The Michelin guide has demoted from three to two stars the tables of Guy Savoy, one of the most famous chefs in the world, and of Rochelais Christopher Coutanceau, announced Monday February 27 to Agence France-Presse (AFP) the guide, who will unveil its 2023 winners in a week.
“These are exceptional restaurants, so you can imagine that these are decisions that are carefully considered, supported by numerous visits from our inspectors throughout the year”, Gwendal Poullennec, the boss of the guide, told AFP. No chef holding three stars, the highest distinction in the world of gastronomy, had been demoted during the 2021 and 2022 vintages, unlike the years 2019 and 2020.
Elected best chef in the world for the sixth time in a row in November, Guy Savoy had held three stars since 2002. Christopher Coutanceau had obtained his third macaron just before the first confinement. Aware of the emotional and economic impact of such an announcement, twenty years after the suicide of chef Bernard Loiseau, the Michelin boss met Christopher Coutanceau on Monday and spoke on the phone with Guy Savoy.
Marc Veyrat demoted in 2019
In total, five demotions were revealed by the guide: the Table de l’Alpaga, in Megève, Jean-Luc Tartarin, in Le Havre, and the restaurant Michel Sarran, in Toulouse, which lost their second star.
If the owner of the guide has never ceased to remind people in recent years that “stars are won every year”, the fact remains that the two previous editions, tinged by the Covid-19 crisis with the closure of restaurants, had not downgraded any three stars, unlike the years 2019 and 2020, during which the chef Marc Veyrat and a restaurant had respectively been downgraded Bocuse, creating a stir within the profession. The 2023 vintage will be unveiled on Monday March 6 in Strasbourg.