Foodies' Bible eats humble pie after reviewing scandal

PARIS - The "little red book", the Michelin restaurant guide whose star rating determines the rise and fall of top restaurants, has been plunged into a credibility crisis for the second time in a year.

The Michelin 2005 Red Guide Benelux, which covers restaurants and hotels in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, has been hauled from distribution outlets and sent to the shredder just three days after leaving the printers.

The company withdrew all 50,000 copies of the guide after disclosures that a restaurant in the Belgian port city of Ostend had received a rave review even though it had yet to open for business.

The Ostend Queen, had received the Michelin award of "two forks" and a Bib Gourmand even though the place opened on January 8, after the book had gone to press.

A Bib Gourmand, signifying that a restaurant serves quality meals at moderate prices, is normally awarded after an undercover visit by one of Michelin's inspectors.

The company said the restaurant and hotel guide was being "withdrawn from sale because it contains an error concerning the attribution of a Bib Gourmand".

Michelin admitted that its usual high standards of vetting "had not been respected".

The withdrawal of the guide will cost the company about 300,000 ($551,000).

The disclosure came after Ostend Queen owner Fernand David admitted to Belgium's Le Soir newspaper that he had secured the rating thanks to "good relations" with Pierre Wynants, an established three-star chef, and with Michelin executives.

"They [Michelin] came to see us at Ostend on November 1, 2004 while the restaurant was still just a large building site, and we concluded an agreement to feature in the 2005 edition of the red guide and not to have to wait a year unnecessarily," David said.

Suspicions that behind-the-scenes deals may have been agreed - waiving the reputed nitpicking inspection by undercover foodies - could not have come at a worse moment for Michelin.

Only last year, an inspector was dismissed after claiming that the company had only five restaurant testers to cover all of France.

He also said that, in his view, as many as a third of the 27 top-of-the-range, three-star restaurants in France were overrated.

"There's a myth that the inspector comes each year. In fact, it used to be every two years, and now it's every 3 1/2 years," Pascal Remy, who worked as a Michelin inspector for 16 years, said in a media interview.

His allegations, detailed in a book, The Inspector Sits At The Table, came as a huge shock for those who hold the red book as the pinnacle of culinary judgments.

A review in the Michelin guide can make or break a restaurant's reputation.

In February 2003, one of France's top three-star chefs, Bernard Loiseau, committed suicide after falling in the ratings of the rival GaultMillau guidebook.

His death, just days before the Michelin guide was published, followed speculation that his top Michelin rating was also in danger.

The Michelin company sells about half a million guidebooks to France annually and some 1.2 million European hotel and restaurant guides.

Mainstream restaurant-goers have frequently criticised Michelin for being in pursuit of an elevated food culture.