Alain Ducasse | Chef and restaurateur
The pandemic has not subdued the chef with the most Michelin stars in the world, who presented a new ephemeral restaurant at Gastronomika
Always pose in profile and look defiantly through your plastic glasses if you don’t like what you hear. After a crisis that has removed the foundations of high restoration and forced him to close his flagship, Plaza Athénée, Alain Ducasse returns to the fray. King Midas of French gastronomy, who turns everything he touches into gold, opens ADMO, an ephemeral restaurant together with Albert Adrià, another heavyweight hit by the pandemic. After receiving the tribute award from San Sebastián Gastronomika – Euskadi Basque Country, he talks about his current role as an experience cook.
-How do two gastronomy icons of such caliber come together?
-Three years ago I visited Albert in Barcelona, he seemed to me to have a lot of talent and I proposed to him to work together in Paris. We decided it would be a short-lived experience for an international audience. Our styles are not so different. In the end the kitchen is summarized in three questions: what do I have? What do I know? What do I do? We have created dishes that the customer does not know if they are from Adrià or Ducasse. They belong to both.
-A 380 euro menu at the Musée du Qai Branl and with these creators, is it expensive or cheap?
-We are talking about haute cuisine and an excellent wine cellar. That comes at a price. But we wanted it to be relatively affordable and we think it’s a fair price. It has been published that we have a goal of 5 million in turnover, but the project is a unique experiment capable of attracting ‘foodies’ from all over the world.
origins
«I cook dead at home, and that puts my feet on the ground to know where I come from»
-Is it an imaginative way to get ahead behind the economic stick of the covid?
-If it weren’t for this crisis, we probably wouldn’t have had the time to create this experience. We were immersed in our daily lives, in new openings. The crisis allowed us to live more calmly, make more leisurely decisions and create things that in the normal routine of restoration would never have been possible.
– Have you ever looked at each other suspiciously?
-We must stop seeing gastronomy as a competition between countries. Our relationship is based on mutual respect. If there are no borders in Europe, why should there be any in the kitchen? French cuisine has its rules, and when the Adrià brothers arrived they created and added new things. The evolution of gastronomy is infinite. I consider myself more an artistic director than a cook. I feel the constant need to innovate. It is like an addiction. One of my values is to always have my eyes wide open.
-Do you miss the din of the stove?
-I cook a lot at home, I take care of my garden, going to the market … 60% of the work of a cook is not creative, it is a meticulous production work. Now I try to make that industriousness a pleasure. Cooking at home I realize the simplicity of cooking, it puts my feet on the ground to know where I come from.
-What characteristics do you have to have to succeed in this job?
-It’s very simple: you have to work harder, faster, and better than others. With rigor, discipline and demand. Without those qualities you will never reach the top. If you have them, maybe one day you will.
Michelin record
“I’m still excited to get stars, but especially for my team. My ego is covered »
-Who did you notice when you were an apprentice?
-At Alain Chapelle, my mentor. In 1990, three months before he passed away, I called him from Japan to thank him. ‘I am who I am thanks to you, my three stars are thanks to you,’ I said.
-How will the crisis change our relationship with gastronomy?
-There is a trend towards the well-being of the person and the planet. We are more aware of the vulnerability of our environment. It can be a rich and tasty cuisine, but it can also enrich us spiritually. It is not necessary to stop eating meat, but it should be less quantity and of better quality. We must try that the farmer does not work to survive, that he obtain benefits for doing a good job.
-He is the chef with the most Michelin stars in the world. Are you still excited to get them?
-It continues to excite me, especially because it is a recognition of my team. My ego is already covered. I have reached the third Michelin star eight times, other times I have lost them or have recovered them again. It can amuse me, but it is better not to give it too much importance. I cook with or without stars, you have to be prepared for everything.
-What restaurants are you excited about?
-Those who tell a story, where people are in harmony with their land and the kitchen is told in the first person. That is not a copy. I tell my guys to read everything but to question everything, and even to do the opposite.
.