Michelin Man Jolts French Food World

February 25, 2004

Michelin Man Jolts French Food World
By ELAINE SCIOLINO

PARIS
THE French culinary world's code of silence cracked like the crust of a
crème brûlée once Pascal Remy started dishing.

For the 16 years that Mr. Remy was a restaurant inspector for the Michelin
guide, the fat red food-lover's bible that bestows stars on France's best
tables, he kept diaries, even as he kept quiet.

When he turned his diaries into a manuscript for a light-hearted book on the
life of a food judge, he said, Michelin struck back. Mr. Remy claims that
Michelin turned down an offer to publish the book itself and offered him a
promotion and a 30 percent raise to suppress it in November, fired him in
December when he refused and has worked behind the scenes to prevent its
publication ever since.

Michelin calls Mr. Remy an extortion artist with a vivid imagination who
demanded money not to publish and was fired for violating the company's
confidentiality rules.

Mr. Remy, 40, has sued Michelin and turned his book, due out in April, into
an insider's tell-all potboiler that he says will accuse his former employer
of favoritism, of cutting corners and of duping readers.

He says that more than a third of the 27 three-star restaurants in the 2004
guide to France retain that ultimate accolade only because they are
considered untouchable, that the guide is manipulated by aggressive
letter-writing campaigns that can make or sabotage a restaurant and that it
is a myth that each restaurant is inspected every year. He said there are
only five full-time inspectors in France, each testing only about 200
restaurants a year, so the time between visits for the nearly 4,000
restaurants in the guide can be 24 to 30 months.

Mr. Remy also says that the only confidentiality rules he ever agreed to
involved tire technology and that Michelin is getting what it deserves.

"Before all this happened, I had no reason to drag down Michelin," Mr. Remy
said in an interview. "But they've put a knife in my back. After 16 years of
service, it's not really fair play."

Mr. Remy said the book will be released at the end of April by a publisher
whose name he would not disclose.

Tall and clean-cut, Mr. Remy doesn't seem like a renegade. But he said
the spirit of excellence that once infused the guides has disappeared. He
spoke longingly of the days when François Michelin, the grand patriarch of
the company who retired two years ago, would laugh when told the guide
wasn't enough of a moneymaker and reply, "It's good for Michelin's image."

Now, Mr. Remy said: "It is no longer a priority to search for the good small
places in the heart of France. The goal is to bring in money. We have to go
to the important places, the big-name restaurants, the big groups, that's
what they say at Michelin now."

Indeed, sitting in the heart of Paris at the newly renovated Café de la
Paix, part of the InterContinental group, Mr. Remy widened his eyes in
horror as a staff member vacuumed the carpet just a few feet away.

"L'Auberge de l'Ill," he said, naming a three-star restaurant in Illhaeusern
in the Haut-Rhin in eastern France. "It's a good restaurant, but you have to
update things a little. It's been exactly the same for 20 years." Similarly,
Mr. Remy named the legendary chef Paul Bocuse as one of the "untouchables,"
adding with a pinch of sarcasm: "I won't even mention Bocuse. We ought to
make him a historic monument."

He said that the Michelin star system has created extremely media-savvy
chefs who wage a major campaign against Michelin if they lose one of their
stars. Referring to Alain Ducasse, probably the best-known French chef in
the world, Mr. Remy said that when he lost a star at his restaurant Louis
XV in Monaco, "he shook heaven and earth and in two years, he got it back."

Mr. Ducasse admitted in a telephone interview that he had lobbied Michelin
to get his third star back after it was withdrawn in 1997 and in 2001. "I
met the Michelin guide management," he said, adding "as I do once a year.
And I told them they would have to give me back the star because the Louis
XV is an excellent restaurant; it's a fabulous machine." Of Mr. Remy, he
said: "I'm surprised that someone can stay 16 years working for a company
and then say bad things about it. It's really surprising to me. You agree
with a system or not."

Périco Legasse, the chief gastronomy writer at the weekly magazine Marianne,
and François Simon, the food critic at Le Figaro, both said the Louis XV is
probably the best restaurant in the guide and never should have lost its
third star.

Michelin, meanwhile, has rejected all of Mr. Remy's charges. "We mustn't
take this out of proportion," said Derek Brown, the head of Michelin's
publications division.

Mr. Brown did not specify how many full-time inspectors there were in
France. But he said that 21 of 70 inspectors who work for Michelin's seven
European guides helped produce the 2004 guide for France, which will appear
on bookshelves on Friday.

As for the charge that a concerted letter-writing campaign can affect a
review, Mr. Brown replied: "We've been doing this for a long time. Our
correspondence teams know what's going on."

Mr. Brown said Michelin receives 50,000 letters a year, and that 80 percent
agree with Michelin's recommendations. He acknowledged that not all of the
restaurants are dined in by a Michelin inspector every year and a spokesman
for Michelin said restaurants are visited on the average of once every 18
months. But a three-star might be visited as often as a dozen times a year,
Mr. Brown said.

Defending the ratings of the three stars, Mr. Brown said that "there would
be little sense in saying a restaurant was worth three stars if it weren't
true, if for no other reason than that the customer would write and tell
us."

Mr. Brown also acknowledged that Mr. Remy was offered a new position and a
raise after his book plans became known, but it was in response to his
request for a transfer. He said Mr. Remy asked for considerably higher
compensation in exchange for not publishing the book.

A terse Michelin press release said of Mr. Remy: "He has tried to use this
manuscript as a bargaining chip, with exorbitant pretensions. We cannot on
principle accept this type of pressure. Mr. Remy has violated his contract
of confidentiality. This is why we have been led to fire Mr. Remy for grave
cause."

Asked about Mr. Remy's performance, Mr. Brown summed it up in one word:
"Competent."

France is a country where well-prepared food is worshiped as passionately as
it is eaten, where winning the best baguette award of the year can make a
baker rich. So Mr. Remy's revelations about a guidebook that has sold 30
million copies in its 104-year history and involves one of the most
secretive corporations in France is big news.

"A tempest in the casseroles," is the way the staid daily Le Monde described
the scandal in a front-page article two weeks ago. Le Figaro's weekend
magazine published a nine-page color spread on restaurant stars that
included a photograph of Mr. Remy hiding behind a mask.

His allegations threaten to lift the lid on the rigidity of the
restaurant-rating system. "There is a fragility to Michelin's investigations
and structure," said Mr. Simon, Le Figaro's food critic for 16 years. "This
situation will do some good. It undercuts the terrifying judgment of the
Michelin."

Mr. Legasse of Marianne echoed that, saying: "There is an occult and
mysterious side to Michelin. Michelin should have just published the diaries
itself."

Jean-Claude Ribaut, the food critic of Le Monde for 15 years, said the
scandal is certain to hurt more than a tiremaker. "Everybody will have a
laugh, from Tokyo to New York," he said. "The French will once more be the
laughingstock. People must wonder, why do the French always destroy their
icons?"

Hélène Fouquet contributed reporting for this article.