alain ducasse

There are chefs, there are Michelin Star chefs, and there is Alain Ducasse. Nearly fifty years since he began as an apprentice in a restaurant in his native France, Ducasse has long been one of the world’s most renowned chefs, and one of only two to ever hold twenty-one of the fabled Michelin Stars. He not has restaurants in some of the most desirable locations in the world, runs cooking schools, works as a consultant, and has published numerous bestselling cookbooks.

Ducasse’s road to fame began in 1972 when he began work at the Pavillon Landais restaurant in Soustons, in the south-west of France. He spent the rest of the decade honing his craft and learning from the very best. By the end of the decade, he was working as Assistant to Roger Vergé, a man once described as “the very incarnation of the great French chef”. It was under Vergé that Ducasse really mastered Provençal cooking, the style with which he would make his name. In 1984, he was awarded the first of his many Michelin Stars. Shortly afterwards, he was offered the position of Head Chef at Monte Carlo’s Hôtel de Paris. It was here that Ducasse led the hotel’s restaurant, Le Louis XV, in becoming the first hotel restaurant ever to be awarded three Michelin Stars.

Today, Ducasse oversees a veritable empire of exquisite cuisine. He has opened restaurants in London, New York, Hong Kong, Monaco, Doha, and many in his beloved France. He has cooked for the reigning monarch of Monaco and, perhaps most unique of all, has been engaged by the European Space Agency to develop meals for astronauts to take into space.