Starman: the strength and elegance of Alain Ducasse
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IT SEEMS
a dark night with no history in the summer of 1984, with the twilight hidden by clouds and uncertainly spotted snow on the Alps, when a small plane appears in the Savoie sky near Chambery. On-board instruments are being broken down, the pilot desperately insists on cloches while the altimeter marks imaginative altitudes, until the flight crashes into a mountain obscured by weather. Of the five passengers only one survived, the young French chef Alain Ducasse. Coincidence or fate, that survivor will change as a few others the history of world cuisine.
Alain Ducasse at the beginning of the 90s - Xavier Lambours Photo
He lost an eye and is forced to stay in a bed for eighteen months, in the very year in which he received his first Michelin two-star in the restaurant 'La Terrasse' in Juan-Les-Pins. Thus he learns how to delegate and remotely control, all skills that will be critical to manage his coming empire. He has learned rather quickly how to cook, leaving the Gascony and the parents' farm to attend the hospitality training, and then working with three legendary icons of French cuisine: Michel Guérard, Roger Vergé and Alain Chapel. The first two forged him, but the third transformed him deeply, introducing him to the cult of the raw material which results in the exasperated selection of each ingredient.
Sanremo’s Prawns, delicate jelly and caviar – T.Dhellemmes Photo
'From this moment on, boy, forget everything', it is Chapel’s invitation to the twenty- years-old Ducasse when crossing the threshold of his restaurant in Mionnay. And he immediately follows the statement of his philosophy, which will pass from the old man to the young one to arrive alive until today. 'The product is the only truth and the only star of the kitchen. Not the cook, whose sole task is to enhance it and respect the truth.”
The hall of the Louis XV, Alain Ducasse restaurant inside the Hotel de Paris
Six years have passed since the plane crash that day in Mionnay, and Ducasse in Juan-Les-Pins is developing his cooking over time, the 'cuisine of the Riviera', which translates into dishes the sun and sea of Côte d'Azur, which will be accomplished in the sumptuous halls of the Louis XV in Monte Carlo, where the Gascon moves starting from 1987. When Rainier of Monaco and his Société des Bains de Mer (which controls all luxury hotels in the Principality, including the Hotel de Paris which houses the Louis XV), come knocking on his door to offer him the role of chef, they see their offer undergoing a sensational relaunch: Ducasse is not willing to say yes unless he had absolute guarantee of freedom, regarding both the kitchen line and the management.
The hall of the Louis XV, Alain Ducasse restaurant inside the Hotel de Paris
In return, he is willing to enter into the contract a clause providing for his resignation in the event he fails to get the three stars in four years. The Société agrees, and on March 16th, 1990, thirty-three months after the bet, the objective is centered. Ducasse becomes the three-starred youngest chef ever (he will be ousted only a dozen years later by Massimiliano Alajmo), and Louis XV is the first hotel restaurant to have ever received the highest award from the Red guide.
Spring vegetables saucepan
From now on the rise to myth it is rapid and continuous, thanks to his Mediterranean cuisine as opposed to French instincts, reshaping the classic themes and substituting, where possible, butter and cooking juices with olive oil, basil and herbs. Everything is lighter, long cooking is abolished because it distorts the products, as well as the sauces, too intense because of their tendency to steal the show. Essential dishes were born, as hymns to authentic flavors built on the abduction, and in particular one of them which Ducasse will always remain fond of, halfway between a blanket and a workhorse. It’s the spring vegetables saucepan, simple and dizzying, one of the few recipes that is always placed in the menu of all of his restaurants.
Ducasse is attentive to every detail of his restaurants, from tablecloths to simple decorations
In 1995 he reached another record when his main rival considered the best chef in the world, Joël Robuchon, hangs (temporarily) the toque up due to stress, and Ducasse takes another chance, though at first criticized by most. He takes over the restaurant left by Robuchon in rue Raymond-Poincare, and arrives in Paris with his restaurant 'Alain Ducasse', to conquer the capital. The first reactions are cold and almost skeptical. Some speak of 'Mediterranean tourist in Paris', others are wondering 'who do you believe to enchant with two leaves of basil and a few drops of oil.' Eight months later three stars arrived, and many mouths stopped talking, but the Michelin adopts a highly contested political choice: the Louis XV loses a star, because there are doubts about the possibility that one man can simultaneously manage two large restaurants.
