CHEF
In Conversation with
ALAIN DUCASSE | BY MICHAEL CULLEN
Alain Ducasse is the world’s most decorated chef alive. He is the first to own restaurants in three cities, each carrying three Michelin stars simultaneously. He has an extensive portfolio of restaurants worldwide, including his home bases in France and Monaco, London, New York, Singapore, Bangkok, Japan, China, and Qatar. His Ducasse Paris enterprise has also developed specialized restaurant consulting, events and catering, cooking schools, luxury inns and hotels, and numerous highly acclaimed and best-selling cookbooks. Beyond this, Alain Ducasse Manufacturing has been rediscovering the authentic essence of chocolate, then coffee, followed by ice cream, and now biscuits. He controls the manufacturing from personally selected raw ingredients to the end product. Alain develops everything with the same founding principles and vision with high-quality ingredients and artisanal techniques for authentic flavors and a tasty experience. He now has 33 Le Chocolat Alain Ducasse and Le Café Alain Ducasse specialist retail outlets across France, Japan, and the UK, as well as supplying to his restaurants. I chatted with the culinary ‘tour de force’ Alain Ducasse on his remarkable career and the talent he has nurtured to sustain nearly five decades of international success. How did it all start? You now have achieved 34 restaurants across three continents and seven countries holding twenty Michelin stars. I could say it started in my childhood when my passion for cooking was born. It also started years later when HSH Prince Rainier III of Monaco trusted me and accepted a project I submitted to him. The daunting challenge was to turn the upscale restaurant Le Louis XV in the Hôtel de Paris, Monte Carlo, into the first hotel restaurant to receive three Michelin stars. So our success is a combination of passion and work. My passion was born on the family farm where I was raised and had the irreplaceable experience of the link between nature and cooking. And the work we did to develop an innovative and daring program for Le Louis XV. We had an agreed deadline of four years to achieve those stars, and against 102 | UPSCALE LIVING MAGAZINE | APRIL 2023
Alain Ducasse and his team @ Louis XV Monaco (c) Matteo Carassale
