Two new restaurants awarded three stars in the French Michelin Guide
Last year the French guide included a record 616 restaurants with at least one Michelin star, now a further 54 sites have been added to the list.
A total of 28 restaurants in France now hold the maximum three-star rating, compared to five in the UK.
Chef Marc Veyrat’s alpine restaurant Le Maison des Bois received its third star, three years after it was struck by a fire.
The chalet site, which sits 1650m high and faces the Mont-Blanc, is almost self-sufficient and makes use of local wild produce.
It is the third time Veyrat has won the maximum rating, and is something of a comeback for the chef after he was forced to give up cooking following a skiing accident in 2009.
Renowned fish chef Christophe Bacquie was also awarded a third star for his eponymous restaurant in the Castellet Hotel in the Var region of southeast France.
Chef Sebastian Bras’ former three-star site Le Suquet restaurant has been removed from the red book this year in the first public withdrawal of its kind.
Bras requested to pull out of the listings late last year after admitting to struggling with the pressures that come with the award.
There was good news for Gordon Ramsay after his Bordeaux restaurant Le Pressoir d’Argent maintained its two-star rating. His Au Trianon restaurant at Versailles also kept its one-star status after being downgraded from two stars in 2016.
There were five new two-star restaurants, Au 14 Fevrier in Saint-Armour, L’Hostellerie Jerome in La Turbie, L’Auberge du Pere Bise in Talloires, Takao Takano in Lyon, and Flaveur in Nice.
Fifty new one-star restaurants were announced, with Anthony Lumet of Le Pousse Pied and Guillaume Mombroisse of Sept winning their first stars aged just 27.
