Michelin Guide Paris 2011

Everyone will be frantically googling tomorrow the results of France's most well known (and increasingly less relevant food guide) , but here's what's come to pass:

No new three stars. There. Said it.

New two stars: Passage 53 (yay! I told you Guillaume ;) ) and Jean François Piege (open mere months....) and Joel Robuchon's new Atelier Etoile at the Drugstore Elysees (open, again, only a couple of months.......)

Cheers to Frederic Simonin for his first at his namesake restaurant and Les Ambassadeurs for getting back their first with new chef Chistopher Hache. Other new one stars include the relatively off the radar Le Baudelaire (huh?) , Sensing (what??) , Antoine (fish restaurant) and La Fourchette de Printemps (okay..)

And apparently lots of the little tables have been recognized with a total of 601 "bib gourmands" (117 new tables) where one may eat for less than 35€ for a three course meal (29€ outside of the city).

Don't think there'll be many more surprises tomorrow, but then again, we're getting used to it .......

Kudos to Stephane Riss for being first at the jump

My Monocolumn

Here's my little column on MONOCLE magazine's website on the new Michelin guide. Pretty general, but hints at the new Paris culinary zeitgeist.

Passage 53 - one star in the Michelin !!

Actually, I'm taking time out of my no-comment-on-the-Michelin-guide-hiatus to say bravo for giving my favorite restaurant of the year, Passage 53 their first star.

I've been railing on this subject ever since Adeline Grattard told me the guide called her a few weeks ago to tell her of her first one star promotion, believing that Guillaume and Shin deserved it better- for the hard work and transformation they went through, from a "modern bistro" concept, ripping out the bar and changing the decoration to make the dining room more comfortable, giving chef Shin his chance to follow his own culinary path, and just being all around great guys with a totally unique restaurant.

Seeing Jean-Luc Naret there during lunch a few weeks ago (he returned two weeks after for another lunch), and hearing that the inspectors had already come by a number of times gave me a clue, but this was a big surprise. I'm happy to have promoted/supported/been their biggest fan-boy. Congrats!

I predicted it in the above article a few months ago, surprised noone else saw it coming ;)

The other two tables of note, are  Yam T'cha with one star (controversial with many Parisian foodies who think the cuisine is flagging) and La Bigarrade, with two.