‘The phone started ringing off the hook’: Michelin Guide France’s top honour of 3 stars goes to 35-year-old chef at the first time of asking
- At 35, Fabien Ferré is the newest and youngest chef in France running a three-Michelin-star restaurant, those considered at the zenith of fine dining
- The Michelin Guide France 2024 gives first or extra stars to 62 restaurants in a year when millions of summer Olympic visitors will be looking for places to eat
As France prepares to welcome the world for the summer Olympics in Paris, the nation has dozens of shiny, newly Michelin-starred restaurants to show off – 62 to be exact.
The number of three-Michelin-star restaurants, the zenith of fine dining, in the nation increased to 30; last year it was 29. Two years ago, 31 restaurants held that top number.
One of the newly minted three-Michelin-star restaurants is Le Gabriel at La Reserve Paris near the Champs-Élysées. Chef Jérôme Banctel specialises in dishes with influences from around the world, like lobster cooked on Japanese binchotan charcoal with almond pralines.
The other new three-star spot is La Table du Castellet in Le Castellet in southern France, where chef Fabien Ferré runs the kitchen.
“I’m not so good at speeches, I’m better in the kitchen,” he said at the awards ceremony this week, surrounded by the other three-star restaurant chefs. At 35 years old, he is the youngest in the category.
His inspired cooking features on menus such as “Expression Marine” which might include a dish like mackerel with aloe vera, celery and kiwi.