With two new restaurants on the cards this year and having won back his third star for his flagship Paris restaurant at the Plaza Athénée last Monday at the 2016 Michelin Guide awards, the celebrated French chef Alain Ducasse is once more the talk of the town.
One of the most celebrated chefs in the world, he is often cited by culinary experts as one of the world’s greatest, on par with Escoffier and Bocuse, for his contribution to French cuisine. However, with a huge appetite for new horizons, the industrious chef is also a brilliant businessman and in 2014, Alain Ducasse Enterprise turned over 80 million euros.
As well as a training and consultation branch, a cooking school, a couple of inns and a chocolate factory, not forgetting his recent takeover of Hotels & Chateaux Collection, Ducasse Enterprise currently operates 23 restaurants in seven countries earning Mr Ducasse a total of 19 Michelin stars – and he isn’t showing any sign of stopping there either.
This year he'll be opening Champeaux, a chic brasserie in Paris's Les Halles neighbourhood, and Ore, a restaurant at the palace of Versailles. I talk to one of the most prolific chefs in the world about his astounding career and how creativity and good old-fashioned hard work are the secrets to his success.
Can you tell me a bit about where you’re from and how you started as a chef?
I was born in Castelsarrasin in Southwest France and I decided to become a cook very early on in my childhood. I first trained at Michel Guérard’s restaurant and then with Gaston Lenôtre. Working then with Roger Vergé, I discovered Provencal cuisine, which is one of the many versions of the Mediterranean cuisine. A few years later, I met with Alain Chapel, one of the most influent chefs of his generation, who remains my spiritual master. In 1987, the Société des Bains de Mer (S.B.M.) offered me to head Le Louis XV, the restaurant of the Hôtel de Paris in Monaco. It was here in 1990, that I obtained my first three Michelin stars. Six years later, I opened another restaurant in Paris which was also awarded three stars the next year.
What influenced you to become a chef?
There is no better explanation than passion. I grew up on a farm where my grand-mother would cook for the whole family. I still remember the flavours of the roast chicken she would prepare for Sunday lunch. Most of the produce we ate came from the farm, particularly the vegetables, which I picked from the kitchen garden.
You are now at the helm of your own company Alain Ducasse Enterprise – how did the company evolve?
The first key move was to decide to run two haute cuisine restaurants in parallel in Monaco (Louis XV at the Hotel de Paris) and Paris (Alain Ducasse at the Plaza Athénée Hotel). I achieved this by gathering a team of perfectly trained chef to whom I could pass on my cooking philosophy. Today, almost all the executive chefs of my restaurants have been working with me for more than fifteen years – and some for much longer. Then, I developed related activities which bring a positive synergy with cooking: a consulting and training division, a publishing house and an association of inns and restaurants: Châteaux & Hôtels Collection.
With your numerous establishments do you still have time to cook? What do you say to critics when they ask about your time spent in the kitchen, about becoming a brand?
Cooking is much more than peeling and mincing turnips. It’s about creating recipes, it is about sourcing the produce, it is about working with interior designers, choosing tableware, defining the style of service, etc. So, I still cook – this is in fact what I do all day long. Yet I concentrate on what is the most important: creation.
How do you explain your consistent success?
The key to success is desperately simple: to work more, better and faster than the others. I may also add a key ingredient: to be detail-obsessed. Here lies the difference between good and exceptional. What is important is that each restaurant must tell its own story. Each restaurant must be true to the location where it is situated, must fit with the expectations and lifestyle of the inhabitants of the city and of the visitors.
Do you have a favourite establishment within Alain Ducasse Enterprise?
I love them all equally. They’re all my beloved children! I visit them regularly to work with my teams, check the quality of any detail, develop new ideas. Because the quest for excellence is a never-ending story.
What do you like to eat at home?
I spend my time tasting recipes. Therefore, back home, I am rarely very hungry and I look for very light, simple and healthy food.
Congratulations on winning back your third star at your Paris flagship restaurant at the Plaza Athénée Hotel – how does the cuisine here differ to your other restaurants?
I grew up on a farm and it left me with a permanent imprint. In fact, through this experience, I understood that before cooking, there is nature. What I am doing at my restaurant Alain Ducasse at the Plaza Athénée in Paris is creating a high-end version of a humble cuisine based upon vegetables, cereals and fish. I would like my guests to realise that we must all become aware that our eating habits must evolve, that we must become more cautious with the natural resources of the planet.
Does this farm-to-table, healthy style of cuisine reflect changing attitudes to food in Paris?
I strongly believe it goes beyond. Each one of us has a role to play in France and abroad.
How has the restaurant scene evolved in Paris and in France since you started?
The key word is diversity. This applies to the entire global culinary scene. New countries emerge, discovering and reshaping their food culture, young talents blossom everywhere, the dialogue between chefs is becoming more intense. This result in a much more diversified offer and a buoyant culinary scene. The best thing for diners!
What does the future hold in terms of restaurant trends in Paris?
Diversification will encompass both the variety of culinary styles and the multiplicity of ways of eating – with more casual options, be it with street food or bistros and brasseries.
What's next for you?
Two important restaurant openings are planned for the next twelve months in Paris (Champeaux at Les Halles in Paris and Ore at the Versailles palace). We will also strongly develop our consulting offer thanks to the partnership we formed with Elior, one of the world's leading operators in the contracted food and support services industry. And we’ll keep developing our chocolate activity.
