Should chefs be taking the guidebooks this seriously?

25 March 2003 by
Should chefs be taking the guidebooks this seriously?

Last week the restaurant fraternity was turned upside down by the devastating news that Bernard Loiseau, one of France's most celebrated chefs, had shot himself.

The fact that Loiseau committed suicide, to anyone who knew him, is incomprehensible in itself. Within hours of his death, press reports across the globe suggested that Loiseau had killed himself because his restaurant, the three-Michelin-starred Côte d'Or in Saulieu, Burgundy, had been downgraded from 19 to 17 out of 20 in the GaultMillau guide. But debate continues as to why he took his life, including speculation about financial pressures.

The true reasons for Loiseau's death will possibly never come to light. But the association between it and the demotion of his restaurant will probably stay in chef folklore.

There is no doubt that the impact of a restaurant or guidebook review and rating on a chef can be massive. But if the early reports do turn out to be true, does this recent event highlight the fact that some chefs have the role of these publications completely out of proportion?

"We are personally affected and emotionally affected when we receive bad press," says Gordon Ramsay. "But it happens all the time and you have to take it on broad shoulders."

Despite protestations in the French national press by the likes of culinary legend Paul Bocuse that "GaultMillau killed Loiseau", Ramsay refuses to blame the guidebooks and the critics. "For me, it's not the pressure of the guidebooks or restaurant critics, it's the pressure of being a businessman. The clear problem here is when chefs stop cooking and become businessmen. We're not businessmen and we need to employ the right people with the right skills to direct the companies for us. That's why I have a CEO.

"Alain Ducasse illustrated that you can lose a star and win it back, but when you get to a stage where you don't have to cook any longer and you become an entrepreneur and float your company, you're putting more pressure on yourself than having three Michelin stars," adds Ramsay.

David Young, former chief hotels inspector at the AA hotels and restaurants guides, also defends the guidebooks. He maintains that a disappointing entry alone should not be enough to turn a chef's world into turmoil.

"When this happens, the guidebooks immediately get the blame, but it's usually just the straw that broke the camel's back," he says. "There are often more fundamental problems."

An inspector of 18 years, Young often considered the impact of his inspections and subsequent reports, but ultimately felt that he could not be emotionally responsible for the wellbeing of a chef or restaurateur. "You cannot worry about what a recommendation is going to do to someone. I think that where critics in general and guides do have a responsibility, however, is to be even-handed and fair."

Having just taken over the running of the Cross, a restaurant with rooms in Kingussie, Inverness-shire, Young says he can now look at the situation dispassionately. "As a hotelier and a restaurateur, guidebooks are important, but you have to put them into perspective. Certainly, they can help bring business in, but the suggestion that someone might take their own life because of them is ridiculous."

But Paul Kitching, who runs his one-Michelin-starred restaurant Juniper in Altrincham, Greater Manchester, points out that when a chef's whole life revolves around the kitchen, his perspective can go out of kilter.

While Kitching has been in awe of guidebooks for most of his career, he feels that in the past year or two he has become more relaxed about them. "They used to frighten the life out of me, but the more confident you get, the more you feel ‘this is what we serve, if you don't like it, tough'." He admits, however, that gaining a second star is pretty high on his wish-list. "It's very important for me to get the second star. I want people in Belgium or wherever to know that I'm in there. To have that feeling is vital. It's a mark of quality, a standard that Michelin set."

The date of the guide's publication in January allows him to have an enjoyable Christmas Day, says Kitching. But by Boxing Day he is already "obsessing" about it. "It's insecurity, isn't it? You spend your life doing absolutely nothing except cooking and being in a kitchen. I'd be nothing without the cooking. And when people come into the restaurant I'd like them to get me, get my cooking, get my soul."

Insecurity is a word many chefs use. In an article written by Marco Pierre White in the wake of Loiseau's death in The Guardian last week, he admitted: "Chefs shouldn't put so much importance on the guides. It's the ego of the chefs, after all, that gives the Michelin guide such prestige and status. I was certainly guilty of that: a lot of what I did was driven by my ego and my insecurity."

