It’s a cheddar meltdown.
Celebrity French chef Marc Veyrat has slapped the coveted Michelin guide with a lawsuit for stripping his restaurant of its third star — claiming he doctored his souffle with cheddar.
The fromage faux pas allegedly occurred at Veyrat’s La Maison des Bois eatery in the French Alps, which was demoted in January, a year after securing the industry’s highest accolade.
“I’ve been dishonored,” Veyrat told France Inter radio on Tuesday. “I saw my team in tears … to have them call you one evening without warning, without anything written down, without anything, to say ‘That’s it, it’s over.'”
The half-baked report came from a Michelin gourmand with an unsophisticated palate, according to Veyrat.
“I put saffron in it, and the gentleman who came thought it was cheddar because it was yellow,” he said on the radio. “That’s what you call knowledge of a place? It’s just crazy.”
Veyrat, 69, who rose to fame with his so-called “botanical” cooking, involving using wild herbs gathered around his restaurants in his native Haute Savoie region, said the downgrade plunged him into deep depression.
“It’s worse than a wound. It’s profoundly offensive. It gave me a depression,” said the culinary whiz, who sports a signature wide-brimmed black Savoyard hat and smoke-tinted glasses.
He has previously won three stars from the prestigious red book for two other restaurants.
Emmanuel Ravanas, Veyrat’s lawyer, told Agence France-Presse that they hope a court will force Michelin to “clarify the exact reasons” justifying its decision to issue La Masion des Bois two stars.
A court hearing has been set for Nov. 27 in Nanterre.
“For decades, Marc Veyrat has been used to having his cooking graded, evaluated and compared, and he knows quite well that you don’t own a star for life … He accepts it all, as long as the criticism is accurate,” Ravanas said.
In a statement, Michelin said it “understands the disappointment for Mr. Veyrat, whose talent no one contests, even if we regret his unreasonable persistence with his accusations.”
“Our first duty is to tell consumers why we have changed our recommendation,” it said. “We will carefully study his demands and respond calmly.”
With Post wires
