Le Cinq

Le Cinq (French pronunciation: [lə sɛ̃k]) is a restaurant in Paris, France. One of three restaurants on the grounds of the Four Seasons Hotel George V, the restaurant reopened in December 1999 following a comprehensive refit of the hotel. Its head chef was Philippe Legendre until summer 2008, when he was replaced by Éric Briffard, who was in turn replaced in October 2014 by Christian Le Squer. The restaurant won a Michelin star in 2000 and another in 2001, and held three stars between 2003 and 2007 and from 2016. The restaurant received positive reviews in The Arbuturian, Libération, and The Daily Telegraph and had been ranked the 80th best place to eat on the planet by April 2017. That month, Jay Rayner of The Observer wrote a negative review, which went viral and was later listed by Eater as one of "The Best Bad Restaurant Reviews of 2017".

Le Cinq is one of three restaurants in Hotel George V, along with Le George and L'Orangerie.^[1] The hotel opened in 1928^[2] and spent four decades popular with celebrities. By the 1980s, the hotel had been taken over by Forte Group, who were in turn taken over by Granada plc. The hotel festered under their ownership^[3] and was bought for $170 million in 1996 by Prince Al Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia, who had spent much of his childhood there.^[2] Both the hotel and the restaurant reopened in December 1999; its reopening took twice as long as expected as its construction workers were shackled by gentlemen's office hours by the hotel's wealthy and powerful neighbours, meaning they could only work between 10am and 5:30pm.^[3]

The restaurant hired Philippe Legendre as head chef, who had previously spent ten years working at Taillevent in Paris, which had held three Michelin stars while he was working there.^[3] Under Legendre's watch, Le Cinq won a Michelin star in 2000,^[4] a second in 2001,^[5] and held a third between 2003 and 2007.^[6][7] Éric Briffard took over from Legendre in summer 2008;^[8] a book of his recipes, Le Cinq, was published in 2014.^[9] Jonesy of The Arbuturian reviewed in June 2012 and described his experience as "like dining in a grand French chateau".^[10] Christian Le Squer took over from Briffard in October 2014;^[11] the following year, Libération's Elvire von Bardebeleben enjoyed a meal there.^[12] The restaurant regained its third Michelin star in 2016;^[13] that July, The Daily Telegraph's Jade Conroy wrote that her experience had benefited from the theatrical spectacle and the jazz music occasionally flowing in from the hotel's neighbouring lounge.^[14]

By April 2017, Le Cinq had been ranked the 80th best place to eat on the planet^[15] and Le Squer had been voted Chef of the Year by his peers.^[16] On 9 April, the restaurant was the subject of a review by The Observer's Jay Rayner,^[17] whose reviews for the platform typically averaged 60,000 views.^[18] He visited with the intention of writing an observational piece as to how expensive some restaurants were, as he had been irritated by people moaning about the cost of eating out. His review described the restaurant as "the scene of the crime"^[19] that had been decorated in "various shades of taupe, biscuit, and fuck you", with thick carpet to "muffle the screams".^[17] His female companion was given a menu without prices.^[15] The review featured press shots supplied by the restaurant throughout, with several of his own iPhone pictures at the bottom and added to his website.^[17]

According to his review, Rayner ate a "compelling flaky brioche", a tart filled with whipped chicken liver mousse,^[19] scallops that tasted like iodine,^[21] a "spherification" that tasted of "stale air with a tinge of ginger" and reminded him of a "Barbie-sized silicone breast implant" and his companion of "a condom that’s been left lying about in a dusty greengrocer’s", a hollowed out passion fruit with watercress purée that "taste[d] only of the plant’s most bitter tones" and made his lips purse "like a cat’s arse that’s brushed against nettles",^[15] gratinated onions that were "mostly black, like nightmares, and sticky, like the floor at a teenager's party",^[17] medium-cooked pigeon "served so pink it just might fly again given a few volts",^[19] frozen chocolate mousse cigars draped in a flap of milk skin "like something that's fallen off a burns victim",^[17] and a cheesecake with "lumps of frozen parsley powder" he described as "one of the worst things I’ve ever eaten". He had the last of these removed from his bill, which came to €600.^[15] He described his experience as "by far the worst restaurant experience I have endured in my 18 years in this job",^[15] exacerbated by having been served "by earnest waiters who have no idea just how awful the things they are doing to you are".^[22]

Rayner's review went viral^[19] and received around 3,000 comments within three days;^[21] the extra traffic caused his website to crash.^[19] By 17 May, the review had been viewed more than 2,000,000 times and he had been dubbed "the world's most feared restaurant critic".^[18] The review was described by Vox as "a glorious "the Emperor has no clothes" exercise",^[23] while Vice as "worth a read, in a craning-your-neck-to-look-at-a-very-expensive-car-crash kind of way"^[21] and the Sydney Morning Herald described his images as depicting "piles of slime on plates".^[17] However, Alice Bosio of Le Figaro described Rayner's critique as a "diatribe as violent as it is a caricature", while von Bardeleben felt Rayner was hypocritical for criticising the restaurant's opulence given that he had dined there for that reason^[12] and dismissed his review as contrarianism^[22] and François-Régis Gaudry wrote that Rayner's "bitterness" was "kind of pathetic".^[21] A source close to Le Squer described Rayner's review as "rich bashing".^[12] Rayner subsequently published to Twitter an itemised receipt.^[15] His review was listed by Eater as one of "The Best Bad Restaurant Reviews of 2017".^[24]

• List of Michelin starred restaurants

• Official website

48°52′8.10″N 2°18′2.11″E / 48.8689167°N 2.3005861°E / 48.8689167; 2.3005861