The XVIIIth century decor of this elegant restaurant, resplendent with gilt-edged mirrors and chandeliers, was once admired by Bonaparte, Victor Hugo, Colette, Malraux and Cocteau. Guy Martin carries on the gourmet tradition of Le Grand Véfour. The restaurant dates back to 1784, and guests dine amid 18th-century gilded decor and delicate hand-painted panels. Past guests include Napoleon and his wife Josephine, as well as writers Victor Hugo, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Colette and Andre Malraux, according to its website.
Martin is something like quicksilver. His head bubbling with projects and ideas.
Chef Martin holder of three Michelin stars since 2000, Guy Martin was also awarded the Legion of Honor in March 2003. Hervé Gaymard, the French minister of agriculture, hailed Guy Martin's cooking which he said brings together "regional and international flavours," noting that it is "touched by classicism while mindful of modernity." It's on that note that we'll move to our table.
The Michelin guide, whose 2008 French edition was published at the begin of March, awarded the culinary accolade to the Restaurant. La Grand Véfour restaurant in Paris loses third Michelin star. We mast don't forget that this restaurant is where Napoleon ate is no longer fit for a king. La Grand Véfour is old Paris institution overlooking the Palais Royal gardens, the only restaurant with the guide's highest ranking to be downgraded in the 2008 edition of the French bible of gastronomy.
Compared to the tumult of some years, there was little movement this time among upper-echelon restaurants in France. The 2008 Michelin guide book for Paris features reviews of 529 restaurants. Only two of them are non-French restaurants. The big winner this year was chef Gérald Passedat, whose Marseille restaurant Le Petit Nice became Marseille’s first-ever Michelin three-star eatery. The chef is a third-generation culinary pro in France. In a reverse image of Le Grand Véfour, Le Petit Nice was the only restaurant in France to be upgraded to three stars this year. And only one establishment, Le Petit Nice in the southern port city of Marseille, was upgraded to three stars. In France, a country known perhaps more than any other for its dining, there are only 26 restaurants holding the coveted three-star Michelin rating. Guy Martin didn't lose any of his talent, but when you have one of the 68 best restaurants in the world, you have to be good every day.
Michelin’s rating designation is serious business in France, where demotion by restaurant guide like Michelin’s “guide rouge” and others such as Guy Millaut have prompted ruined careers and even a suicide. In 2003 one of France’s most celebrated chefs has apparently committed suicide after his flagship restaurant was downgraded in a top restaurant guide. We mast don't forget the tragedy of the great Chef Bernard Loiseau was found dead at his country home, a hunting rifle by his side. His death came a week after the renowned Gault Millau restaurant guide cut its rating for his Burgundy restaurant.
Hopefully this will not be the fate of Guy Martin, the chef at Paris’s 200-year-old Le Grand Véfour, which tumbled from three stars to two in this year’s Michelin ratings. After taking the helm of one of Paris’ oldest and most revered restaurants, located in the historic Palais Royal, Chef Martin finally guided the restaurant from two stars to three in the year 2000. The 2008 Michelin demotion comes as a painful blow, especially since it was the only three-star restaurant in France to be downgraded this year.
Martin would not comment officially on the move by Michelin, but was reported to have told close associates that he feared reprisals by Michelin for his spending less time in the kitchen of Le Grand Véfour to pursue other projects and open other restaurants in Paris, and even one in Boston. the head of the Michelin guides says his secretive inspectors, whose evaluations can make or break chefs' careers, are not - as some might expect - lone rotund men who eat by themselves. 'There are men, women, fat, thin, little.
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