Alain Passard, L’Arpege restaurant, Paris, July 6, 2012. Koos Breukel
July 05, 2015
In salmon and gray striped trousers, a blue scarf
tossed rakishly around the neck, Alain Passard arrives for an interview at his
Left Bank atelier with the colorful exuberance of a rock star. And that is
exactly what he is to legions of appreciative Parisian diners and to the food
critics who consistently rank him among the world’s leading chefs. His
restaurant L’Arpège has been awarded three Michelin stars every year since
1996. One of the many testaments to Passard’s talents is that three of his
former sous
chefs de cuisine, Pascal Barbot, Mauro Colagreco, and Bertrand
Grébaut, currently boast three, two, and one Michelin stars, respectively, at
their own restaurants in France.
At a time when other illustrious French chefs like
Alain Ducasse and Joël Robuchon have leveraged their names to create global
restaurant empires, Passard, 58, remains focused solely on delivering plates of
exquisite (and expensive) fare to the loyal patrons of his restaurant across
from the Musée Rodin. Among his claims to fame is his wizardry with vegetables,
which he grows in his own natural gardens in Sarthe, Eure and Manche. In 2001,
Passard demonstrated the depth of his creative integrity by focusing his menus
on vegetables; for putting his Michelin stars at risk, Passard’s move stunned
the culinary cognoscenti.
Recently ranking L’Arpège at No. 12—and Passard the
No. 1 French chef—the S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2015
pronounced: “In Passard’s world, grapefruit and almonds form the surprising but
effective complement to the sweetest of peas. Rather than being an understudy,
beetroot steals the limelight when it’s substituted for beef in a tartare
replete with perfect, golden gaufrette potatoes, or in place of tuna in a take
on nigiri, glistening with geranium oil. Passard is rightly considered a
culinary genius.” Cairo
Review Managing Editor Scott MacLeod spoke with Passard in
Paris on June 9, 2015.
CAIRO
REVIEW: Growing up in Brittany, what
influences led you to become a chef?
ALAIN
PASSARD: I’ve had fantastic luck in my
life, in that I grew up in a very artistic family. My father was a musician and
my mother a seamstress. My grandmother was a cook, and I had a grandfather who
was a sculptor who worked with rattan. And this was something that was
fantastic when I was growing up. All around me, I was watching people work with
their hands. I’d go to see my grandma, she was working with her hands. I’d go
to see my grandpa, and he was working with his hands. I’d go to see my mother,
and it was the same. Manual work was everywhere. And so very early on, I wanted
to do something with my hands, because it was all around me. Oddly, nobody
really talked to me about his or her work. My father spoke very little with me
about music, my mother little about clothes making, my grandpa little about
sculpting. But my grandmother took me under her wing. She made me understand
that cooking wasn’t a job, but an adventure. It was the end of the 1960s, early
1970s, in the heart of Brittany, a tiny village. So for my parents, cooking was
something that seemed more accessible as a livelihood for me. They were afraid
that music wasn’t a way to really earn a living. Clothing, as a career, wasn’t
seen as being very accessible. But cooking, given all the restaurants in
Brittany, being an apprentice cook seemed much more reasonable.
CAIRO
REVIEW: To become a French chef, must you
read the writings of Escoffier, of Brillat-Severin, and the other great figures
in French culinary history?
ALAIN
PASSARD: No. I didn’t even know about
that. I’ve never even opened a cookbook. I don’t have cookbooks in my home.
Cookbooks aren’t really up to the task. I work from my ideas. I do understand
that some chefs may find inspiration in books, but I find it in everyday life.
CAIRO
REVIEW: How did your work evolve over the
years? How did you start and get to here, to become the chef of one of the
world’s most acclaimed restaurants?
ALAIN
PASSARD: It’s simple. There’s nothing
without hard work. You have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty.
Seven to eight hours a day, even ten, in front of the stove, every day. Nothing
else. Nothing without doing the work. If you look at the major painters or
musicians, like Stan Getz, or John Coltrane, it was seven to eight hours a day
playing the sax. It’s very simple.
CAIRO
REVIEW: And how did your food and cuisine philosophy develop?
ALAIN PASSARD: It’s always been hard for me to speak about that.
Because I’m into what I do, sometimes I take paths and wonder if they are the
right ones. I have trouble trying to articulate it. I work according to
emotion. That’s what I can say about it. I put a lot of emotion into what I do.
And when I can add a little finesse to it, I’m the happiest person in the
world. Talking about cooking requires simple words. Sometimes when I listen to
other chefs, it bothers me a bit, how lofty it is. I think mine is a simple
cuisine, a cuisine of movement and emotion, and any discussion of it needs to
correspond to that. Meaning simple words about simple cooking.
CAIRO
REVIEW: I read Pascal Barbot saying that
your cooking is hard to classify. Is it Breton? French? Something else?
ALAIN
PASSARD: Well above all, it’s a cooking
with a kind of momentum, in perfect harmony with nature, with the gardens. I
don’t write it down, outside of a few little books including my graphic novel.
But on a daily basis it’s not something I write about, so that I don’t repeat
myself. I force myself each spring to start afresh.
CAIRO
REVIEW: But you would call it French
cuisine?
ALAIN
PASSARD: Yes. I don’t use foreign
ingredients. There are some restaurants where you find Thai or Chinese or Japanese
flavors. The basis for my work is the garden, my spices and herbs.
CAIRO
REVIEW: The idea of farm-to-table is
trendy now. But you’ve been famous for doing it for years. How did you derive
this concept and what do you think of it?
