Sacre bleu cheese!
A French court will rule Tuesday on whether the coveted Michelin Guide must publicly explain step-by-step why it stripped a restaurant of its third star.
Celebrity French chef Marc Veyrat cooked up an unprecedented lawsuit after his La Maison des Bois eatery was demoted in January, a year after securing the industry’s top three-star accolade.
Veyrat, 69, claimed that a Michelin tasting expert mistakenly accused him of a fromage faux pas — using England Cheddar cheese in his souffle instead of France’s traditional Reblochon, Beaufort or Tomme varieties.
“I have a lot of respect for Michelin in France … but they made a mistake in my case, and they need to recognize it,” Veyrat recently told AFP.
He wants to force Michelin to hand over proof that inspectors ate at his — as well as the written notes from their tasting.
The culinary whiz — who rose to fame with his so-called “botanical” cooking, involving wild herbs gathered around his restaurants in his native Haute Savoie region — said the downgrade plunged him into deep depression, for which he is asking a symbolic 1 euro in damages.
Michelin’s lawyers say the chef — who sports a signature wide-brimmed black Savoyard hat and smoke-tinted glasses — is a “narcissistic diva” abusing the legal system.
They are demanding 30,000 euros in damages and compensation.
“It’s a question of respecting the freedom of criticism and opinion in our country,” Michelin’s lawyer, Richard Malka, told AFP last week.
“This freedom cannot disappear just because of the susceptibility of some public figure or another who can legitimately be criticized.”
If the ruling ends up in Veyrat’s favor, “Which critic — food, literary, cinema or other — will still dare to write without seeing his hand tremble?” Malka argued in court last month.
Veyrat’s lawyer, Emmanuel Ravanas, said his client can take the heat — but wants to ensure that “criteria exist and that they have been applied correctly.”
“You don’t have the right to write what ever you want using the excuse of freedom of expression,” he said.
With Post Wires