French cooking guru Paul Bocuse is "chef of century"

Passion4luxury presents French cooking guru Bocuse is ‘Chef of century’.

Frenchman Paul Bocuse, credited as the father of “nouvelle cuisine” and the first of the celebrity chefs, was named “chef of the century” by America’s leading cooking school on Wednesday.

The Culinary Institute of America named Bocuse the top chef of the 20th century, citing the 85-year-old’s legendary career in which he transformed both food on plates and the lives of the people who cooked.

“He is one of the greatest, most significant chefs of all time,” Tim Ryan, president of the institute said at an event with Bocuse in New York prior to the awards ceremony.

Ryan said Bocuse led the movement in the 1960s and ’70s in France that became known as “nouvelle cuisine” and was typified by experimentation, new care over presentation and attention to fresh ingredients.

Bocuse also brought cooks out of the anonymity of the kitchen and into the media, becoming “the first celebrity chef of the modern era,” Ryan said.

The French icon, whose Lyon restaurant L’Auberge has held a Michelin three-star grading — one of just a handful in the world — all the way back since 1965, said the secret of success in the kitchen is simple.

“You can not forget the good ingredients. If there are not good ingredients, there is no good cooking,” he said at the New York event, adding: “There is no great or small cooking — there is only good.”

His impact on gastronomy has been indelible, but as for his role in inventing “nouvelle cuisine,” Bocuse is less than eager to accept the honor, saying the term was a media invention and the cooking was not “some incredible revolution.”

Known for his humorous approach to the hard work of being a globe-trotting chef, Bocuse joked: “Nouvelle cuisine was nothing on the plate, but everything on the bill.”

Fellow top chefs attending the award ceremony said Bocuse deserves every accolade he gets.

Thomas Keller, chef at New York’s Per Se restaurant, said Bocuse had not only thrilled diners, but liberated chefs, creating the modern cult of the cook in which Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver are household names even for people who can barely boil an egg.

“He’s the one who brought chefs out of the kitchen,” Keller said. “He set us free in many ways…. We were allowed to have an interpretation, a point of view about food.”

Daniel Boulud, named chef of the year by the CIA, said Bocuse had been his inspiration throughout his career, not just for his cooking, but the way he dealt with others in the “fraternity.”

“He was gathering with his best friends in the market, selecting their ‘marche du jour’ (fresh produce) and gathering around the table,” said Boulud, whose restaurants include Daniel in New York. “He still makes a point to gather his friends.”

Son Jerome Bocuse, who is following in the family’s long tradition, also highlighted the great cook’s human qualities, saying that even at the height of his fame and frenzied business life, his father always managed to pick him up from school.

The difficulty came later, when he went to train as a cook at the CIA, and he realized he was kitchen royalty, Jerome Bocuse said. “It was not always easy to have that last name embroidered on the jacket.”

Bocuse, who continues to sleep in the same room where he was born nearly a century ago, said technical changes had made a big impact in cooking, particularly the switch from wood-fired to gas stoves. “You lose a bit of knowledge, but you must live with progress,” he said.

But he warned that technology can also be dangerous, citing the nuclear disaster in Japan, a country he has long visited and admired.

                                                                 “The Earth is fragile,” he said.

Alain Ducasse

 

One of the world’s most famous chefs, Alain Ducasse is in charge of three Michelin star restaurants in Monaco, Paris and London. Widely known not only for his incomparable French cuisine, he has also developed innovative restaurant concepts, reflecting international influences.

Born in 1956 on a farm in Les Landes, surrounded by hens, ducks and geese, raised amidst flap mushrooms and “foie gras”, Alain Ducasse grew up in a paradise. Here, from a very early age, he learnt to appreciate the taste of natural products, to respect, preserve and cook them.

At the age of 16, Alain Ducasse began to work in the South-West, then became a student at the hotel and catering school in Bordeaux. He then worked for great chefs such as Michel Guérard, Gaston Lenôtre and Roger Vergé, at the “Moulin de Mougins”. Here he discovered the flavours of Provencal cuisine which was to become one of the essential components of his various styles of cooking.
In 1978, he went to work for Alain Chapel (near Lyon) who became his spiritual master, before accepting the position of chef at “L’Amandier” in Mougins, offered to him by Roger Vergé. A year later, Alain Ducasse became head of the team in the kitchen at “La Terrasse”, the restaurant at the Hôtel Juana in Juan-les-Pins. It was here that he won two stars in the Michelin Guide in 1984.

In 1987, the Société des Bains de Mer (SBM) invited him to take on the position of “Chef des cuisines” at the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo, together with management of the “Louis XV” restaurant. Alain Ducasse was just 33 years old, and the restaurant had been open for 33 months, when the Michelin Guide consecrated the “Louis XV” as the first 3-star restaurant in a hotel. After making sure that the opening of the hotel’s other restaurants would be a success, he devoted himself entirely to the “Louis XV-Alain Ducasse”.
In 1996, he opened the “Alain Ducasse” restaurant in Paris becoming, two years later, the first chef in the history of the Michelin Guide to be awarded three stars – twice! Three for the “Louis XV”, Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo; three for the Alain Ducasse restaurant, Hôtel du Parc, Paris.
Shortly afterwards, he came up with his first concept restaurant: “SPOON Food & Wine” in Paris, later reproduced in Saint-Tropez and Hong Kong.

