“No restaurant lasts forever,” Michel Richard once reminded me. Over time, Les Pavillon would close (currently the Disney Store on 55th and 5th Avenue in New York), Lutèce and Caravelle would shutter; in Washington, D.C., Le Lion D’Or eventually became a Sizzling Express. And yet, understandably, the great chefs who spend a considerable amount of their life in a kitchen also spend time worrying about their legacies. What happens when they can no longer run an acclaimed restaurant? Can it survive and keep its Michelin stars under someone new?
This is the dilemma facing legendary French chef Michel Bras who is passing his three-starred Michelin restaurant down to his son Sebastién. It is the subject of a new documentary, Step Up to the Plate. I can’t wait to see it.