Joël Robuchon, the King of Michelin Star restaurants who modernised the fine dining experience
Joël Robuchon’s chef career was one of constant achievement. From being the youngest head chef in Paris to earning Three Michelin stars in record time, Robuchon’s restaurants eventually spanned three continents. After winning three Michelin stars Robuchon was awarded the prestigious Meilleur Ouvrier de France (France’s best craftsman or M.O.F.) award in 1976, aged 31. His lifetime contributions to the restaurant world rewarded him the title “chef of the century” from the Gault et Millau cooking guide in 1989. In 2016 Robuchon restaurants spanned Paris, Bordeaux, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, London, Macau, Madrid, Monaco, Montreal, Shanghai, Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo, to New York totalling 32 Michelin stars. A Michelin restaurant record that still remains unbroken.
Born in 1945 to a working-class family in Poitiers, south of the Loire Valley, France. His father was a bricklayer, and Robuchon originally considered entering the priesthood. Whilst his father worked seven days a week the youngest Robuchon began working in the kitchen of the Nuns seminary, here he found enjoyment baking bread and decided to enter instead the world of professional kitchens aged 15. Robuchon’s first positions was commis pastry chef at the Relais of Poitiers Hotel in Paris. Eventually moving to the Concorde Lafayette Hotel, Robuchon worked his way up the brigade chef system as apprentice, then companion, before taking over the kitchens in the Concorde Lafayette as Head Chef aged 29, in charge of a 90-person kitchen brigade.
Next moving to the Hotel Nikko in Paris, Robuchon began his Michelin star quest. Earning his first star at the Les Celebrites restaurant in the Hotel which was eventually awarded two Michelin stars in 1980.
In 1981, aged 36 he took on his first premises as Chef Owner. The restaurant, Jamin was located at the Trocadero in Paris’s 16th Arrondissement near the Eiffel Tower. Jamin was already an established fine dining restaurant with a strong customer base that Robuchon aimed to take to the next level. There, he worked to create a modern menu and perfected his mashed potato recipe. Robuchon earned his first in 1982. Eventually becoming a Three Michelin star restaurant after just three years of opening in 1984. Robuchon was now 39 and Jamin was also awarded “Best Restaurant in the World” by International Herald Tribune.
Modernising the presentation of dishes and bringing in new ways to make each course look attractive. Robuchon covered plates with the precisely sized and spaced dots of sauce that because the Jamin and Joel Robuchon signature
Jean-Claude Vrinat, the owner of Paris three Michelin star restaurant Taillevent , which was generally considered the capital’s finest restaurant called Joel Robuchon a culinary genius. Noting that more than any other French chef, he’d managed to retain many of the concepts of nouvelle cuisine (smaller portions, adding new combinations and constantly changing seasonal menus) while developing a distinctive style of his own with a modern and beautiful presentation.
As with most Michelin 3* Head Chefs, with increased publicity and industry recognition Robuchon’s reputation and empire quickly grew In 1989, the guide Gault Millau had dubbed him the “cook of the century.”
Despite modernising the presentation of fine dining cuisine Robuchon still maintained the old order of always being present in his Kitchens to berate younger chefs and correct any mistakes or inconsistencies. A tolling process. Robuchon once famously threw a plate at a young apprentice, Gordon Ramsay. Despite his growing fame, in 1995, at the age of 50, he famously declared his intent to step away from the Kitchen and retire in order to sample some of the life he missed out on while standing in front of the stove chasing Michelin stars.
In 2003, he “un-retired” to open his L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, a chain of restaurants that drew inspiration from tapas bars and sushi counters to create a fine-casual dining experience. The restaurants were deliberately anti-Michelin. Perhaps a chef so consumed with Michelin stars had come to resent the dedication and time required in a fate similar to another three Michelin star chef Marco Pierre White.
Joël Robuchon’s legacy remains as the ultimate Michelin star record breaker. Holding every record from quickest restaurant to gain Three Michelin stars to the most Michelin stars ever held by one chef owner. His mark on haute cuisine continues having also mentored Gordon Ramsay, Michael Caines and Eric Ripert among others.
