurants in France was launched at Paris’ Quai d’Orsay yesterday with 600 starred restaurants compared to 609 in last year’s selection, but with 54 new individual stars awarded.
Bordeaux success in Michelin France 2016 guide:
The city of Bordeaux saw three new stars – two to the Robuchon/Magrez restaurant La Grande Maison that opened in December 2014 and one to Gordon Ramsay at Le Pressoir d’Argent just a few months after opening.
Ramsay congratulated his team on Twitter within minutes, pointing out that the success had come ‘in an unbelievably short time’.
Ramsay’s Trianon restaurant in Versailles was downgraded however, dropping down to one star from the two it held in last year’s guide.
On opening La Grande Maison, Robuchon’s stated intention was for three stars, and to receive two within just over a year will be widely seen as a stepping stone towards that achievement.
La Grand’Vigne at Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte’s hotel in Martillac retains its two stars, as does Jean-Luc Rochas’s restaurant at Cordeillan Bages, the hotel owned by the Cazes family of Chateau Lynch Bages.
St-Emilion also saw some welcome recognition for a vineyard restaurant in the form of one Michelin star to Château Troplong Mondot’s Les Belles Perdrix. Chef David Charrier has been at the restaurant since 2013, and was previously at the two-star restaurant Patrick Jeffroy in Carantec in Brittany.
A spokesperson at Troplong Mondot confirmed to Decanter.com that the restaurant was now on its winter break and will be reopening on 11 February, ‘perhaps with a celebration for this success’.
This year’s two new three star restaurants were both in Paris – Alain Ducasse’s restaurant at the Plaza Athénée with chef Romain Meder, and Christian Le Quer’s Le V at the George V hotel.
Of the 380 restaurants that entered the Michelin France guide for the first time in 2016, 100 are in Paris.
The ceremony was overshadowed by the apparent suicide of one of the world’s most celebrated chefs, Benoit Violier, just two months after his three Michelin starred restaurant L’Hotel de Ville in Crissier, Switzerland was named world’s best restaurant.
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