- Title: FRANCE: Three-star Michelin chef gives up his stars and goes back to basics
- Date: 12th December 2008
- Summary: MAGAZINE COVER ON WALL OF RUBIN'S OFFICE, FRENCH HEADLINE OF 100 BEST RESTAURANTS IN THE WORLD
- Embargoed: 27th December 2008 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- Country: France
- Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVA9KC7KL6B96XTG1JAC82VW1YH8
- Story Text: After a quarter century in the Michelin guidebook, a three-star French chef decides to leave the limelight and go back to cooking for pleasure.
Cancale. A sleepy town on France's Brittany coast, mostly known for its oysters and for Olivier Roellinger's Relais Gourmand, the region's only three-star Michelin restaurant. Last month the 53-year-old Roellinger shocked the gastronomy world by announcing that he was closing his restaurant definitively on December 15.
The Relais Gourmand began as a modest guest house and restaurant in Roellinger's childhood home in 1982. Thanks to the chef's skilful marriage of local seafood and South Asian spices, the restaurant earned a Michelin star in 1984, and a second in 1988.
"We obtained the third star in 2006, which was marvellously satisfying. I was 50 years old, and already had physical problems, a leg problem, and I knew that I wasn't going to be able to continue for very long.
But I said to myself, I need to hang on for at least three years. I held on for three years, and today, it would not be reasonable for me to continue to cook, to be on my feet in front of my piano, so to speak, for close to eight hours a day," Roellinger told Reuters Television.
The chef's physical problems stem from a random 1976 attack in Cancale by a gang of youths who beat him with iron bars and left him for dead.
Roellinger spent the following two years recovering, and then launched his career as a chef.
The Relais Gourmand is located in a house that once belonged to 18th century ship owners who brought spices from the East Indies to the nearby port town of Saint Malo. The chef is a passionate student of his region's seafaring history, and has combined local seafood with exotic Asian spices to create his refreshingly original culinary style.
Roellinger runs his kitchen like a ship: all crew members at their respective posts and the chef at the helm, singing out commands which are promptly and efficiently executed. No visible signs of the stress involved in preparing and serving impeccable plates of food. The kind of perfection that keeps the Michelin stars on the front door and fanatically devoted diners in the chairs.
"Personally, and truthfully, I have come today to eat in this restaurant for the last time," said Anne Lardeur, who came nearly 400 kilometres (250 miles) from Paris with her companions.
The Relais Gourmand will close, but Roellinger will continue to operate other eateries and shops in his local culinary empire.
"We are not sad, because we know that we will share other moments [with Olivier Roellinger] in other circumstances. We can take cooking courses with him, or share in his passion for spices, or just come to Cancale,"
said Katrine Bienvenu, another diner who made the trek from Paris.
Roellinger's physical discomfort is plain to see at the end of the evening dinner service.
"I really feel that physically, I cannot continue. It is the same sort of physical problem faced by a mountain climbing guide or a boat skipper.
At some point you tell yourself that it is time to find a new way to stay in the game," he said.
Other three-star chefs have thrown in the towel in recent years, and there is growing talk that the excessive pressure of measuring up to Michelin standards is forcing great chefs out of their kitchens.
"I believe that Roellinger is giving up his three stars because he is tired. Tired of the high level, tired of being like a high-performance athlete, tired of putting himself on the line twice a day," said Emmanuel Rubin, a French food critic and author of culinary guide books.
"Running a three-star Michelin restaurant is like scoring 20 out of 20. That means perfection, more than perfection. It is obvious that in order to maintain that level of perfection, you need to have huge talent and above all, an enormous capacity for work," said Rubin.
Still other top chefs have kept their stars and all the prestige that goes with them while delegating the day-to-day work to underlings. But that is not Roellinger's style.
"I am not comfortable with the idea of being responsible for serving three-star cuisine and letting someone else do the work. That is not me. It would make me feel dishonest. I have never been at a family dinner, I missed my kids' first communion ceremonies... I do not even know what they are. I was in front of my stove, and not with my family. I owe it to myself [to close the restaurant]," said Roellinger.
The chef will continue to create new dishes and offer his classics at Le Coquillage, a bistro restaurant in his "Maisons de Bricourt"
empire which also includes a cooking school, spice shop, bed-and-breakfast, and a bakery. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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