Top restaurant drops out of Michelin guide as chef hands his three stars back

Sebastien Bras (left) in the kitchen with his father and fellow chef Michel Bras
AFP/Getty Images
Ben Norum30 January 2018

The Michelin guide has allowed a restaurant to remove itself from its pages for the first time in its 118 year history.

Le Suquet restaurant in the rural Aveyron region of southern France, which has held the maximum three-star rating for 18 years, has been dropped from the guide following a high-profile request by its head chef Sebastien Bras, who took over the restaurant from his father a decade ago.

Speaking to AFP last September, the chef argued that the pressures and expectations attached to the accolade were too much.

He said: “This was a beautiful challenge and a source of great satisfaction... but there’s a huge pressure as a result of our three-star status, which we’ve held since 1999. Today, we want to proceed with a free spirit and without stress, to offer a cuisine and service that represents that spirit and our land.”

London restaurants with 2 and 3 Michelin stars

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Responding to the decision, Claire Dorland Clauzel of Michelin told AFP: "It is difficult for us to have a restaurant in the guide which does not wish to be in it.”

She added: “It is the first time we have had a public withdrawal of this sort.”

However Bras is far from the first chef to have expressed a desire to ‘give back’ their Michelin stars.

Marco Pierre White vocally denounced the guide and his accolades, just a few years after becoming the youngest chef ever to achieve three Michelin star status in the early nineties.

More recently, in 2012, Skye Gyngell - who now runs Spring in Somerset House - quit her role as head chef at Petersham Nurseries citing the “curse” of the Michelin star.

She told the Standard at the time: "Since we got the star we've been rammed every single day, which is really hard for such a tiny restaurant. And we've had lots more complaints."

It remains to be seen whether more chefs will wish to follow suit, and if Michelin - having now set a precedent - will be able to stop them.

As it currently stands, there are 70 Michelin starred restaurants in London. See our map and guide to them all here.

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