Jerome Bloch (360Crossmedia): What 3-star-Michelin-restaurants and Luxembourg have in common.
What started as an accident in 2008 with an interview of Ferran Adrià became a cultural feature at 360Crossmedia and in its publications: www.luxembourgofficial.com, www.duke.lu and www.andyaluxembourg.com. 37 3-star-chefs visited so far out of 145 in the world, and counting. Interview.
How did you start this series of interview?
Completely by accident. I saw Ferran Adrià on the covers of Time and the New York Times magazine and became intrigued. So I contacted him for an interview. We met in Barcelona and this interview changed my life. We talked about passion, taking full ownership of your work, innovation, relentlessness, sustainability, doing things differently, refusing the status quo. I came back to Luxembourg stunned!
Were you already interested in gastronomy?
First of all, let’s define gastronomy. We focus on three start-restaurants and on the San Pellegrino top50 list because they provide a clear performance quantifier. I have huge respect for whoever works in a restaurant. In Luxembourg, you can think about Cyril Molard, who is the only 2-star-restaurant, but I equally respect entrepreneurs such as Luca Cirillo, Severin Laface, Matthieu Van Wetteren, Mario Notaroberto or Salva Barberio who owns ‘Le Grand Café’ and the ‘Red beef’ franchise. He doesn’t have a Michelin Star but he could teach at Harvard. Each sentence that he pronounces transpires decades of hard work and a supreme understanding of life and business.
“Cooking, like art or literature, are highly complex activities that require keys to be fully enjoyed”.
What about Michelin restaurants?
I had visited several Michelin-starred restaurants, but I was missing everything, like most of us. I was intimidated by the price on the wine list, by the service, by the meals themselves. I did not understand anything! Having the privilege to talk with the Chef before experiencing the food was a game changer. You can compare it to visiting an art gallery: you can look at paintings and sculptures on your own, but visiting with an expert, or even better with the artist, changes everything. Cooking, like art or literature, are highly complex activities that require keys to be fully enjoyed.
So what exactly did you learn there?
I draw a huge inspiration in terms of culture. To see these relentless teams perform at the highest level sometimes two times a day deserves respect. On top of it, they need to recruit, train and motivate young apprentices, invent their next meals, contact new providers and deal with nonsensical “Trip advisor” ratings done by people who never came to their restaurant. By comparison, running a communication agency as I do or a financial company seems absurdly simple.
Which were your best experiences?
It is like asking which Olympic champion I admire the most. One star is a great achievement. At two stars, you are clearly dealing with a stellar crew: there are less than 500 in total. But three stars is out of this world. What strikes me every time is the intensity. These people live their life to the fullest! You have several categories: the ex-sports champions: Ana Ros, Gordon Ramsay, Alexandre Mazzia. Then you have the terroir ambassadors, who elevate their region: I have in mind Arnaud Lallement in Reims, Eric Pras in Chagny en Bourgogne, Marco Müller in Berlin or Boury in Roeselare. You have the titans, Christian Bau, Pierre Gagnaire or Barasategui and I had the chance to interview the legends: Bocuse and Harald Wohlfahrt. They all bring the culture of excellence into the kitchen. My favorites were surely Ferran which I interviewed a second time recently, Akelarre with its hotel and Sonnora, a true resilience story by Clemens Rambichler following the passing of his mentor. I have a house nearby, so I am necessarly biased.
What can Luxembourg learn from these Chef?
This takes us back to the quest for high-intensity culture. Luxembourg is a fantastic country, but it lacks a culture of excellence. Over the past 40 years, the population became rich in spite of themselves, through generous public service salaries and sky rocketing real estate prices. Now that things are getting more difficult, the country needs to adopt a true entrepreneurial culture. Just one example, when La Bouitte, a fabulous address in Savoie lost its third star in 2024, the reaction of the owners, René and Maxime Meilleur was “This year unfortunately, we went offtrack. Tonight, the whole Meilleur family is already working hard to reclaim the emotions of our third star”. I wish that politicians and citizens in Luxembourg were reacting more like this. Taking full ownership of their performance. What an inspiration.
How can people optimise their fine dining experience?
Choose the restaurant carefully and study the history of the place and the trajectory of the Chef! They all have three stars, but the experiences they offer are completely different. In terms of budget, if you avoid Paris and London, menus are affordable if you factor in the entire experience, often below 300€, the price of a night in a good hotel. The big variable is the wine: just be clear with the Sommelier. Tell them if you have a price limit and keep in mind that their job is to pick exactly the wines that will match your expectation. Most of the time, you find excellent wine pairings for more or less 100€. Again, a very low price for an experience that will inspire you during years!