Star wars hit gourmet land

PARIS - An unseemly food fight has broken out since France's most prestigious restaurant guide demoted one of the country's oldest, best-known and most exclusive eating places.

The 2006 Michelin Guide Rouge, the annual bible of French gourmets, reduced the 424-year-old Tour d'Argent restaurant in Paris from two stars to one.

The Tour d'Argent, on the left bank of the Seine, is a favourite with visiting Hollywood stars and other super-rich foreigners. Despite its high prices - an average of €300 ($543) a meal, without wine - the restaurant is usually booked out for months in advance.

The Tour d'Argent has reacted furiously to the indignity of losing a second star. (It was already downgraded from three stars to two in 1996.) The restaurant issued a statement saying that it was "surprised" by the decision, which "coincided curiously" with its request to be left out of the 2006 guide.

Jean-Luc Naret, director of the Michelin guide, said that no such request had been received.

"The Tour d'Argent has a very fine dining room but ... we have had more and more comments from clients on the quality of the food," he said.

The restaurant, founded in 1582 on the Quai de La Tournelle, opposite Notre Dame, is celebrated for its "bloody duck", which has been on the menu since 1890. Each duck - caramelised outside and bloody inside - has been numbered. The millionth was cooked three years ago.

Former staff at the 120-seat restaurant blamed its decline on the refusal of its 88-year-old owner, Claude Terrail, to delegate responsibility, despite his nominal retirement. They also said there had been a series of comings and goings among the restaurant's chefs.

The 2006 guide, out next week, is also notable for naming Brittany's first three-star chef, Olivier Roellinger, from Cancale, near Saint-Malo.

M. Roellinger has built up a much admired restaurant in his childhood family home, the "Maisons de Bricourt" in Cancale.

He is celebrated for his original approach to Breton seafood cooking and for using vegetables from his own extensive gardens by the sea.

- INDEPENDENT