Christian Millau, 88, Co-Founder of Lively Restaurant Guide, Dies
In 1973 the guide issued a manifesto for the new cooking, "Vive la Nouvelle Cuisine Française," laying down 10 commandments
that began "Thou shalt not overcook," "Thou shalt use fresh, high-quality products" and "Thou shalt lighten thy menu." The guide highlighted restaurants adhering to the commandments with red rather than black toques.
Nothing except taste." The upstart guide, aimed at younger readers with a yen for culinary adventure, took dead aim at the sedate Michelin Guide, which Mr. Millau liked to dismiss as "a telephone book." He
and Mr. Gault, who died in 2000, knocked revered dining establishments off their perch; elevated unknown, often humble bistros and cafes; and offered their readers freewheeling reviews, rather than Michelin’s terse lists of dishes.
The two men produced a series of guidebooks for Julliard before starting "Le Nouveau Guide Gault-Millau." Early on the guide dealt only with restaurants in France,
but in 1981 a New York guide was published, followed by guides to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Mr. Millau was an editor at the afternoon newspaper Paris-Presse in 1969 when he
and one of his writers, Henri Gault, started Le Nouveau Guide Gault-Millau (pronounced go-mee-YO), a monthly magazine filled with restaurant reviews.
The guide, published in book form beginning in 1972, once described "an absolutely lethal purée of peas
and green beans whose strings could be woven into a bulletproof vest." Instead of stars, the guide awarded toques, the traditional French chef’s hats, along with a numerical rating from 1 to 20, the same system used in French schools and universities.
"The revolutionary thing that Millau accomplished with Gault was really the style
and the story," Marc Esquerré, Gault & Millau’s editor in chief, told Le Monde this week.
Millau said that We agreed on nothing,
