HOUSTON, Feb. 4 2004—

Concern over France’s diminishing importance in world cuisine has prompted the government to create a gourmet university, which yesterday promised will be nothing less than the “Harvard for the art of French cooking”.

The university will open in October in Reims , in Champagne country, and admit 70 French and 30 foreign students in its first year, according to Renaud Dutreil, minister for small business and consumption.

Brainchild of Alain Ducasse, the chef whose three restaurants all boast the maximum three stars from the Michelin guide, the culinary institute will address the problems that have plunged the world of haute cuisine into crisis in recent years. The suicide of Bernard Loiseau, France’s best known three-star chef, drew attention to the difficulties the best restaurants experience in reconciling innovative menus and silver service with the commercial realities of high wages and massive fixed costs. Mr Loiseau’s suicide coincided with widespread frustration at international criticism claiming that French chefs have failed to move on from the nouvelle cuisine and fallen far behind Spanish, Italian, American and even British rivals. “French must not hide its light under a bushel,” said Mr. Dutreil, “but must make the most of the fact that it has huge international visibility in this sector where businesses and culture meet.” The four-week course, which includes sessions on “Napoleon Bonaparte and gastronomy” and “The neurobiology of pleasure”, will be able to draw on a specially created library of all French cookbooks published since the 16th century. Politically, the initiative is well timed, given that many restaurateurs have been frustrated by the government’s failure to lower VAT on sit-down meals.

The election pledge by Jean-Pierre Raffarin, prime minister, to reduce the rate to 5.5 per cent from the current 19.6 per cent is facing German opposition in Brussels .

The new university – whose full name is the Institute for Advanced Study of Taste, Gastronomy and the Arts of Fine Dining – also aims to revive the fortunes of France ’s beleaguered crystal manufactures.

The difficulties facing Baccarat, which has been laying off workers amid falling demand for its euro 50,000 ($62,000) chandeliers and euro 200 crystal glasses, are typical of those facing a sector hard hit by the generational shift towards less formal eating habits.

top