An interview with Joel Robuchon from 1979 including a sample recipe:
FOOD A FRESH APPROACH: With JOEL ROBUCHON
Originally published in New York Times 1983
A Fresh Approach (outside type) Paris is a city that always pays particular attention to the talents of its chefs. At the moment, much of that attention is focused on Joel Robuchon and the ‘moderne’ cuisine he is creating at the Jamin restaurant, a style of cooking that is less heavy but not necessarily less rich.
”Heavy sauces,” says Joel Robuchon, ”no longer fit into the contemporary life style.”
A Robuchon specialty: ravioli with langoustines, adorned with cabbage and a sauce flavored with foie gras and truffles.
Everyone in Paris seems to have an eye on Joel Robuchon, the quietly ambitious, roundly respected chef who for the past 16 months has been in charge at Jamin, the city’s restaurant of the hour. This month, Jamin was one of nine restaurants to be elevated from one to two stars in the 1983 Guide Michelin to France, and other chefs are already talking of Mr. Robuchon as France’s next three-star chef.
On a recent Friday afternoon, the guest list at this crisply elegant, 14-table restaurant in the fashionable 16th arrondissement read like a gastronomic who’s who in France, with more Michelin stars represented than one cared to count. There was Robert J. Courtine, the dean of French food critics, dining with the two-star chef Charles Berrier of Tours. At a nearby table sat Louis-Noel Richard, the director of the two-star Chiberta in Paris, who had invited Eventhia Senderens of Paris’s three-star L’Archestrate and Dominique and Albert Nahmias of Paris’s one-star Olympe. (Andre Daguin, the wellknown Gascon chef, had reserved a table, then canceled at the last minute to return to his two-star Hotel de France in Auch.)
They were all there to see what Mr. Robuchon is up to, to find out why he’s considered one of the most creative young chefs in Paris today, and, of course, to enjoy the food and service that are attracting so much attention: a simple, thyme-flavored lamb roast in a salt crust; salads showered with fresh, fragrant truffles; giant ravioli filled with langoustines, and some of the finest dinner rolls in town, all served in an atmosphere that is generally unpretentious and welcoming.
Through it all, Joel Robuchon, just 37 years old, remains calm and confident, working diligently to maintain his impeccable image and reputation. The attention is merited. With France at somewhat of a culinary crossroads – the nouvelle-cuisine fanfare of the l970’s has died down, and solidly established chefs such as Paul Bocuse, Michel Guerard and Switzerland’s Freddy Giradet are making few waves – people are looking for a new chef-hero, and Mr. Robuchon seems to be their man.
The short, baby-faced chef from Poitiers, south of the Loire, winces at the word ”nouvelle,” preferring instead to call his popular cuisine ”moderne,” which it is – a bridge between classic and nouvelle.
”Chefs must cook for the way we live today,” he says. ”Much of what has been passed off as nouvelle was simply decorative cooking done by chefs without professional training.
”What I want to be known for is a cuisine that is less heavy, but not necessarily less rich. We use butter, we use cream, but thick, heavy sauces no longer fit into the contemporary life style or taste.”
Mr. Robuchon’s food is personal and distinctly original, based on fresh foods of the season cooked simply but with elegant embellishments. It reflects, too, his country background and tastes, and the menu includes such hearty fare as stewed tete de porc (pig’s head) served with mashed potatoes that would make grandmother weep with envy.
Jamin’s menu changes four times each year, with at least half of the dishes entirely new. Portions are small, esthetically and impeccably presented, and remarkably fresh. Best of all, the food has flavor, pure and simple.
”An apple should taste like an apple, lamb like lamb,” says Mr. Robuchon. ”Original flavors should be authentic, not smothered or overwhelmed by competing flavors.” The slightly chubby, gray-eyed chef is a perfectionist, but not a tyrant in the kitchen. Not a plate, not even a platter of toast, leaves without his approval. With surgeonlike delicacy, he ”operates” on each dish before it is delivered to the dining room.
Most additions to the menu are ”thought up” in the middle of the night. When the restaurant is closed on weekends, the chef spends hours alone in the kitchen, testing and retesting each dish until it meets his approval.
He has succeeded by keeping standards and quality high. When he could not find bread that met his requirements, he decided to bake it himself, and Jamin remains one of a handful of French restaurants to undertake this time-consuming, but important, chore. The kitchen prepares 150 oval-shaped, thick-crusted rolls for each sitting. Similarly, fresh pasta is pre-pared by hand twice each day: The fettuccine is flecked with strips of carrots; zucchini accompanies his signature roti d’agneau aux herbes en croute de sel (French eye of lamb roasted in a salt crust), and the ravioli appear on the current menu filled with langoustines and adorned with curly green cabbage and a sauce flavored with foie gras and truffles.