Inside Louis XV’s kitchens
Ducasse takes this sting as a challenge and willingly accepts it. He stacks up new openings in an ever-increasing pace, building a network of hotels and restaurants in France and abroad, and finally regaining the third star at the Louis XV in 1998. He is the first man since the days of Eugénie Brazier eighty years before, who has six stars in two restaurants, and creates an innovative role that later others will replicate, that of chef-entrepreneur, the head chef of various cuisines but also a smart manager with great management skills. François Simon, a prominent critic of 'Le Figaro', teases him by attributing the invention of the 'fax-food', because he claims that the place of the chef is in the kitchen, not in offices nor airplanes. He shrugs and opens six other restaurants.
Quinoa of Anjou, roots, mushrooms and quinces
He keeps traveling tirelessly to examine his projects, and at each stage he stops to discover products, trends or old traditions, which then elaborates to create new restorative formats and give fresh impulse to the kitchens of his restaurants. Meanwhile he educates dozens of chefs from France and from abroad that over the years will become in turn stars (from Jean-Francois Piège Elena Arzak, Franck Cerutti to Massimo Bottura ...), creating a real 'Ducasse génération' and by clearing for the first time the assumption that for a chef with a strong team it is not necessary to stay every day in the kitchen.
The hall at the Plaza Athénée in Paris
In 2000 he moved his restaurant in Paris at the hotel of the splendour par excellence, the Plaza Athénée, and the decade goes on increasing turnovers and awards and is still rising, counting on dozens of signs amounting at 18 Michelin stars (three with the maximum score), a publishing house and a chocolate factory; as well as a myriad of other places of different kinds (from neoclassical seafood restaurant 'Rech', the starry bistro 'Benoit', through various and visionaries 'Spoon' scattered around the world).
The facade of the starry bistro Benoit
Classic Beef Wellington, often in Benoit’s menu
Each projectof his has its own identity, yet each speaks the language of Alain Ducasse, because he continues to feel first a cook and does not compromise although he is always open to dialogue with employees. 'I do not believe in the geniuses of the kitchen,' he answers if you ask him to make a photograph of contemporary cuisine, 'because in each century were born two geniuses at the most, and I am not aware there has never been a cook-genius. If I promise a calf, the customer must find in the pot 95% of veal and, at most, 5% of genius (or creativity); some prefers to give 50% calf and 50% of genius, but then is no wonder that people feel rejected by something they do not recognize
Green lentils of Puy, golden caviar and smoked fish gelatin
The latest news include the upcoming opening of a contemporary coffee in the Palace of Versailles, and the abolition of meat from the kitchen of the Plaza Athénée, to give more space to fish and vegetable for even lighter though no less rich in flavor dishes, such as the masterful lentils, caviar and smoked fish gelatin, to be spread on soft buckwheat galette and finish with sour cream of Borniambuc.
Blue lobster, myrtle and ginger
Christophe Saintagne, former chef of the Plaza at the head of the three stars Dali inside the Hotel Meurice (obviously always under the supervision of Alain Ducasse), says that 'many people disapprove his extreme choice, because they preferred the more enjoyable kitchen they got accustomed to. Perhaps I too do agree with them, but in twenty years time we will realize he was right once again.'
Franck Cerutti says about him: 'The more I know the less I know him...'
Ducasse does not comment, as usual he shrugs and keeps opening new restaurants. Maybe because when you win every battle, including with death, nothing can shudder you.
Author: Paolo Vizzari
Translated by Sara Favilla
The cover photograph and photographs from n. 3 onwards are by Pierre Monetta
