'World's best chef' Benoît Violier found dead

[Liberal_in_LA]

Source: Guardian

The giants of French gastronomy have paid tribute to the French-Swiss chef Benoît Violier, who was found dead at his home on Sunday.

He died of shotgun injuries in what was believed to be a suicide.

Violier, 44, ran the Restaurant de l’Hotel de Ville in Crissier, near Lausanne, which was named the best in the world in December by La Liste. He was due to attend the unveiling of the new Michelin guide in Paris on Monday.

Marc Veyrat, a three-star chef, said he was “destroyed” by news of Violier’s death. “The planet has been orphaned by this exceptional chef,” Veyrat wrote on Twitter.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/01/worlds-best-chef-benoit-violier-found-dead

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Violier’s death came hours before the gastronomic bible Michelin, the oldest European hotel and restaurant guide whose star rating can make or break a restaurant, was due to unveil its 2016 edition.

While a Michelin star can bring glory, the pressure to maintain the rating is intense. A maximum of three are awarded.

In 2003, the competitive world of French cuisine was shocked by the suicide of the three-star chef Bernard Loiseau, 52, who had been distraught about criticism of his restaurant La Côte d’Or in Burgundy, and rumours that he would lose his third star.

[merrily]

2. So sad. If it was really all about a star in one edition, it's a lesson in perspective.

[JI7]

3. very sad. especially if it's over restaurant ratings

With the media today they can build people up and suddenly take them down.

[GreatGazoo]

4. Michelin stars are controversial now

Gordon Ramsay serves reheated meals and has some Michelin stars.

First, we have to acknowledge what Michelin really is. It is not a list of the "best" restaurants in the world and was never designed to be one. It is also not a list of the best chefs or cooks or the most expensive meals, though gaining a Michelin star can do a number on prices since many restaurateurs will, if they can, raise prices.
...
Michelin started as a road atlas for Michelin tire customers. Back then, one star meant "you can safely eat here without getting the runs," two stars meant "if you happen to pass this place do stop and have some food," and three stars simply conveyed "if you're hungry, this one is worth adding twenty miles to your trip and taking a diversion."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/quora/what-does-it-take-to-earn_b_2204599.html

Some have given back their stars to get some freedom:

And yet, according to Fortune, in 2013 chef Julio Biosca returned the Michelin star held by his restaurant, Casa Julio, in Valencia, Spain, not because he’d lost faith in the Michelin rating system but because the star, he felt, meant that he could no longer innovate. He was tired of his complicated tasting menu and he wanted to do something simpler, so he gave back his star. The following year, chef Frederick Dhooge, in East Flanders, Belgium, also returned his star because he wanted to be able to cook simpler food, like fried chicken (not considered a “star-worthy dish”), without his customers’ expecting a grand spectacle at his restaurant, ‘t Huis van Lede. And in 2011, Australian chef Skye Gyngell, of Petersham Nurseries Café, in London, called a star “a curse” because of the high expectations it raises among customers. She gave hers back, too, after diners complained about the dirt floors of her “shabby chic” restaurant.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/09/top-chefs-michelin-stars

Lastly, Anthony Bourdain lays it out:

Bourdain is suspicious of the way stars are awarded. “Michelin is very generous to some chefs with whom they seem to have a prior relationship, and harsh, even punitive, to others,” he says. “It’s like sausage—no one wants to see how the hell it’s made.” Asked about the importance of consistency, Bourdain answers, “It’s funny that you use that word. The French take that shit a lot more seriously than we do. It means something different in France, and particularly in the Michelin-starred-chef world…. There’s no other profession where it’s all about consistency. It’s one thing to do the greatest plate of the greatest piece of fish in New York, but that’s not enough. You have to do it exactly the same, and do it forever.”

Bourdain has had a raffish reputation in the food world ever since the 2000 publication of his lively and iconoclastic best-seller Kitchen Confidential (“never order fish on a Monday”). Michelin’s “principal enterprise,” he’s convinced, “is keeping itself in business and maintaining relevance, assuring another 10 years of chefs kissing its ass…. Now that [also] goes for [the James Beard awards]. What would they be doing without chefs? I see them as essentially a predatory organization—all of them.”

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/09/top-chefs-michelin-stars

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. Thanks for the info. I hope the stress over stars didnt lead to this suicide

[closeupready]

6. The restaurant industry in the US tends to attract diverse personalities,

in part because there really isn't any bar to entry, you get paid money and also (most of the time) free meals. So there's competition for those jobs, that's for sure.

The Food Network and other media spotlights lend a glamorous aura to a job which is, in fact, dirty, demanding, stressful, and physical, and based upon what I know firsthand, it's just a really tough industry. I can't imagine ever encouraging young people to pursue that, knowing what a toll it takes in order to become a success at it.

The people whom I've known who were successful at it had apprenticed in restaurants and bakeries from a VERY young age, and later in life, you bid for contracts to provide prepared foods for airlines, government functions, weddings, etc.

[closeupready]

7. To reply to myself with new info about Violier's suicide: he apparently mentioned

that:

He claimed to have never heard of the La Liste, set up by the French department of foreign affairs as a counterweight to the British-based World's 50 Best Restaurants guide, until AFP contacted him to tell him he that was top of their ranking...

The 44-year-old chef, whose life-long passion for hunting had led him write a 1,000-page encyclopaedia of European game birds, said he was even considering putting his rifle away and taking up photography.

Violier, who had a 12-year-old son, and ran the restaurant with his wife, Brigitte, said he was also toying with idea of teaching cookery.

"The starification of our profession has gone too far. Television has made kids believe that in three months you can be a star. But to be a cook its takes a whole life," he said.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/chef-who-died-in-apparent-suicide-had-worried-his-success-would-not-last-1.2761187

As I said yesterday, given that the bar to entering the food industry is nonexistent, how capable should we expect its workers to be in handling the media spotlight? On some of these shows, like Chopped or Masterchef, the contestants come from disadvantage - poverty, mental illness, or even lives of crime - and get scrutinized on a national level (or even international); it's not surprising that some of them crack, literally, upon losing.