Word: chefs
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...selling dreams. We are merchants of happiness," chef Bernard Loiseau once said. The ebullient Loiseau ran one of only 25 restaurants in France awarded three stars by the all-powerful Michelin guide. His Cote d'Or restaurant in Saulieu in Burgundy is a shrine to detail, to perfection on a plate. And like the other markets for dreams and happiness--films, say, or fashion or narcotics--it was a brutal pursuit. Loiseau had not taken a vacation in four years. He had planned one for this winter, but last week another French restaurant guide, GaultMillau, inexplicably reduced his ranking...
...volts"--could have come undone. After all, this was a man who had overcome life's vagaries: with no formal schooling or gourmet pedigree, Loiseau had bought and run four celebrated restaurants. He received France's Legion of Honor in 1995 and three years later became the first chef to take his company public...
...employed as vague accompanists to the rituals of getting born, marrying and dying), France trusts the Michelin to discover The Truth," wrote Rudolph Chelminski, who has documented Loiseau's ascent. In 1966 Alain Zick shot himself in the head after his Paris restaurant lost a Michelin star. When Strasbourg chef Emile Jung lost a star last year, he said, "No words can ease the pain that eats at our hearts and that has killed our spirit...
Still, the sparkle of the three etoiles was not quite enough. "Bernard was pretty much a manic depressive," says Chelminski. He once told a fellow chef he would kill himself if he lost a star. "All these exceptional beings who give you the impression of so much assurance, they are all very fragile," Loiseau's widow Dominique said on television last week. "They all have such strong moments of doubt...
...kill Loiseau, insists Bernard Fabre, his financial director. "All of that is completely false. The restaurants were doing quite well." The guidebooks are denying guilt as well. "It's not a bad score or one less star that killed him," said GaultMillau head Patrick Mayenobe. "This great chef must have had other worries." A Michelin representative would only express sadness at Loiseau's death and confirm that his stars are safe--for this year, at least...