French cuisine standards falling, says restaurant guide head and national tourism promotion chief
- High-end French food is still good, but there are no longer good bistros everywhere and some restaurants are ‘lamentable’, says Philippe Faure
- Faure is the head of dining guide La Liste, and of France’s tourism promotion council
The standard of French cuisine is on the slide, the head of the authoritative La Liste ranking has warned, despite a Paris restaurant being declared the best in the world for the third year running.
Beyond the top gastronomic hot spots, the level of cooking was sometimes “lamentable”, said Philippe Faure, a former French ambassador who also heads the country’s tourism promotion council.
“Thirty or 40 years ago you could cross the country, stopping randomly every 20 kilometres and eat very well; there were good bistros everywhere. But that is no longer the case,” he said.
“Without using a guide you can now eat better in Switzerland, Spain and Italy,” he added, when it used to be “the other way around”.
Faure said that while high-end French gastronomy was thriving – with Restaurant Guy Savoy in Paris ranked the best in the world alongside French-born Eric Ripert’s Le Bernardin in New York – it has “not succeeded in pulling up the rest”.
