The lights are dimmed when the judges enter the studio, with the television cameras avoiding their faces. They are said to wear hoodies and dark glasses in the production company corridors and they address contestants through one-way mirrors.
These are not the standard arbiters of taste on a reality television cooking show, however. They are no less than the inspectors from the Michelin guide, who have built a formidable reputation for anonymously ranking the world’s best restaurants.
For 125 years, Michelin reviewers have visited restaurants, without identifying who they are, and award hallowed stars to the select few venues that offer “exceptional cuisine”.
Louise Bourrat won the 13th series of Top Chef
Now they are taking part in Top Chef, a French reality television show, at the end of which they say they may offer a star rating to the winner.
The initiative has been described as an “exercise in transparency” by Gwendal Poullennec, the guide’s international director, but it has infuriated some of France’s leading chefs, who have accused Michelin of demeaning itself in the search for publicity.
“With Michelin’s history, I find this ignoble,” said Yves Camdeborde, a Parisian chef.
Gwendal Poullennec, the Michelin Guide’s international director
ALAIN JOCARD/AFP
He said the participation of Michelin inspectors in Top Chef was “disrespectful” towards cooks who “work all their life to get a [Michelin] star. It’s against all the values of this trade. It’s inadmissible to have reached this point for a marketing strategy.”
The programme, a French version of a show broadcast in the US, features 14 young chefs competing for prize money of up to €100,000 and the right to open an restaurant for a few weeks. Five celebrated French chefs are also judging their efforts, as in other seasons.
In the present season, however, there are also a dozen Michelin inspectors, whose anonymity is carefully preserved to protect their identities.
Michelin has stated they may award a star to the winner’s “ephemeral restaurant”, with the rating disappearing when the establishment closes.
For the programme, the presence of Michelin inspectors is seen as a coup that will guarantee its credibility in the eyes of French viewers. For Michelin, it is a way of attracting a younger generation of gastronomes to its website while offsetting accusations that it is out of touch with modern tastes.
Critics, however, have expressed dismay at the tie-up between a guide that they view as the custodian of traditional culinary values and M6, a brash, private channel known for its reality television programmes.
Vincent Favre-Félix, a chef in Annecy in the Alps, announced in March that he was renouncing the Michelin star awarded to his La Cour de l’Abbaye restaurant, in part because “the values … of the guide are not necessarily mine”.
Vincent Favre-Félix hit out at Michelin
He criticised its decision to downgrade the restaurant of Georges Blanc, one of the country’s most illustrious chefs, from three to two stars while “giving a star to a young person who is doing Top Chef. For me, a star is foremost a mark of consistency and quality.”
Michel Sarran, whose restaurant also has a Michelin star and has himself been a judge on Top Chef, agreed. “To obtain a star, we were told that we were judged on our consistency, on the identity of the chef, the quality of the [ingredients], and the techniques.” He suggested that Michelin had dispensed with such criteria in favour of a public relations stunt.
“Is television taking control of the profession? The message is very tough for restaurant owners,” he told Marianne magazine.
Télérama, the French cultural magazine, said Michelin stars were long viewed as the “holy grail” of cuisine awarded after years of hard work, but were in danger of becoming a mere “decoration … won at the end of a television show”.
In a statement posted on its website, Michelin rejected the criticism. It said the Top Chef winner would be judged by its inspectors in the same way as any other restaurant.
“The inspectors will evaluate, thanks to dozens of tastings each, the technical competence of the contestants, their manner of telling their own tales through their dishes over the course of several months. We have created no particular award for Top Chef.”