Monday morning I went to see chef Frerard at my previous restaurant (Les Trois Forts at Sofitel) to get him to sign some papers, and when I told him where I was interning he told me they must be really upset… that’s when I found out that Michelin’s list of restaurants for 2011 had just come out and that le Peron had lost their only star.
I couldn’t start to imagine how the chefs (there are two) must have felt like. Michelin stars are a huge deal in the restaurant world, and losing one can be devastating. I was in shock for the rest of the day, glad that I wasn’t working to witness the effect it might have on the staff. On the other hand, they probably must have had some idea that this would happen. I overheard a conversation about losing the star last week; talk about it was in the air. There are many reasons one might lose a star, and everyone has their idea. Someone mentioned not changing the menu often enough, someone else, that the tables were too close together... I also have my idea.
So yesterday when I came in, it seemed like business as usual, with only the pastry chef asking me if I heard the news. There was only one chef out of the two present, and he didn’t mention a word about it all day. All in all, there was no hysteria or bitterness or even sadness, the staff seemed blaze about the whole deal, some joked about it. Somehow, we had noticeably less clients than the week before.
I'm curious to know why you think the restaurant lost its star... too confidential to share?
ReplyDeleteIn the short time I have worked there, I witnessed one guy almost get fired (the guy I spent my first two weeks working with and whom I almost punched in the face), another one actually get fired, one person resign and a fourth (the pastry chef) who was being replaced without his knowledge. The pastry chef, with whom I got along extremely well, appears to have been too vocal with his criticism of the way the place was run. A classmate sent me an ad seeking a replacement for him, so the next day I asked him if he was leaving and told him I saw the ad – he was not aware of it. I immediately regretted having brought it up, but then realized I was doing him a favor by bringing it to his attention. Later that week he was interviewed on the phone for a new position in a different city; the owner asked him about the loss of the restaurant’s Michelin star, to which he replied: “what do you expect when we are facing the Mediterranean Sea and yet we get frozen fish brought in from Senegal?”
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