Michelin Guide France 2016: Gordon Ramsay loses Versailles star

Gordon Ramsay has both gained and lost a star in this year’s French Michelin Guide, which saw 54 new stars awarded overall.

The results were announced this morning (Monday) via a press conference which began with a minutes silence to mark the sudden death of chef Benoit Violier, who ran the Restaurant de l'Hotel de Ville in Crissier.

This year’s guide includes two new three star restaurants, 10 new two star sites and 42 restaurants gaining their first star.

Ramsay's Trianon restaurant at Versailles was downgraded to just one star, however his Bordeaux restaurant Le Pressoir d’Argent gained its first star just four months after opening.

The chef quickly took to Twitter to congratulate his team, telling them to enjoy a ‘glass of bubbly after service’.

Three Stars

There were similarly mixed results for Alain Ducasse who was upgraded to three stars for his restaurant at Paris’s Plaza Athénée hotel but stripped of another for his eponymous restaurant at the city’s lavish Le Meurice hotel.

Christian Le Squer was the only other new chef to be awarded three stars for his restaurant Le Cinq at the Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris.

The chef's cooking was described as ‘a shining example of the best of French gastronomy’ by the Michelin Guide’s international director Michael Ellis.

Japanese surge

After taking the top rankings in the 2016 UK Michelin Guide Japanese chefs retained a strong presence on the French list.

Three of the seven new one star restaurants in Paris are run by Japanese chefs: Hideki Nishi’s Neige d’Eté, Ryuji Teshima’s Pages and chef Nakatani’s eponymous site.

London-based Japanese eateries Araki and Umu were the only new UK venues to gain two stars in 2015, after Michelin Guide editor Rebecca Burr hailed the restaurant’s ‘very different style’.

Michelin said its inspectors had noticed a rising number of foreign chefs coming 'from all over the world to train in France before opening their own establishment’.

New faces

A total of 380 restaurants appeared in the Guide for the first time, 100 of which are in Paris.

Twenty-three year old Angelo Ferrigno was the youngest chef to receive his first star at La Maison des Cariatides in Dijon, while 24-year old Jean-Baptiste Lavergne-Morazzani gained a star at La Table du 11 in Versailles.

France now boasts 600 restaurants with Michelin stars, 26 of which are three-starred. A further 82 have two stars, and 492 have one star. 

FULL LIST OF NEW MICHELIN STARS – MICHELIN GUIDE FRANCE 2016

Three stars

Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée, 8th arrondissement, Paris

Le Cinq (Christian Le Squer), 8th arrondissement, Paris

Two stars

La Grande Maison – Joël Robuchon, Bordeaux

JY’S (Jean-Yves Schillinger), Colmar

1920 (Julien Gatillon), Megève

Paloma (Nicolas Decherchi), Mougins

Sylvestre (Sylvestre Wahid), 7th arrondissement, Paris

Le Gabriel (Jérôme Banctel), 8th arrondissement, Paris

Le Grand Restaurant – Jean-François Piège, 8th arrondissement, Paris

L’Abeille (Christophe Moret), 16th arrondissement, Paris

Histoires (Mathieu Pacaud), 16th arrondissement, Paris

Villa René Lalique (Jean-Georges Klein), Wingen-sur-Moder

One star

ALSACE, CHAMPAGNE-ARDENNE, LORRAINE

L’Arnsbourg, Baerenthal

Au Crocodile, Strasbourg

AQUITAINE, LIMOUSIN, POITOU-CHARENTES

Dyades, Massignac

Les Belles Perdrix à Troplong-Mondot, St-Émilion

Le Pressoir d'Argent - Gordon Ramsay, Bordeaux

AUVERGNE, RHÔNE-ALPES

L’Esquisse, Annecy

1217 (Château de Bagnols), Bagnols 

Le Passe-Temps, Lyon 

PRaiRiaL, Lyon 

Le Refuge des Gourmets, Machilly

Le Clocher des Pères, St-Martin-sur-la-Chambre

Raphaël Vionnet, Thonon-les-Bains

Le P’tit Polype (au Chalet Mounier), Venosc - Les Deux-Alpes

BOURGOGNE, FRANCHE-COMTÉ

Le Carmin, Beaune

La Maison des Cariatides, Dijon

BRETAGNE

Les Trois Rochers, Sainte-Marine/Bénodet

La Gouesnière (Maison Tirel Guérin), La Gouesnière

Le Château de Sable, Porspoder

Allium, Quimper

Rackham, Roscoff

CORSE

I Salti, Belgodère

LANGUEDOC-ROUSSILLON, MIDI-PYRÉNÉES

Jérôme Nutile (Le Mas de Boudan), Nîmes

PY-R, Toulouse

La Table des Merville, Toulouse/Castanet-Tolosan

ÎLE-DE-FRANCE

Saturne, 2nd arrondissement, Paris

Nakatani, 7th arrondissement, Paris

Lucas Carton, 8th arrondissement, Paris

Neige d’Été, 15th arrondissement, Paris

Hexagone, 16th arrondissement, Paris

Pages Paris, 16th arrondissement, Paris

La Table du 11, Versailles

NORD-PAS-DE-CALAIS, PICARDIE

La Table (Hôtel Clarance), Lille

La Grignotière, Raismes/Valenciennes

NORMANDIE

La Renaissance, Argentan

Initial, Caen

Manoir de Rétival, Caudebec-en-Caux

PAYS-DE-LA-LOIRE

Le Favre d’Anne, Angers

PROVENCE-ALPES-CÔTE-D’AZUR

La Passagère, Juan-les-Pins

Jan, Nice

Pèir, Gordes

Faventia, Tourrettes

Le Cloître, Forcalquier/Mane