New Michelin guide boasts 2016's best eating places, but launch saddened by suicide

New Michelin guide boasts 2016's best eating places, but launch saddened by suicide
By Robert Hackwill



PARIS: -- The Michelin good food guide, the global gastronome’s bible, has been published on the day the news one of the brightest stars in French cooking, Benoit Violier, had shot himself just days after winning a coveted third Michelin star.

The award helped his restaurant, the Hotel de Ville near Lausanne, to be voted the best in the world, and yet at the height of his fame Violier chose to end it all.

While the Michelin guide publishing day is a big event for chefs hoping they have won a star and can bump up their prices accordingly, Violier’s death overshadowed everything.

“The atmosphere is chastened and sad because of Benoit’s death. Our thoughts are with this wife, his son and the Hotel de Ville staff,” said two-star chef Jean-François Piège.

Several French chefs have had high-profile money worries recently as diners have stayed away and costs have risen, so it may be that Violier had money problems in the ultra-competitive world of fine dining.

Some people were happy on Monday. One of French cuisine’s most famous names, Alain Ducasse, got back a third star taken from him, while Christian Le Squer got his third for his restaurant in the George V hotel in Paris.


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2016-02-02