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In the country that invented fine dining.
Where cooking is an art form.
Where eating is just as important as breathing and sleeping.
There is One Guide to Rule Them All. 
This is the story of French chefs' quest for Michelin star glory.

Only in France

Only in France would you find roving bands of chefs – the trunks of their Renaults crammed with wine, cheese, baguettes and toques – spilling across the countryside to distant two and three star restaurants to try to ferret out their secrets.

 

At least that’s the image we got when we first heard the story over dinner in Provence with a friend who happened to work at a one-star restaurant. He gave us our first inkling of the importance of Michelin to the chefs and restaurants of the country that invented fine dining.

It’s every food-lover’s dream to to ramble through France, from star to star, learning the stories of celebrated chefs. 

Getting a Michelin star is the dream of most chefs in France, and once they get their first star, chasing the next star is what many of them live for, dream about, and work towards every day. Chasing Stars follows a handful of these chefs as they strive for greater recognition.

 

Chasing Stars is the first book to take readers behind the scenes in the one-star kitchens of France to discover how these legendary chefs create the dishes that have  earned them recognition in the Michelin Guide.

 

We also learn about the life of a Michelin chef in France, the birthplace of the star system; about the chef training system; and about how important the Michelin Guide is to the chefs and to the culinary culture of the country.

Four

Iconic

Regions 

Chasing Stars travels to four iconic regions to visit with twenty chefs who have earned the most prestigious culinary distinction — a Michelin star. We delve into the workings of each restaurant for an insider’s perspective — elbow-to-elbow with the chef in the kitchen during dinner service, learning how they create their signature dishes, poking into the wine cellars with the sommelier, taking glorious photographs, and describing what it is like to dine in these notable restaurants. We hear from the chefs about their struggles, their passions, their plans and what they are doing to pursue or hold on to their Michelin stars.

 

The journey takes us to one-star restaurants from Paris to the Côtes-du-Rhône wine country of Provence, from the ancient wine villages of Burgundy to the lavender-scented fields of Peter Mayle's Luberon, and to the food capital of France, Lyon.

The

Michelin

Guide 

The Michelin Guide has helped shape the culinary landscape in France and elsewhere in the world for over a century. 

 

Of the thousands of restaurants in France, there are only a handful that hold three Michelin stars; only ten of them are in Paris. The eighty Michelin 2-Star restaurants want nothing more than to add a third star to their accolades. The field widens with 1-Star restaurants: five hundred of them dot the country and many of their chefs fall asleep at night counting stars.

 

Chasing Stars is the first book to tell the story of Michelin, its importance to France, and the chefs who are chasing Michelin stars.

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