Behind the French food scene with Guide GaultMillau
July 14, 2004 - The Santa Fe New Mexican
PARIS—A little more than a year ago, famed French chef Bernard Loiseau took a hit in the GaultMillau restaurant guide and rumors circulated that his top-rank status with the prestigious Michelin Red Guide was on probation. Days later, he committed suicide and some of his colleagues blamed the guides.
As blunt as ever, the 2004 version of the Guide GaultMillau hit store shelves in late winter. What do the guides have to say for themselves? How do their rating systems work and what, if anything, has changed?
The answers won’t come from the traditionally stoic Michelin Red Guide, as its representatives don’t talk to the press. The final word on the rating system is a sparse description in the guide itself. This policy came back to bite Michelin this year when a fired inspector spoke to Le Figaro magazine, alleging that a third of Michelin’s rated restaurants aren’t up to snuff and restaurants aren’t always visited every year.
Guide GaultMillau is less tight-lipped. Its editorial chief, Marc Esquerré, is an appropriate incarnation of a publication that is perceived as more relaxed and trendier than Michelin; in a jacket, rumpled shirt and no tie, Esquerré explains to me why GaultMillau is not feeling guilty about Loiseau’s suicide and what changes have been made as a result of his death.
“We did things last year (for the 2003 guide) in our own, normal way. I don’t see how a score could produce something so dramatic,” he says. “If we had as much power as people think, we’d give a 19 (out of 20) to everybody.”
That said, the change the guide has made is an effort to be in better contact with those who are under near-microscopic scrutiny. “This year, we’ve worked to be more communicative with chefs and their restaurants about how the ratings work at GaultMillau,” Esquerré says. “We’ll tell chefs how it is we came to their rating and why we think it’s so. What won’t change is the clandestine nature of our inspectors.”
Esquerré explains how the guide’s system works to keep up with the ever-changing French restaurant scene.
“There are five sources of information we use to create what appears in the guide,” he says. They include inspectors, correspondents, the restaurant itself, reader comments and the GaultMillau in-house staff.
Inspectors are assigned to visit specific restaurants by GM and are the primary information source for the guide.
This year’s team of 44 stealth diners visited more than 3,000 restaurants and 1,500 hotels.
“They range from students to retired military (personnel) and don’t always stay in the same region,” Esquerré says.
“They have a spending limit depending on the restaurant’s rank and receive a fixed amount for writing up the report. The inspectors don’t do it for the money; at a restaurant with a 12 out of 20 rank, for example, the sum they receive for the work will pay for the inspector and a guest.”
The team of 200 correspondents—mini-inspectors, if you will—inform GM if there are changes at a restaurant. “They keep us up to date if need be,” he says.
The restaurant itself is also part of the loop, sending information such as menus, prices and hours, and verifying questions raised by the inspectors, correspondents or in-house staff. Readers become part of the mix by writing to the guide about their experiences.
“Sometimes it’s just people who were disappointed in a meal, (while) others give us the whole tale of their vacation,” Esquerré says.
Finally, at the editorial offices just outside of Paris, GaultMillau staff takes all this information and crunches it down to one short paragraph.
Dinner with a GM inspector
High-tech geek by day, GaultMillau inspector by night, Hervé X is a sort of Neo in the Matrix of Parisian restaurants. Want to find a romantic restaurant in southwestern Paris that specializes in beef cheeks and serves hot mustard? He’ll know the place.
Monsieur X is the kind of foodie who makes a six-page, single-spaced list of his favorite Paris restaurants for personal use; keeps every French food guide known to man at the foot of his bed; and, er, feeds his restaurant habit by living without a car and renting a tiny apartment.
He’s not hell-bent on shaming chefs into committing suicide; he’s just the kind of guy you want writing your food guide.
Might he also be the kind of person who succumbs to Loiseau-related pressure?
“No,” he says with a serious face. “No changes.”
Monsieur X does explain the pitfalls chefs at the highest reaches face.
“The best restaurants really don’t make much money. The more they invest in themselves, the less profitable they are. Pizza guys make better profit margins than big chefs,” he says.
To make up for the restaurant’s thin margins, a chef will expand his offerings.
Among other things, Loiseau made regular television appearances, had a line of frozen food, invested in lodging on the grounds of his restaurant and opened three Parisian restaurants; he had so much going on that he had a listing on the French stock exchange.
“Once they get to that point,” says Monsieur X, “they probably don’t have much time to elaborate on the menu.”
Indeed, Loiseau hadn’t made a major change to his menu in more than three years, and it is widely perceived that this was the origin of his descent in the guides.
On the other hand, Monsieur X’s heroes tend to be those who labor in the kitchen and spend huge hunks of time creating a single dish.
“When it finally goes out to the first customer, they turn into schoolchildren perching on the sidelines watching the customers’ faces for reactions,” he observes.
French chef Michel Trama, who will receive his third (and highest) star in Michelin’s 2004 guide, confided to the Feb. 15 Dépeche du Dimanche newspaper that “in a good year,” he comes up with a mere 10 new recipes.
Monsieur X’s attention snaps back into the present with the arrival of his steak, which he studies carefully. It’s a delicious-looking cut with baby field mushrooms spread over the top and thick “fries” of polenta.
“Agh! That’s annoying!” he says, surprisingly loudly, as he cuts into it.
The steak is overcooked and Monsieur X looks like a man who just discovered his lover has cheated on him.
Despite this, and a bland risotto appetizer that came out too quickly to be authentically prepared, we share a cured ham and Parmesan wafer appetizer, a duckling with sweet sesame sauce as a main course and some stellar desserts that woo the inspector in the other direction: Unless GaultMillau hears otherwise from its team, the restaurant will hold its 12 out of 20 rank in next year’s guide.
What if the chef is just having a bad night when the inspector visits? That’s not allowed to happen.
“You still pay the same amount to eat there,” Monsieur X says. “What is great about a great restaurant is that every day it’s exactly the same.”
