Shadow of a Falling Star

By Amanda Ripley/Saulieu

"We are selling dreams. We are merchants of happiness," chef Bernard Loiseau once said. The ebullient Loiseau ran one of only 25 restaurants in France awarded three stars by the all-powerful Michelin guide. His Cote d'Or restaurant in Saulieu in Burgundy is a shrine to detail, to perfection on a plate. And like the other markets for dreams and happiness--films, say, or fashion or narcotics--it was a brutal pursuit. Loiseau had not taken a vacation in four years. He had planned one for this winter, but last week another French restaurant guide, GaultMillau, inexplicably reduced his ranking for the first time in his career, lowering his restaurant from 19 to 17 out of a possible 20 points. He canceled his trip.

On Monday, after presiding over the lunch service, Loiseau went to his bedroom for his customary nap. Soon after, he shot himself in the mouth with his hunting rifle. He left no note, only three children, a wife and a grand business that depended utterly on his existence.

The police have ruled Loiseau's death, at 52, a suicide. But in France, the killer is still considered at large. Last week Loiseau's fellow chefs accused the guidebooks of murder. "Bravo, GaultMillau. You have won," declared Paul Bocuse, the famous dean of French chefs. Bocuse, who spoke to Loiseau the day before he died, says his friend had been deeply affected by the rankings demotion and by newspaper articles speculating that he might lose one of his three Michelin stars, which turned out to be untrue. "He was very anxious. He felt out of breath," Bocuse says. "You know, it is a very difficult profession."

Castigating the guidebooks may be a too-convenient way to explain how Loiseau--who was known in France as "Monsieur 100,000 volts"--could have come undone. After all, this was a man who had overcome life's vagaries: with no formal schooling or gourmet pedigree, Loiseau had bought and run four celebrated restaurants. He received France's Legion of Honor in 1995 and three years later became the first chef to take his company public.

Then again, the rankings are to France what the Nobel Peace Prize is to Norway. "More than presidents (whom [the French] laugh at) ...and more than religious leaders (now employed as vague accompanists to the rituals of getting born, marrying and dying), France trusts the Michelin to discover The Truth," wrote Rudolph Chelminski, who has documented Loiseau's ascent. In 1966 Alain Zick shot himself in the head after his Paris restaurant lost a Michelin star. When Strasbourg chef Emile Jung lost a star last year, he said, "No words can ease the pain that eats at our hearts and that has killed our spirit."

It was no secret that Loiseau was obsessed with the star game. Since winning his second star in 1981, he had shamelessly crusaded for a third. He went some $5 million into debt expanding the 18th century Cote d'Or building in the tiny village of Saulieu. He transformed French cooking with his cuisine a l'eau style, which uses water to bring out flavors and eschews the French penchant for cream and butter. In 1991 Michelin granted him his third star at last. Business shot up 60%.

Still, the sparkle of the three etoiles was not quite enough. "Bernard was pretty much a manic depressive," says Chelminski. He once told a fellow chef he would kill himself if he lost a star. "All these exceptional beings who give you the impression of so much assurance, they are all very fragile," Loiseau's widow Dominique said on television last week. "They all have such strong moments of doubt."

Like France's other great chefs, Loiseau found he had to peddle his personality in order to afford to maintain three-star luxury. He became a TV personality and started selling a line of soups, champagne and even fennel-scented perfume. "Personally, I would not want two stars, let alone three," says actress Leslie Caron (Gigi, Chocolat), owner of another Burgundy restaurant. Caron, who knew Loiseau, believes the downturn in the economy and the looming war in Iraq must have driven him to despair.

But money did not kill Loiseau, insists Bernard Fabre, his financial director. "All of that is completely false. The restaurants were doing quite well." The guidebooks are denying guilt as well. "It's not a bad score or one less star that killed him," said GaultMillau head Patrick Mayenobe. "This great chef must have had other worries." A Michelin representative would only express sadness at Loiseau's death and confirm that his stars are safe--for this year, at least.

The day after the suicide, the Cote d'Or staff tried to keep the restaurant open, in the words of its website, "in the spirit of Loiseau." But after one day, the shaken crew found it could not go on. A sign over the menu in front of the restaurant, obscuring Loiseau's famous $65 frog's-legs appetizer, announced it would be closed for the week. Loiseau's spirit was, in the end, too hard to match.