True stars in the kitchen

The restaurant business in France has become a pressurised contest to produce extraordinary dishes using idiosyncratic combinations of novelty ingredients. Top chefs can only try to push ‘best-chef-ness’ beyond its outer limits.

Most diners, however, want something else. They know – although it is heresy to suggest it – that you cannot beat a traditional dish home-cooked by someone who knows what he/she is doing using local ingredients and served in agreeable but unpretentious surroundings.

Anyone who stumbles across such a restaurant does not care whether it has stars or not.