Guy Savoy would seem to be as fixed in the pantheon of French officialdom as humanly possible.<\/p>\n
One of France\u2019s premier chefs, he accompanied two French presidents on formal visits to the White House. He was given the L\u00e9gion d\u2019Honneur, the highest award of the French state, for his contributions to the nation\u2019s gastronomy. He has written and co-written several books, most recently, a two-volume collection of French literary figures on food \u2014 with recipes. His signature Paris restaurant, Guy Savoy<\/a>, has welcomed dignitaries and celebrities for more than four decades.<\/p>\n But on Wednesday, he snagged an honor that may top all others. He became the first chef in the 110-year history of one of France\u2019s loftiest cultural institutions, the Acad\u00e9mie des Beaux-Arts<\/a>, to be welcomed into its ranks of artists, composers and other creative professionals.<\/p>\n At a formal ceremony in its gilded-domed headquarters at the Institut de France, Mr. Savoy was presented a long ritual saber he had designed himself. Blinking back tears, he held it high over his head, to a standing ovation and shouts of \u201cBravo!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo here I am, an artisan, and perhaps an artist thanks to my election,\u201d he told the hundreds in attendance. The award, he added, also belongs to \u201call the artisans who contribute to gastronomy, to the land of France, to the art of food and wine, to graciousness, to the art of hosting, in short, the art of living well the French way.\u201d<\/p>\n The Acad\u00e9mie\u2019s decision to admit him is especially sweet for Mr. Savoy, who made headlines<\/a> in 2023 when the Michelin Guide removed one of the three stars his restaurant had held for 21 years.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a real scandal, so shameful and not at all justified,\u201d Laurent Petitgirard, the Acad\u00e9mie\u2019s permanent secretary, said in an interview. \u201cGuy Savoy\u2019s welcome into the Acad\u00e9mie is the most beautiful revenge.\u201d<\/p>\n The Acad\u00e9mie des Beaux-Arts is one of five academies that reside in the Institut de France, led by the royal Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise founded under Louis XIV. Among the Acad\u00e9mie des Beaux-Arts\u2019 more than 60 members \u2014 called \u201cimmortals\u201d \u2014 are painters, sculptors, architects, photographers, choreographers, musicians and film and museum directors.<\/p>\n In recent years, the organization has sought to shed its reputation as a stuffy state institution for old and safe artists, opening its doors to younger members, including Jean-Michel Othoniel, an artist who works in glass, and Catherine Meurisse, an illustrator and regular contributor to the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. (A more controversial member is Roman Polanski, the filmmaker who fled the United States to his native France in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a minor.)<\/p>\n The inclusion of a chef, even in a country where gastronomy has historically been a sort of state religion, represents a tectonic cultural shift. The ballot to join the Acad\u00e9mie is secret, and not all its members were delighted to welcome a culinary figure, Mr. Petitgirard said in his interview. But Mr. Savoy won on the first round, unlike the painter Eug\u00e8ne Delacroix and the composer Hector Berlioz, who were rejected several times.<\/p>\n Mr. Savoy, 72, is one of the last of a generation of French chefs dedicated to the art and craft of turning foods into perfect objects of desire. His cuisine belongs to an era of long meals, grand dining rooms, orchestrated service, luxury ingredients and abundant time.<\/p>\n Eating habits in France have changed. Takeout services that took off during Covid continue to expand. With the French economy suffering, fast-food consumption has soared<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mr. Savoy comes from a modest background. His mother, L\u00e9onie, opened a buvette, a small bar and informal restaurant attached to their family home in Bourgoin-Jallieu, not far from Lyon. His Swiss-born father, Louis, was the town gardener, and grew the fruits and vegetables for the restaurant.<\/p>\n Mr. Savoy credits his mother for teaching him how to transform simple ingredients into culinary artistry. Working alongside her, he has said, he discovered the driving force behind his own cooking: \u201cPleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n Mocked at school when he expressed interest in cooking, he left at 15 to become an apprentice to a local chocolate maker.<\/p>\n After training as an apprentice with the Troisgros brothers<\/a>, he worked in various restaurants, learning classic French cuisine. In 1980, at age 27, he struck out on his own in Paris with the restaurant that holds his name today. The restaurant moved in 2015<\/a> into a grand 4,300-square-foot top-floor space in the building that houses the Monnaie de Paris, the French mint.<\/p>\n For the last nine years, Guy Savoy has been named the world\u2019s No. 1 restaurant by La Liste<\/a>, a restaurant guide that aggregates scores from hundreds of gastronomic guides, websites and press reviews. Mr. Savoy prides himself on being present there just about every day, greeting all his guests as if they were old friends.<\/p>\n For the Wednesday ceremony, Mr. Savoy shed his starched, double-breasted chef\u2019s whites and donned a custom-made version of the Acad\u00e9mie\u2019s embroidered uniform that he designed with Laure de Sagazan, who is best known for her wedding dresses.<\/p>\n The saber he designed has a bronze hilt shaped to resemble large artichoke leaves, symbolizing his favorite vegetable and his signature dish: an artichoke soup with black truffle and Parmesan, served with a toasted mushroom brioche slicked in truffle butter.<\/p>\n His lifetime motto was engraved into the sword: \u201cCuisine is the art of instantly transforming products steeped in history into joy.\u201d So were the first names of his parents, his two children and his seven grandchildren.<\/p>\n \u201cYour humanism and life experience are a great source of learning for us, making us feel as though you have always been with us,\u201d Mr. Petitgirard, a composer and conductor, said in introducing him. Comparing Mr. Savoy to a composer, performer and soloist, he added, \u201cYou are going from the status of indispensable to that of immortal.\u201d<\/p>\n In his speech, Mr. Savoy paid tribute to Michel David-Weill<\/a>, an investment banker and scion of the Lazard banking dynasty, who had previously occupied the seat that is now Savoy\u2019s \u2014 an assigned place in the \u201cfree section\u201d reserved for academicians who don\u2019t fit into more classical artistic categories.<\/p>\n Mr. David-Weill, who died in 2022 at age 89, was one of Europe\u2019s most important art collectors, a major donor and trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and chairman of France\u2019s official art acquisition committee.<\/p>\n Like Mr. David-Weill, Mr. Savoy is a passionate art collector, but on a much smaller scale. His restaurant is filled with contemporary works by artists like Fabrice Hyber, Adel Abdessemed and Pierre et Gilles, and African and Asian sculptures.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s marvelous that a chef takes the seat held by my husband,\u201d said Mr. David-Weill\u2019s widow, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne. \u201cBoth sought the same perfection \u2014 one from food, the other from art.\u201d<\/p>\n At an outdoor reception after the ceremony, Mr. Savoy set up food stations under white umbrellas around the courtyard so his staff could serve many of his favorite creations. Much of the talk was about the creativity and refinement of the food \u2014 a terrine made with 13 different meats, and a fowl supr\u00eame with foie gras and artichoke.<\/p>\n \u201cIced poached oysters in gelatin!\u201d exclaimed Emmanuel Guibert,<\/a> a graphic novelist and Acad\u00e9mie member. \u201cI\u2019ve never eaten an oyster so sublime. Try them, try them!\u201d<\/p>\n The most popular food station was the one serving Savoy\u2019s famous artichoke soup. Guests waiting in line joked that in honor of Mr. Savoy \u2014 at least for the day \u2014 the Acad\u00e9mie des Beaux-Arts should be renamed the Acad\u00e9mie des Beaux-Artichauts, the Academy of Beautiful Artichokes.<\/p>\n