French superchefs launch new 'quality restaurant' label

France 24

French chef Alain Ducasse. France 24 photo

A group of top French chefs have launched a new “quality restaurant” label to distinguish eateries that prepare their own dishes from lesser establishments that simply “reheat frozen food”.

The new designation would apply to less than ten percent of France’s 150,000 restaurants, according to chef Alain Ducasse (pictured), one of the members of the Collège Culinaire de France that is applying the label.

Most restaurants “only do industrial cooking”, he told AFP, adding that the label, in the form of a plaque that would hang outside the restaurant, would only be offered to establishments that gave information on the origin of their food, prepared their own meals and offered a genuinely warm welcome to patrons, Ducasse said.

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