28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Pressures of Being the Premier Master Chef in France, May 22, 2005
This review is from: The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine (Hardcover)
The cutthroat atmosphere of haute cuisine in France has been depicted by author Rudolph Chelminski with penetrating detail in his incisive study of one sad casualty, master chef Bernard Loiseau, the suicidal result of his own Machiavellian calamity. Just in his early fifties, Loiseau shot himself in the head in early 2003, after he sensed his reputation starting to slide. The esteemed Guide Gault-Millet downgraded his classic Burgundy restaurant La Cote d'Or in 2002, awarding it 17 out of 20, a significant and unprecedented drop of two points from its previous rating, and rumor had it that Michelin was thinking of stripping Loiseau of his third star. While this may seem trivial to the layman, this was tantamount to banishment from France, a cultural and professional distinction that Chelminski acutely explores in the rarified culinary world there.
Loiseau's career is the foundation of Chelminski's exhaustive and often entertaining book, as we follow his ascension from kitchen apprentice to award-winning chef amid the pressures of maintaining those Michelin stars and even more unrealistically, Loiseau's quest for culinary perfection. It was this stress combined with what was diagnosed as bi-polar disorder (unbeknownst to the public) that led to his suicide. Throughout the late 1980's and the 1990's, Loiseau's developed and mastered a style of cooking called "cuisine d'essences", which was a response to the prevailing climate of health consciousness. He was media-savvy and became a fashionable figure for a time. But times changed, and he was unwilling or unable to change with them. A new generation of chefs had emerged in the early 21st century, and novelty combinations replaced what was perceived as the lackluster concoctions of old-timers. Instead, they were striving to emulate the surrealist, laboratory-inspired inventions of the emerging Catalan chef Ferran Adria. As the author makes clear, Loiseau was simply not capable of adapting his approach, but what's worse, he could not come to terms with no longer being top dog.
Chelminski shows Loiseau's determination to reach the top was tinged with palpable desperation. He had to be the best or nothing in his narrowly focused mind, and he became his own worst enemy. Paranoia set in, and his nervous questioning of those around him set off a damaging chain of murmurs that eventually surfaced in the press. The truth deflated him to no end. Chelminski examines the effects of mental illness and seriously questions whether it is a prerequisite for being the top in anyone's chosen field. La Cote d'Or was open 364 days a year, and Loiseau hardly ever missed a service working fifteen-hour days for more than thirty years. Such monomaniacal behavior would appear to reflect a deep-seeded insecurity masked by a supreme ego and buoyed up by an adoring kitchen staff. Loiseau's innate connection with his restaurant was the model of psychological co-dependency, so much so that when he left La Cote d'Or to open a restaurant in Japan, he had a mental breakdown. In the final months of his life, he started to accept that he wasn't the best, and he must have believed death and perhaps an early legacy were his only options.
This entertaining book works on several levels. Chelminski provides a thorough history of 20th century French Cuisine, in particular, describing the rise of the name food critics' importance in the making of young stars in France. The book is also a morality tale about the lure of fame and the downfall of obsession. It's also a probing study on the effects of mental illness on one's increasingly warped perception of reality. In fact, there are so many different subtexts and themes that ultimately we are left with little doubt that a man so adored by the French culinary world would take his own life. Chelminski's book makes a fine reading complement to Ruth Reichl's recent book about being the New York Times food critic, "Garlic and Sapphires", and Anthony Boudrain's more acerbically funny take on the restaurant business, "Kitchen Confidential".
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24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Flawed Perfectionist, September 6, 2005
This review is from: The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine (Hardcover)
Two recent books about megalomaniacs: genial, larger-than-life luminaries of the food and wine world, Robert Parker, the American wine critic, and Bernard Loiseau, the French chef. They both tell of youthful talent that became increasingly ambitious as it ripened. Parker, the most powerful individual in the wine industry, ultimately claimed virtual infallibility; Loiseau, anointed with three Michelin stars but beset with doubts, ultimately committed suicide.
The Perfectionist is the saga of Bernard Loiseau, big, outwardly gregarious and confident, inwardly shy and insecure, whose traveling salesman father apprentices him, as a teenager, to the chef at his favorite restaurant. As it happens, while young Bernard is flailing away at his first kitchen tasks, the Michelin guide awards the restaurant three stars. Bernard, who's a competent though not exceptional cook, is awestruck: winning those three stars for himself become his life's obsession.
