A giant of French cuisine

By Christopher Hirst

Alain Ducasse, born in the Atlantic département of Landes in 1956, is one of the twin giants of French cuisine. Joel Robuchon might have seven more Michelin stars than him, but Ducasse’s restaurants in Monaco, Paris and London have three stars each, an achievement no other chef has matched. He is also a cook of two halves. He trained with Roger Vergé, the inventor of cuisine du soleil, a deceptively simple style steeped in the intense flavours of Provence. Yet his restaurants are better known for elaborate, high-flown classicism than the simplicity of his youth.

These two sides of Ducasse’s culinary imagination—the weighty ambition and complexity that won him his constellation of Michelins, and the straightforward platefuls of southern French cooking—can be seen in his books. Running to 1,080 large-format pages, the scarcely liftable "Culinary Encyclopedia" (2004) contains more than 700 recipes, aimed at the sort of cook who sees a barding needle and sliced white truffle as essential kitchen stand-bys. His more recent "Nature: Simple, Healthy and Good" (2009) makes a volte-face, declaring: "It is time to come back to the bare essentials." Though he made his fortune with exclusive haute cuisine, Ducasse recognises that good ingredients simply treated is a form of democratic excellence we can all enjoy.