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La Tour d'Argent, once the most famous restaurant in the world, with three Michelin stars and a reputation for unbridled luxury, has suffered a terrible ignominy: the new Michelin Guide to France, having demoted it in 1996 to two stars, has now cut it to one.
The penthouse restaurant, perched on the Left Bank of the Seine, is so swish it actually pays part of Notre Dame's electricity bill so that its clients can enjoy the glorious view of the illuminated cathedral.
While it still serves its famous signature dish canaton - pressed duck - a series of young chefs have been allowed to experiment in recent years and standards (as far as Michelin's shadowy inspectors are concerned) have faltered.
And how has the restaurant responded? Far from being penitent, Andre Terrail, son of its patrician owner Claude, claims the loss of the
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As the stuffy French Michelin guide loses credibility, who should we listen to, asks nigel horne
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star "curiously coincided" with the Tour d'Argent's wish to "no longer be included" anyway.
Over to the Michelin Guide's director, Jean-Luc Naret who, raising his Gallic nose in the air, responds: "When I met Andre a few weeks ago, at no time did he say that he wanted the restaurant out of the guide. It is ridiculous to be happy when you have a three-star restaurant and not to play the game when you lose." Touche.
'Playing the game' is at the centre of the growing controversy over Michelin's authority as the bible of gastronomy. As Francois Simon, restaurant critic at Le Figaro, puts it, the problem with winning your first Michelin star is that "you end up jumping through hoops for the rest of your life to stay a member of the anointed few."
M Simon is one of a growing circle of critics who believe that Michelin's 
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