Joel Robuchon
Joel Robuchon
Joël Robuchonis a French chef and restaurateur. He was titled "Chef of the Century" by the guide Gault Millau in 1989, and also awarded the Meilleur Ouvrier de Francein cuisine in 1976. He has published several cookbooks in French, two of which have been translated into English, has chaired the committee for the current edition of the Larousse Gastronomique, and has hosted culinary television shows in France. He operates a dozen restaurants in Bangkok, Bordeaux, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, London,...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionChef
Date of Birth7 April 1945
CountryFrance
The simpler the food, the harder it is to prepare it well. You want to truly taste what it is you're eating. So that goes back to the trend of fine ingredients. It's very Japanese: Preparing good ingredients very simply, without distractions from the flavor of the ingredient itself.
I've never followed a vegan or vegetarian diet in the past, but I think I could do it. It would not be easy. I have worked with nutritionists who have said a vegan diet is not necessarily all positive for your health, because you need nutrients you only find in meats. I believe in a balanced diet.
I am a gourmand. I like to eat. When I have something that I like, I tend to have too much of it. That is a guilty pleasure.
Right now, I am doing the reverse of molecular gastronomy. I'm working with scientists to find ingredients and produce that are proven to be good for you.
My cooking philosophy, what I try to do, is to make a cuisine where the produce and the product shines, compared to some current trends that are maybe more adding additional things, like molecular cuisine, with a lot of additives and chemicals, which are now showing that they could be bad for your health.
When you cook, you take a life. When you eat fish, or meat, you take a life. And you must be very respectful of the ingredients and that is very important.
We the chefs have a responsibility to learn about the chemical makeup of food!
When a dish works, it works for everyone, whether you're Asian, European, African, American or anybody else.
When new cooks come to work for me, they obviously make mistakes at the beginning or there's some messiness to the presentation. What I always say to them is: 'If you were cooking this for your mother or your girlfriend, would you make those mistakes?'
Creating deluxe cuisine is like playing a sport. Always competitive. Always challenging. And if you slow down a bit, you can no longer return to the top level.
Taste is developed by the diversity of the products one can sample. I think our children today may be missing an education about food. We must teach them to know their cuisine and to know the equilibrium of nourishment. That is very important for health.
When I was 13, I entered the seminary in the hope of becoming a priest. But I often found myself helping the nuns in the kitchen and thus discovered my passion for cooking. I began to cultivate my skills and aspirations at the age of 15, when I embarked on my first apprenticeship.
When I used to have a show on French TV, people would ask me how my jacket stayed spotless while cooking. Your whole area has to be clean - and you have to keep it that way.
Vegas represents the idea of America I had as a kid. The big cars, the pretty girls; everything is possible in Vegas.