He bypasses the Rungis wholesale market because he finds the products not fresh enough. His fish and shellfish come directly from the source, with regular deliveries from Brittany, and his famous lamb arrives each morning from the well-known Paris butcher, Boucherie Nivernaise.
Still, prices are kept at a reasonable level. Jamin offers a 110-franc ($16) four-course menu, as well as a 260-franc ($38) six-course menu at both lunch and dinner. A la carte, a meal costs about 260 francs, not including wine, tax and tip.
Like the grand chefs, Mr. Robuchon liberally uses the luxury ingredients he loves himself: truffles, scallops, salmon and langoustine. In season, the kitchen goes through two and one-half pounds of fresh black truffles each week.
He also insists that the staff take those extra steps to make each dish perfect. Purees are not just blended in a food processor, but also passed thrugh a fine-meshed sieve by hand to obtain the proper, delicate texture. The ice creams and sorbets, chocolate truffles – even the fresh pineapple tart – are prepared at the last minute and delivered to the dining room just ”seconds old.”
To date, Mr. Robuchon has not been tempted by offers to publicize himself and Jamin abroad. He rarely leaves the restaurant and says that, unlike his colleagues who find time to check up on what he’s doing, he rarely dines out.
The following are recipes from his current menu, with wine suggestions from Jamin’s sommelier: Salade maraichere aux truffes (Truffle salad) 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 6 tablespoons peanut oil Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste 1 quart mixed greens of different flavors, including, if available, mache and curly endive, washed and dried 16 fresh asparagus points, lightly blanched 1 fresh truffle.
1. Prepare a vinaigrette with the lemon juice, oil, salt and pepper.
2. Toss the salad greens with vinaigrette, arrange salad on four plates and place four asparagus points on each plate.
3. Using a truffle cutter or very fine slicing blade, shave the truffles into thin, even rounds. (The truffles must be sliced at the last moment or they will dry out.) Arrange slices over salad, forming a thin, even covering. Serve immediately.
Yield: Four servings.
Suggested wine: 1976 Chateau La Conseillante, Pomerol. Ragout d’huitres et de noix de Saint Jacques au caviar (Ragout of oysters and scallops with caviar)
During the past several months, this has been one of Jamin’s most popular dishes. The spinach and scallop molds can be prepared several hours in advance, then cooked at the last minute. 2 dozen oysters, with their liquor 6 tablespoons butter 12 scallops, finely minced Salt and freshly ground pepper 16 to 20 large leaves fresh spinach 1 small fennel bulb, finely minced 1 small onion, finely minced 1/2 cup dry white wine 1 cup creme fraiche A pinch of saffron 4 teaspoons caviar (optional).
1. Combine oysters, their liquor and one tablespoon butter in a small saucepan. Bring quickly to the boil and immediately strain oysters. Reserve liquid and oysters.
2. Season scallops with salt and pepper, and mix with one tablespoon of melted butter.
3. Blanch spinach leaves in boiling water, drain well and line four one-cup molds (round, flat-bottomed porcelain terrines work well) with the spinach, allowing a portion of the leaves to overlap the mold. Fill each cup with minced scallops and cover the top with overlapping leaves. Set aside.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
5. Prepare sauce: In a small saucepan, combine four tablespoons butter, the fennel and onion, and cook over low heat for 10 minutes. Add wine, oyster liquor and creme fraiche, and cook for two to three minutes. Strain sauce through a sieve (discarding fennel and onion), return to saucepan, add saffron and let reduce for several minutes, or until sauce is light and smooth. If preparing ahead, keep warm in a water bath.
6. Place molds in the oven and cook for 10 minutes. Reheat oysters for four minutes in the same oven.
7. Unmold spinach and scallop molds onto the center of a warmed dinner plate, arrange three oysters on each plate and cover oysters with the sauce. If desired, place one teaspoon caviar on top of each mold and serve immediately.
Yield: Four servings.
Suggested wine: A young, dry white Bordeaux such as 1979 Chateau Ferrandes.