MKR judge and chef Manu Feildel blames food critics for restaurant closures, bans them for life

HE is set to pull his judges hat tomorrow night for another season of My Kitchen Rules, but French pin-up Manu Feildel has declared a life ban on professional restaurant critics.

Feildel said they will never again be allowed to eat in any of his future restaurants.

The hard-line stance comes six months after the shock closure of his Melbourne eatery Le Grand Cirque which shuttered after just 16 weeks following a handful of scathing reviews.

And famous Frenchman puts the blame squarely on a handful of “newspaper critics” that he says cost him both financially and emotionally.

It was the third restaurant closure for Feildel, who last year off-loaded his Paddington venture L’Etoile after six years.

Prior to that he briefly operated Aperitif in Potts Point which was also savaged by critics.

The popular TV chef is currently without his own restaurant but with plans for a new venture in 2016, Feildel said he will personally forbid any critics from entering.

“Because it seems that I can’t open a restaurant without someone coming along and shooting me in the foot,” fumed Feildel, who said the ban would not apply to “food bloggers”.

Manu Feildel at the opening of his Le Grand Cirque in Melbourne, which has since closed down. Picture: Julie Kiriacoudis

“No, they are okay. They’re like customers and they do a little write up on their blogs and that’s fine,” he said.

“I’m talking about the big egos. The big established critics that have a little bit of power and think they’re big boys.

“Unfortunately they have a voice and we don’t.

“They hide behind a printed page of the newspaper and there is nothing we can do about it and I am not the only chef that has been hurt in this way.

“People save up their money to go into business and then they get crushed by these (critics). Come on, it’s not fair.”

When asked how he would restrict reviewers who critique restaurants anonymously, Feildel replied: “No, we know who they all are. And if I see them in my restaurant they will be asked to leave.”

Billed as his “dream” restaurant prior to its opening in April last year, Le Grand Cirque was an ambitious joint venture that Feildel undertook with the help of George Calombaris’s Made Establishment hospitality group.

However soon after it’s lavish grand opening party, critics circled the South Yarra eatery with one notable scribe slamming the food as “patchy” and the staff “not up to scratch”.

Another wrote: “I didn’t leave, wanting to rush back.”

Feildel described the reviews and subsequent closure as “extremely hurtful” and a subject he still finds hard to talk about.

“It wasn’t a business for me ... it was a dream that I wanted to do for a very long time but unfortunately that chance disappeared in just a few months,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s me making mistakes.

“It’s like there’s some hell from the outside stopping me.

“And the (critics) not only hurt me ... they hurt around 40 of my staff and their families.

“When you write something like this you have to consider who you are also hurting.”

Feildel is not the first famed chef to issue a ban on critics.

British hellion Gordon Ramsay famously declared war on noted food scribe A.A Gill back in 1998, going so far as to personally eject him from the dining room of his London restaurant Claridges despite the fact his dining companion was actor Joan Collins.

Last year acclaimed US chef John Tesar banned Dallas Morning News critic Leslie Brenner following her mediocre review of his new Dallas eatery Knife.

Source:  The Daily Telegraph - 1 February 2015