Chefs win over jury

Press, 9 December 1983, Page 6

Chefs win over jury

By

ARTHUR SPIEGELMAN,

[, of Reuter (through NZPA) New York A gastronomic libel suit has ended with the authors of a prestigious French guidebook ordered to pay ?U520,000 (530,400) for misstating the thickness of pancakes sold at a Chinese restaurant in New York.

The decision by a Federal Court jury that the “Guide Gault-Milleau” had given Mr Chow’s, in midtown Manhattan, an unfair roasting may give other restaurant reviewers nervous indigestion if it is upheld. Legal experts said yesterday that the decision last week was believed to be the first time in United States history that a restaurant reviewer had been found guilty of libel. The jury’s ruling came after Mr Chow’s chefs showed up in court and demonstrated how they, pre-

pared paacakes for Peking duck to disprove the guide’s contention they were as thick as a finger. “In fact, we showed the pancakes were as thin as paper and translucent,” said Mr Chow’s lawyer, Kenneth Warner.

A lawyer for the “Guide” called Mr Chow’s courtroom cooking lesson theatrical but admitted, “The jury ate it up.”

The authors of the “Guide,” Henri Gault and Christian Milleau, who are famous in France as popularises of “Nouvelle Cuisine,” have been sued 25 times before for libel without success.

“They are as well-known in France these days as the ‘Guide Michelin’ ”, their lawyer said. Mr Chow’s is the New York branch of a London-based chain.

Its owners were outraged by a review in Gault’s and Milleau’s guide to New

York City in 1981, that had said that one had to wait 10 minutes to get a pair of chopsticks at Mr Chow’s and then had to struggle with pancakes “the size of a saucer and the thickness of a finger.” The restaurant produced its noodle-making chef, Stephen Yim, who rolled a 3-metre-long noodle for the jury in 60 seconds and testified that he is listed in the “Guinness Book of World Records” for the speed with which he works.

A lawyer for the guide said that the verdict went against United States Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and press.

He said: “There are cases in which much worse things were said against a restaurant that were not held to be libel. One review (not of Mr Chow’s) even advised customers to bring pest sprays with them.”