A Michelin star restaurant in Cambridge burned down on Tuesday. While the cause is still under investigation, officials in the area say the fire was triggered by the ovens and is likely to have been sparked by careless handling of candles in the kitchen. The building, which housed three different restaurants, was home to Michelin-starred restaurant Passage by Heston Blumenthal and his namesake outpost, but the group did not have a record of having a burning oven in the kitchen at the time of the fire. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation.
The closure is likely to have significant ramifications for the restaurant, as the list of food halles that are graded on the Michelin Guide UK states, “substitutes for ‘Michelin-starred.’” The guide states that chefs “must demonstrate mastery of all classical kitchen techniques in return for their right to bear the Michelin star.” According to the Guardian, the Royal Observatory ruled that “there is no standard of poor practices” in the kitchen, though they did describe “lapses” in the cookery techniques of three cooks. The rules for being placed on the restaurant’s roster are strict, it seems, but inspectors, in addition to also raising awareness of the cookery methodology, also ensure that Michelin-starred kitchens have a record of having none or a spare or working oven. It’s not clear which of the group of three restaurants were listed as having a crepitological error of some kind.
Read the full story at Guardian.co.uk.
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