Lorain (above, in a file photo) dashed off an e-mail to Lebua executives on March 7 calling the event 'unhealthy and morally unjustifiable.' -- PHOTO: AP

BANGKOK - SOMEWHERE in the firmament of Michelin-starred chefs there must be one willing to accept US$8,000 (S$11,000) for a single night's work.

The only catch is that this particular dinner at a Bangkok luxury hotel has stirred up a mighty controversy, and two dozen chefs around the world have declined to cook it.

Several have confessed fears of losing a coveted star in the Michelin guide, the gastronome's bible that can make or break culinary careers.

Bangkok's Lebua hotel, which is organising the dinner, is no stranger to publicity - or to Michelin-starred chefs.

Last year, it put on a decadent feast billed as the meal of a lifetime for US$25,000 a head.

Six three-star Michelin chefs were flown in from Europe to cook the 10-course meal, each plate paired with a rare vintage wine.

On April 5, the Lebua is offering another 10-course spread, this time for free. The hotel has invited 50 of its biggest-spending customers to the dinner prepared - it hopes - by three top-ranked Michelin-starred chefs.

Tour twist
There's one twist. Before dinner, guests will be jetted to a poor village in northern Thailand to spend the afternoon soaking up the sights of poverty.

The dinner and full-day excursion will cost the hotel US$300,000.

Deepak Ohri, Lebua's CEO, said the hotel's intention is to wine and dine its top customers while also doing some good.

The bankers, casino owners and corporate elite invited from the United States, Europe and Asia will be asked to open their wallets to build a school, a hospital and other infrastructure the village lacks.

'There are poor areas in the world that everybody is aware of,' Mr Deepak said.

'We want to help a corner of the world where most people haven't been.'

A trio of France's top chefs initially agreed to cook the feast: Alain Soliveres whose famed Taillevent in Paris has two Michelin stars, Jean-Michel Lorain of the three-star La Cote Saint Jacques in Burgundy, and Michel Trama from the three-star Les Loges de L'Aubergade in southwest France.

Press releases went out advertising their attendance and the menu was finalised.

Soliveres was to cook a risotto with Brittany lobster and a Roquefort ice cream for dessert. Lorain's three dishes featured his signature 'Black Truffle and cabbage 'Michel Lorain.'

When the story hit French media earlier this month it sparked an uproar.

Headlines slammed the event as a US$300,000 poverty tour for the rich.

Quick pull-out
Within days, all three chefs bowed out.

'You can't see people living in misery and then go back to Bangkok to eat foie gras and truffles,' Soliveres said in a telephone interview from Paris.

'It started an enormous, enormous scandal in France,' he added.

'I had no choice but to boycott the meal.'

Lorain dashed off an e-mail to Lebua executives on March 7 calling the event 'unhealthy and morally unjustifiable.'

Lebua executives have apologised for any misunderstanding over the event but insist the dinner will go ahead.

Top-ranked Michelin-starred chefs, however, appear unwilling to sign onto the deal, which includes roundtrip airfare, luxury lodging in Bangkok and euro5,000 for a few hours of work.

The Michelin guide, which has long been the food lover's guide to France, now rates restaurants in 20 European countries, the United States and Japan.

Even a single Michelin star can double a restaurant's revenues, and the highest ranking of three stars guarantees a chef overnight celebrity and months of advance reservations.

No takers
'We went back to France and asked 15 other chefs, and they all refused,' Mr Deepak said earlier this week.

'Then we got a three-star chef from Germany, but he just sent an e-mail saying he's too afraid to lose his third star.'

Ditto for four chefs in Japan at Michelin-starred restaurants.

The Michelin guide said it had no comment on the dinner but rejected the notion that a chef could be downgraded for cooking it.

'The Michelin guide does not have the power to tell chefs what to do and what not to do,' said an official at the guide's Paris headquarters, who asked not to be named.

'What a chef does outside his kitchen does not interfere with his stars at all.' -- AP