So from where does this insecurity stem? For some it's a troubled childhood, which escalates into a determination to prove something to their parents, their siblings or colleagues. "You've got the inspectors," says Ramsay, "and your customers are your critics, too. But you know who's the biggest critic of them all? Yourself."

Wherever the insecurity hails from, the fact that cooking incites feedback from customers only fans the flames. "It's addictive," comments one leading chef. "The better you become as a chef, the more praise you receive. You get to a stage where you're getting several compliments a day. The more hits you have, the more obsessed you become with seeking people's approval - from the people around you in the kitchen, your customers, the guides."

According to Simon Wright, former editor of the AA Restaurant Guide, insecurity among chefs occurs because, by the nature of cooking, chefs must reveal themselves. "You have to give more of yourself in this industry than possibly any other. You are producing something on a plate that is a reflection of you. You are almost naked in that respect, so you are very open to being hurt and we need to recognise that in chefs.

Enormous pressure "You also have to add to that the intensity of the kitchen, the adrenalin thing," he says. "It's almost unlike any other profession. The pressure on service is enormous, so there is a huge desire to see a reward for that."

When Kitching learnt in January that he hadn't received a second star, he says he was mortified. "It's like taking your driving test and being told you didn't pass. There's an awful emptiness inside your heart. Last year it took me a couple of months to get over it. This year I was back to normal within days."

Marcus Wareing has long been tipped for a second Michelin star at his London restaurant Pétrus. He, too, describes the longing for it as an obsession. "I'd wake up every morning worrying about who's going to be in the kitchen and how we're going to maintain standards," he said. But when the guide overlooked him for promotion in January, he felt, for the first time, that he could deal with it.

"I feel the guide has rules and regulations and anyone who goes outside those regulations doesn't move in status," he says. "But the day I learnt that I hadn't got two stars this year, I changed my focus. If I'd carried on having that much anxiety I knew it would lead to a heart attack. I still want two stars, even three stars one day, but I'm focusing on taking my business forward, and that turns me on like you would not believe."

The lessons to be learnt from this sad event, says Wright, are twofold: it is never a healthy situation to cook for guidebooks - what's important is running a successful business, making good food and satisfying customers; and guidebooks must be scrupulous. "What happened last week emphasises the weight of their responsibility. My experience is that not everybody involved in guidebooks understands that. That's why I don't work for them any more and that's why David Young doesn't work for them any more."

Loiseau certainly craved recognition and appreciation. Michael Caines, chef-director of Gidleigh Park in Chagford, Devon, and a holder of two Michelin stars, worked for Loiseau for 18 months during his formative years. "He lived on being loved by the media," says Caines. "But while he was a leader in many things, he was under extreme pressure. In this industry, the pressure is unseen by a lot of people. They don't realise how much a personal swipe by a journalist hurts. It's lonely at the top."
Additional research by Joanna Wood
Praise or politics?
Marcus Wareing, chef-patron of London's Pétrus, knows better than anyone the disappointment guides can bring. Last July he learnt from the then AA Restaurant Guide editor, Simon Wright, that in spite of the fact that senior inspectors at the organisation had recommended him for five AA rosettes (their ultimate accolade), due to internal politics Wareing would not be receiving them. Wright resigned from his position as a result. However, the decision was later overturned and, in September, Wareing's became one of only six restaurants in Britain and Ireland to hold five rosettes.

Learning of Loiseau's death took Wright back to that conversation with Wareing. "The news of Loiseau sent a shiver down my spine and brought home to me the seriousness of what happened with me, Marcus and the AA. I know Michelin is held in higher esteem, but when I gave Marcus the news, I know I really winded him. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I had to lie down after my conversation with him."

Wright is well aware that guidebooks are produced for the public, not chefs, but that did not stop him from taking his role as editor seriously. "I always worried about accuracy, how thorough the guide was, how thorough the inspection was. What has happened with Loiseau serves to highlight that running a restaurant is no joke. During the whole Marcus episode, many people said to me that it was not a life-or-death situation - that's so relevant now."

Even former Times restaurant critic Jonathan Meades admits that when he used to review a place that was really bad, he would not write about it if it was small. "I tended to think that I would put them out of business," he says.

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