Arnaud Lallement joins exclusive club of restaurants with three Michelin stars

A chef from France's Champagne region whose restaurant offers 600 of the sparkling wines has been admitted into the exclusive club of establishments with three Michelin stars.

Arnaud Lallement, of the family-run L'Assiette Champenoise near Reims, received a standing ovation from his fellow three-star chefs at a ceremony in Paris.

The chef was the only addition to the top ranking in this year's Michelin Guide, gastronomy's bible and restaurant-reviewing institution, which praised him for his use of "ingredients of exceptional quality" and "recipes full of character".

Lallement, 39, said his first reaction was to think of his father, Jean-Pierre, who died at the age of 50 in 2002.

His father opened a restaurant near Reims in the Champagne heartland of northeastern France in 1975 before moving in 1987 to the table now run by his son at Tinqueux.

The restaurant is still very much a family affair, with his wife working in the eatery and his mother and sister in a hotel that is also part of the family business.

And in a tribute to his father, blue lobster is never off the menu. The dish was one of his father's signatures and Lallement likes to reinterpret it regularly.