Ducasse T
hings change. For example, in a 1998 New York Times article marking his acquisition of six Michelin stars, the aeroplane from which Alain Ducasse survived his famous air crash was a humble Piper Aztec. Ten years (and 15 stars) later, when reporting on the opening of his new New York restaurant, Adour, the same newspaper noted that it was a Lear jet he was travelling in on that fateful day. No matter. The essential facts remain. In August 1984 Ducasse and four colleagues took off from Saint Tropez. They were going to open a hotel restaurant in Courchevel, in the French Alps. The weather was bad. “I was in a hurry, which is why we decided to fly.” The plane struck the side of a mountain: only Ducasse survived. He was thrown clear of the wreckage and lay in the snow, fully conscious, for almost seven hours before being rescued. Doctors considered amputating his leg; for a year he could not stand at all. His right arm was
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so badly injured that he could not lift even a paring knife. It seems almost redundant to note that such things will change a man. At the very least, they will give him time to think. “I continued making menus,” he says of his time in hospital. “I continued to think, continued my projects, continued to manage my restaurant. Intellectually, I never left the kitchen. I began to understand that I could have a restaurant without being obligated to be there physically.” Time, indeed, to change the very notion of what it is to be a chef.
THE MERCHANT OF HAPPINESS He calls himself a ‘merchant of happiness.’ Still, he notes, “it’s a serious business, pleasure.” A business that, at time of writing, runs to 24 restaurants, four inns, four bakeries, two cooking schools, a hotel consortium, and a
GREAT, GR AND & FAMOUS CHEFS AND THEIR SIGNATURE DISHES