After launching his coffee and chocolate shop, Alain Ducasse is now launching into biscuits. Discover the new project of the multi-starred chef.

[Updated August 10, 2022 at 2:06 p.m.] Alain Ducasse is constantly looking for innovation. After opening numerous restaurants around the world, the multi-starred chef launched his chocolate, ice cream and coffee factories. Today, he is tackling another everyday product: biscuits.

Alain Ducasse will indeed open on September 1, 2022 Alain Ducasse Cookies , with about thirty different delicacies, all handcrafted with quality products, complex textures and strong flavors. The brand, located at 42 rue de la Roquette in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, will be open every day from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and will, for example, offer cookie-bars with inserts of candied orange and hazelnuts or cocoa nibs and chocolate ganache from Peru. The pastry chef Flora Davis, at the head of the boutique, also imagined different pallets, of the chewable tablets but also biscuits minute , which will be made to order. We can't wait to taste it!

Biography of a chef at the service of excellence

Born on September 13, 1956 in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Alain Ducasse is a child growing up in the open air. The son of farmers and a carpenter grandfather, he forged his first taste experiences in contact with family vegetable garden and tasty recipes from her grandmother: 'My grandmother was an excellent cook and prepared meals for the whole family. Often, on Sundays, it was roast chicken. Forever, these flavors and these good smells will remain etched in my memory. These are my most important landmarks. intimate 'explains this fan of simple flavors. At 16, he began his career by becoming an apprentice in a restaurant while taking courses at the Talence hotel school . Quickly annoyed by the repetition of technical gestures, Alain Ducasse slammed the door of his training in 1974. He will never get his CAP nor any other culinary degree. On the other hand, he will be keen to choose his mentors well to forge his own experience!

This is how he joined the brigade of the famous - and three times starred - Michel Guerard , the undisputed master of French cuisine. ' He struck me with his taste for work and his pride' will say the chef of his apprentice a few years later. His curiosity then leads him in the footsteps of the pastry chef Gaston Lenotre who taught him (among other gourmet flavors) how to make delicious croissants... Always attracted by Mediterranean cuisine, Alain Ducasse was hired as a clerk at the restaurant Le Moulin de Mouglins, with the three-starred chef Roger Vergé then as chef of the second restaurant in Lyon Alain Chapel . 'He taught me rigor, a taste for excellence' recalls Alain Ducasse who then speaks of this period as being that of the 'revelation'.

August 9, 1983, however, marked a halt in his meteoric rise: Alain Ducasse escapes a plane crash of tourism. Miraculously, he is the sole survivor of the five passengers but his condition is very worrying. He spent an entire year in the hospital and underwent 13 operations to get back on his feet. From this traumatic experience, Alain Ducasse will draw a life lesson: that of live your passion fully and to move forward at all costs without ever giving up.

This is how, barely 33 years old, the young wolf accepted the greatest challenge of his life as a chef: to take over the kitchens of the gourmet restaurant Le Louis XV at the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo, namely the palace the most prestigious and luxurious in Monaco. Quickly, he gets the third star at Guide Michelin and the hotel thus becomes the first palace in the world to obtain this honorable distinction. Alain Ducasse enters the big leagues and immediately opens La Bastide de Moustiers located in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, in the heart of the Gorges du Verdon. The concept ? A small charming establishment that offers menus exclusively based on Provençal dishes that Alain Ducasse is so fond of. Some time later, the establishment earned a star in the Red Guide!

Where to find Alain Ducasse's restaurants?

Excited by his successes, the chef began his conquest of the restaurant world: in 1996, he takes over the former restaurant of Joël Robuchon avenue Raymond Poincaré in the 16th arrondissement of Paris and soberly renamed it Alain Ducasse. His name thus becomes a brand in its own right and its success is undeniable since it now has 6 Michelin stars. After the opening in June 2000 of a restaurant in the United States at the Essex House Hotel near Central Park, Alain Ducasse took over the reins of the Plaza Athenée avenue Montaigne.

His empire expands slowly but surely and the leader becomes a business man accompli  : he bought restaurants all over the world (Tuscany, Tokyo, London, Las Vegas, etc.), joined forces with prestigious financial groups, opened numerous hotels. His most prestigious achievement? The management of the restaurant Le Jules Verne on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower for over 10 years!

But Alain Ducasse does not stop there: he also takes over the Dali restaurant of the Hotel Meurice , the Allard bistro in the Germanopratin district of Paris, the restaurant Ore nestled in the Palace of Versailles, the gourmet table At the Dorchester in London… And many more! In just a few years, the Gascon has become a essential gastronomy entrepreneur à la française and its know-how is now practiced on 3 continents with the collaboration of a team of 2,000 people . Alain Ducasse shines with his ability to surround himself with the best in the restaurant industry who, under his name, have garnered no less than 18 stars in the Michelin Guide !

In 2021, Alain Ducasse announces his departure from the Plaza Athénée and opens in November add an ephemeral restaurant at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, in the company of Albert Adrià, Romaine Meder and Jessica Préalpato, open for only 100 days. At the same time, Alain Ducasse creates Sapid, a vegetable canteen with dishes available on site or to take away, with the complicity of Romaine Meder.

In 2022, Alain Ducasse wins a new star in the Michelin Guide for his restaurant The Great Control at the Palace of Versailles. The same year, he inaugurated Burgal, a plant-based burger stand on the Place de la Bastille, sold for only €7.50. The chef claims a more responsible and truly cooked street food, with a vegan bun and a vegetable pancake, refusing to enhance his recipes with 'imitation meat'.

School, chocolate factory, publishing house: his prolific business

At the same time, the chef initiated a training center located in Argenteuil and in the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris. This school, which opened its doors in 1999, places the culinary arts and pastry making at the heart of its program. At stake: a Bachelor d'excellence , which covers all of the professions offered in the catering sector. But that's not all: in the same year, Alain Ducasse became the first French chef to create his own publishing house . Translated in more than 15 countries, his works signed by more than 50 authors have established themselves as essential in gastronomy. Becoming a top chef while remaining accessible to all is his priority... Passionate about chocolate, Alain Ducasse has also taken the daring gamble of setting up his own Manufacture of Chocolates . His wish: to master his production from A to Z, from the carefully selected cocoa bean to the delicious softness that ends up on the plate of his restaurants! In 2022, the chef also opened his own cookie shop in the 11th arrondissement of Paris.

How to define your kitchen?

In addition to his passion for chocolate, Alain Ducasse can claim to have been a pioneer in the field of 'vegetarian' menu . In 1987, he thus became the first chef to offer an 'all-vegetable' menu. His credo? Celebrating nature in all its forms by respecting the seasons but also by favoring eco-responsible products. However, fish and meat have a place of choice in his cuisine. keen on seafood cuisine , Alain Ducasse offers skilfully prepared fish in his establishments while making sure to promote sustainable fishing.

What are Alain Ducasse's flagship recipes?

Barigoule-style purple artichokes, saddle of rabbit with fresh goat cheese and spinach, crabs with Agen prunes on endive feathers… so many refined dishes that give pride of place to the terroir and the combinations of explosive tastes! But if we had to remember only one dish defining Alain Ducasse, it would be the vegetable cookpot . Both a dish and an object, this recipe, which varies according to the seasons, consists of cooking 7 vegetables together in a porcelain casserole dish. Alain Ducasse's cuisine is definitely a ode to nature which never ceases to dazzle the taste buds.

Source journaldesfemmes.fr