By Peter and Linda D'Aprix

Suzanne Cahpel	Ddominique Loiseau

What happens when you are married to a three-star Michelin chef
and he dies prematurely? For two brave and committed women,
their husband's legacy was too important to abandon. Both Mme.
Alain Chapel and Mme. Bernard Loiseau chose to maintain the restaurants, dishes and memories of their celebrated spouses.

The unique talents of the top chefs, such as Alain Chapel and Bernard Loiseau, drive an empire and cannot be replicated. Nor can their extensive business tentacles and media darling status. Left alone, the wives had decisions to make in the midst of personal tragedy and loss. What to do now? Keep the establishment struggling on without the grand master or close it down?

One factor to consider were the huge debts still left on financing long term expansion. Shock and paralysis came first, followed by anger and grief. And the demands of the empire probably quickly invaded what should have been a time of mourning.

Rudolph Chelminski, a food journalist in France, had known Bernard Loiseau for about 30 years. He wrote a biography on the great chef, The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine. According to Chelminski, a, the loss of one Michelin star equals a 50% drop in income. And since the stars go with the chef, not the establishment, there was automatic deduction one star. Contrast that to the 30% to 60% increase that came with each additional star earned by the gifted chef/husband, in addition to the instant celebrity status as the third star was awarded. For the widows, finances were another difficulty that had to be faced.

A women in the past who confronted this dilemma is connected to Chapel and Loiseau by a similar tragedy but also in the way of master chef and culinary offspring.

Mado Point, the wife of Fernand Point, regarded as the father of modern French cuisine with his restaurant "La Pyramide" in Vienne battled on long after her husband Fernand's death. Fernand, in fact, not only shares the early death (he died at 58 in 1955) in common with Chapel and Loiseau, but was also a great teacher whose acolytes include such luminaries as Paul Bocuse (recently turned 80), Alain Chapel, Louis Outhier and Pierre Troisgros. Loiseau learned under Troigros. After Chef Point's death, Mado ran the restaurant with Chef Guy Thivard, who maintained its three-star Michelin rating until Madame Point's death in 1986.

But more recently, the loss of a famous and supremely talented husband/chef hit two women in France who picked themselves up and kept going, like their predecessor Mado, keeping the brand as well as the cuisine alive. Mme. Alain Chapel and Mme. Bernard Loiseau have their similarities and differences, but both continue to preside over the establishments their husbands forged into gastronomic Meccas.