Alain Ducasse openly lays claim to a chef’s right not to be a permanent fixture behind his ovens. A creative cook, he also manages his teams and provides the essential source of inspiration for recipes, atmosphere, design, organisation of the kitchens and table decoration. “It’s the role of the “chef de cuisine” to strive for excellence on an everyday basis,” says Alain Ducasse. Surrounding himself with top professionals, he keeps a close eye on recruitment for the kitchens in his restaurants.

At the head of two “haute couture” restaurants, the “Louis XV-Alain Ducasse” in Monaco and the “Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée” in Paris, Alain Ducasse has become over the years an inn-keeper, creator, but above all a real team leader.

Through “Ducasse Education”, he is actively involved in the training of professionals. He is also President of the voluntary chain “Châteaux et Hôtels Collection” and supervises country hotels in Provence (La Bastide de Moustiers and L’Hostellerie de l’Abbaye de La Celle) and Tuscany (L’Andana, Tenuta la Badiola). He is deeply involved in bistro cuisine (Aux Lyonnais , Rech et Benoit in Paris, Benoit in New York and Le Comptoir de Benoit in Osaka). In addition to SPOON, he has created other restaurant concepts such as “Mix” in Las Vegas, on the island of Vieques in the Caribbean since 2010, and in Russia, “Mix St. Petersbourg” since 2011, as well as “Be Bon et Essentiel” which he opened in Paris in October 2002, and La Trattoria in Monaco, since June 2010.

Since January 2008, the St. Regis Hotel at the heart of Manhattan in New York has hosted Alain Ducasse’s new restaurant, Adour Alain Ducasse. Adour, the name of a river in south-western France, is a reference to Alain Ducasse’s origins and his first culinary inspirations. Adour at the St. Regis Washington DC opened its doors in September 2008.
On 1st January 2007, Alain Ducasse Entreprise in partnership with L’Affiche, a subsidiary of the Groupe Sodexo, won the concession for the restaurants in the Eiffel Tower. Alain Ducasse and his teams wanted to create a restaurant where guests would be carried away by dreams and enchantment. Beyond culinary creativity and modern service, this enchantment is expressed through the work of architect and interior designer Patrick Jouin. The new adventure leading to Le Jules Verne (1 Michelin star) began in December, 2007.

The new adventure leading to Le Jules Verne (1 Michelin star) began in December 2007.
On 13 November 2007, the restaurant Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester opened in London in the prestigious hotel, The Dorchester, facing Hyde Park. It was distinguished by three stars in the Michelin Guide 2010.

In May, 2009, Alain Ducasse, who has always defended the principle of handing on knowledge, opened his cookery school in Paris, on Rue du Ranelagh.

Alain Ducasse - The Lifetime Achievement Award 2013

"The future of cooking in part rests on diversity. Each chef has his emotional territory – this difference makes the wealth of the ensemble"

Alain Ducasse

Let's start with some numbers. Twenty-four individual restaurants in nine countries across three continents. Three separate three-Michelin-star restaurants in three cities. Twenty-five years of the flagship Louis XV restaurant in Monaco, prompting an anniversary gathering of some 240 chefs from all corners of the globe. Multiple appearances on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list. A career spanning well over 30 years. All stemming from just one man.

Alain Ducasse is one of the world's most successful, influential and respected chefs and restaurateurs. Born in south-western France's Les Landes region 56 years ago, Ducasse has embarked on an extraordinary culinary journey, which is rooted in his native land but has seen him travel the globe both seeking and spreading culinary influence and inspiration.

His portfolio of restaurants is notable not only for its consistently high quality and global reach, but also for the range of styles contained within it, from ornate fine-dining rooms to casual bistros, from bastions of classical French cuisine to experimental multi-ethnic concepts. Ducasse is an international chef in every sense.

And the empire continues to expand: last year saw the team's first foray into the Middle East with the opening of IDAM in the stunning Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar; this spring it débuts a new concept in the Byblos Hotel in St Tropez, called Rivea.

However, this is not just a very successful businessman, but also a hugely imaginative chef and passionate mentor. In the often traditional world of French gastronomy, he has broken down barriers, championed progression and explored culinary cultures, while respecting history. “The future of cooking in part rests on our diversity.

Each chef has his own specific emotional territory – and it is this difference that makes the wealth of the ensemble,” he says.

Ducasse and his team have nurtured and trained a generation of chefs, many of whom are now also part of the world's culinary élite. What's more, it is on this sphere of education and knowledge-sharing that the energetic entrepreneur aims primarily to focus in the future.

“We must attract talent and guarantee continuity. Mentoring is about the transmission of knowledge,” he says. Backing such words with action, Ducasse oversees two cooking schools – one of which, the École Nationale Supérieure de la Pâtisserie in Yssingeaux, is acknowledged as the world's premier pastry-chef academy.

In direct reference to the chef's insistence on and championing of making everything from scratch, the company recently opened its own artisanal chocolate-making facility in Paris. Called La Manufacture, it creates premium chocolate products all the way from bean to bar.