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While the chic and expensive gastro raout is once again abandoning the capital to settle in Strasbourg, local authorities are multiplying the events around taste to enhance their territories. Witness the local budgets devoted to culinary initiatives in France.
For the second consecutive year, the Michelin ceremony leaves Paris. After Cognac (Charente) in 2022, it is in Strasbourg that the announcement of the 2023 winners will take place on Monday March 6. “We are creating a wonderful opportunity to promote the regions, to engage with the terroirs, local producers, artisans and to highlight them”, boasts Gwendal Poullennec, the boss of the red guide. A pious wish: the event is not open to the public. In 2022 in Cognac, chefs, journalists and influencers had landed in a city beribboned for the occasion, but arranged in well-defined sectors, onlookers contenting themselves with taking photos of the red carpet, from afar.
The price of the event? About 370,000 euros last year in Cognac, 390,000 euros in Strasbourg, financed by local authorities and by a private company in the territory, such as the Massenez distillery for the 2023 edition. Not to mention the participation of the departments and regions to bring the gratin of the French culinary sphere to meet local producers, and therefore take care of the accommodation, meals and transport of all these little people. “We injected 200,000 euros more, because the prices published concern the ceremony only, says Patrick Mardikian, vice-president of the Charente departmental council. Meetings with local producers, meals, travel, hotels, were at the expense of the departments and