Bernard is fortunate to find a patron who sets him up at a country inn, the famous Côte d'Or in Saulieu, a once-thriving market town in northern Burgundy now bypassed by the autoroute. No matter: Bernard settles in for the long haul. He assembles a talented team for his kitchen and dining room, he courts the Parisian press, he develops a network of local suppliers. He's unlucky in love (his first wife cheats on him with the maitre d'hôtel) but has a knack for the restaurant business (food journalists adore him); he wins back a Michelin star for venerable auberge, then two.
Now, as Bernard puts it, the trouble with success in the restaurant world is, "C'est jamais gagné." The battle's never over. First you strive for ten or twenty years to reach the top. It's not like training for the Olympics, where a single perfect routine wins you the gold medal; you've got to score a ten every day, twice a day. But then, after you've won, you panic even more: now that you've been given those stars, what if they take them away?
And poor Bernard, though happily married to his second wife, was bipolar. Mostly manic: that was the perfectionist his staff knew, the outgoing giant the adored by the media and the public.
(He was ebulliant, too, when I met him in Saulieu in the fall of 1998, eager to discuss his plans for a new bistro in Paris--eventually three--and an unprecendented plan to raise money by being listed on the Paris stock exchange.)
Then third Michelin star came along, and it seemed Bernard could do no wrong. But the tentacles of darkness were stronger than anyone knew.
A slight slip in one of the guidebooks, a rumor that his third Michelin star was in jeopardy, a change in the culinary fashion dictated by Paris critics: it all took its toll on Bernard.
His manic-depressive disorder--easy to diagnose in retrospect--was never treated. The right medications, it's assumed, could have saved him from his private demons. Instead he succumbed.
Rudolph Chelminsky, a keenly observant foreign correspondent, had already written one of the liveliest books about gastronomy, The French At Table, some 20 years ago. This longevity--critical to professional acceptance in France--and his deep understanding of French culinary history gave him unprecedented access to all the actors in this drama, including Bernard himself over a period of many years.
You taste Bernard's recipes, savor his enthusiasm for hospitality on every page. Even as you cringe at his effusiveness, you savor his generosity.
In the end, you mourn his death, but when the latest Michelin guide again awards his restaurant three stars, you recognize that Bernard Loiseau's spirit lives on.
A footnote to compare this book to William Echikson's Burgundy Stars, also about Loiseau. Chelminsky does everything that Echikson fails to do: he shows us how haute cuisine comes about. I read Burgundy Stars with mounting frustration at a writer whose research consisted of showing up and taking notes; I finished The Perfectionist with heady admiration for the author and his subject. That's the difference between blogging and real journalism.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is an important book for any artist/professional, May 15, 2006
I picked up this book after learning of the untimely passing of Bernard Loiseau. I previously read "Burgundy Stars" while I was in culinary school and considered that book to be an inspiration. I recommend reading "Burgundy Stars" before tackling this book to get a perspective of Mr. Loiseau during his rise to three stars that is not communicated in "The Perfectionist". The two work in tandem well.
Of course, the suicide of Mr. Loiseau hangs over every passage of this book, so there is a heavy feel to the text from start to finish. With the outcome known, the writer and reader are never able to relax and lightly appreciate the rise of this remarkable man. At every point both the writer and reader are looking for signs of what would lead to the demise of both the man and his image. This is one of my problems with the book. There are few if any light moments to temper the emotion of the death that we all know is on the horizon.
While the tone of the book may be dark, the story is amazing. I feel that anyone who works at high levels or overachieves can take something away from this book. Mr. Loiseau's mental problems are only one component of his personality. "The secret of success is consistency of purpose." No one ever embodied this quote more that Bernard Loiseau. Don't focus on his mental illness, focus on his passion for prefection.
Another problem that I have with the book was that the author integrated himself into the text nicely with personal accounts of his relationship with the great chef, but I wanted more of this. I think that more personal reflections by the author would have endeared me to the story a bit more, but this is just a minor criticism.
Overall, I highly recommend this book. I would give it 4.5 out of 5 if possible. If you are a chef, then this is a must-read. Remember, try to read "Burgundy Stars" first, it will make your experience with "The Perfectionist" complete.
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