French chef Yannick Alléno celebrates sixth Michelin star

French chef Yannick Alléno has received a third Michelin star for his restaurant 1947 in the French Alps. The feared and respected Michelin Guide awards were announced on Thursday.

Yannick Alléno DR

A total of 616 restaurants worldwide now hold Michelin stars, 70 receiving them for the first time this year, that's 16 more than last year.

Michel Ellis, the international director of Michelin guides said gastronomy has never been so brilliant.

Alléno, 48, received the honour for his 1947 restaurant at the Cheval Blanc hotel in the upmarket ski resort of Courchevel.

Menus there cost from 147-450 euros,

Alléno's Paris restaurant Le Pavillon Ledoyen already had three stars but 1947 was the only one to be raised to three stars this year.

Gastronomy's Holy Grail

"Of course it’s a very emotional moment," Alléno told RFI. "I mean this is like the Holy Grail, the Oscar of French cuisine. And world cuisine in fact, because Michelin identifies talent all over the world and we should be proud of that."

His greatest innovation has been in his sauces, he said.

"The biggest changes in French cuisine have been through its sauces and when I travelled around the world I realised sauces were part of French DNA," he explained. "So I started working on making them in different ways. Making them modern, light. I developed a complicated process called extraction. I think 80 percent of what makes a dish interesting is its sauce. It links the ingredients together. It’s like the verb of French cuisine."

Sale, Le Squer, Hanada, Ramsey honoured

Two other Courchevel restaurants, Le Montgomerie and Le Kintessence, both recovered a second star they had lost in last year's edition of the guide after chef Nicolas Sale left and moved to the Ritz in Paris.

Sale, now running the Table de l'Espadon at the newly reopened Ritz, won a second star.

Ritz rival Le George V, home of the three-star Le Cinq restaurant of Christian Le Squer, won stars for two other tables within the same house, making it the first hotel in Europe to boast three Michelin-starred restaurants.

Foreign chefs Masayoshi Hanada of Sushi B in Paris was also honoured, as was British chef Gordon Ramsay, who earned a second star for his Bordeaux restaurant Pressoir d'Argent.

Also in the south-western wine capital, La Grande Maison restaurant regained its second star after chef Pierre Gagnaire replaced Joel Robuchon.