Michelin and the Deaths of Two French Chefs
On Monday, the 2016 Michelin guide to France was released. The guide rouge, as it is known to the French, is generally considered the country’s gastronomic bible, its foremost arbiter of fine dining. But this year what would ordinarily have been a festive occasion—at least for those restaurants keeping or gaining stars—was overshadowed by terrible news out of Switzerland: Benoît Violier, the French-born chef of Restaurant de l’Hôtel de Ville, which boasts Michelin’s highest rating, three stars, died over the weekend in an apparent suicide. He was forty-four and left a wife and young son. The funeral was today, with fifteen hundred mourners in attendance.