ALAIN
PASSARD: My passion for color. This
desire to put my passions and hobbies into my work. My painting, sculpting, and
making collages. This passion I have for colors is a strong inspiration, and
fifteen years ago I realized that only vegetables, with their colors, could do
that. In this vegetable-only cuisine, I reconnect with the other livelihoods of
my family, like sewing. If I wasn’t a chef, I would have loved to be a major
fashion designer. I’m passionate about material, colors, textures, and the
transparency in it. When I arrive for work in the morning, I always look at
what the women are wearing. I look right away because the clothing—their
colors, fabric, textures, et cetera—attracts my attention.
CAIRO
REVIEW: What about nutrition,
sustainability? Do you think about this in your focus on vegetables?
ALAIN
PASSARD: Yes, it’s part of each day for
me. To respect the seasons, minimize my carbon footprint. We don’t waste
anything. When you work with vegetables, you remove the top, and what we don’t
use goes back to the garden for compost.
CAIRO
REVIEW: How does your restaurant work?
Walk us through a day at L’Arpège.
ALAIN
PASSARD: Well, in general we have one or
even two deliveries per day, from the Normandy garden for lunch and the Sarthe
garden for dinner. Nothing is left over from the previous day. We only work
with vegetables that were harvested that morning. I don’t want my vegetables to
be refrigerated. The vegetables arrive and I inspect everything myself. And
we’re off. We begin to play. I see things, I make connections visually, I get
ideas, note them, add colors, arrange some things.
CAIRO
REVIEW: So you make the recipe as you
start cooking?
ALAIN
PASSARD: I improvise all the time. I
throw myself off-balance in order to anchor myself. This is what I teach to my
chefs. Nothing is written down. Memory is a muscle that needs to be exercised.
It’s gymnastics. And it’s very difficult to do that.
CAIRO
REVIEW: Is this common? It seems unique,
and most restaurants have menus. Some are the same for decades.
ALAIN
PASSARD: Yes they do and it’s really
boring. It’s the same colors and movements and flavors. The same hands. I don’t
have the same hands in winter and spring. I work differently. So to bring this
all together, for me, each day is the first day. Each morning I start naked,
bringing nothing. I come just with my ideas.
CAIRO
REVIEW: When does your day start?
ALAIN
PASSARD: It could be 8 a.m., or 9 or 10
or noon. In general, I begin thinking around 7 a.m. I get to the kitchen at 12.
CAIRO
REVIEW: Many celebrated chefs in France
once worked for you. Is it a coincidence that so many of your protégés are
stars now?
ALAIN
PASSARD: I spent time with them, all
these chefs. I held their hands for two or even five years. I’m in the kitchen
with them all day.
CAIRO
REVIEW: Is mentoring important for you?
ALAIN
PASSARD: No, it just happens that way.
They were with me for part of my life. It’s a thing that happens. My job isn’t
to be a mentor. It’s just my daily life. Every day is the first day.
CAIRO
REVIEW: What qualities do you look for in
hiring your staff?
ALAIN
PASSARD: There is no criteria. It’s
difficult to know in a first quick meeting. It’s how he cooks when he’s in
front of the stove that matters. And seeing a passion in his eyes. Otherwise,
for the rest of it, we can work on that. If his hand is a little too present,
we can fix that. We can work on his presentation, his sense of smell, how he
listens.
CAIRO
REVIEW: What is the secret to keeping
your Michelin stars?
ALAIN
PASSARD: It’s not a secret. It’s hard work.
We care about constantly reinventing ourselves. We create all the time. There
is nothing without that. And if we do those things, we will keep our stars. In
my creative work, it has to be that way. To always be rising, not remaining
stagnant.
CAIRO REVIEW: Was your chocolate chicken a success? Do you
make mistakes?
ALAIN
PASSARD: I continue experimenting. That
idea came from mole poblano. That’s chicken in chocolate,
basically. Yes, it was a successful dish.
CAIRO
REVIEW: Do you sometimes make mistakes in
your improvisation?
ALAIN
PASSARD: As I continue to know how to do
it, I make fewer mistakes.
CAIRO
REVIEW: Brillat-Severin said that “the
destiny of nations depends on the manner in which they are fed.” Is this a
living concept for the French people and French chefs?
ALAIN
PASSARD: Feeding ourselves allows us to
be joyous, be healthy, good hair and skin.
CAIRO
REVIEW: What do you think France has contributed to cuisine in the world?
ALAIN
PASSARD: Obviously France is the world’s
pantry. We have the great fortune in France to have a real terroir: the poultry
is fantastic, beautiful fish, cheese, wine, and shellfish. When France is
spoken of in other countries, it’s not our football teams that are talked
about. That said, France inspires the rest of the world and always will. I see
it at L’Arpège; the number of chefs who come both for lunch and dinner. Chefs
from Australia or California or Japan, they all must come to France.
CAIRO
REVIEW: Can French terroir survive? I’m
thinking about the European Union standardization rules affecting some food
production, like in traditional French cheeses.
ALAIN
PASSARD: I think it’s a good thing to
have this openness.
CAIRO
REVIEW: It doesn’t affect you, your
notion of French cuisine?
ALAIN
PASSARD: No. I do like the openness, but
that doesn’t mean I agree with everything. Use of pesticides and chemicals, of
course I don’t at all agree. Nor vegetables that are at the markets out of
season.
CAIRO
REVIEW: Don’t we need that to feed the
world, mass production?
ALAIN PASSARD: We can produce vegetables en masse, but all I ask is
to do so while respecting the seasons. Producing tomatoes in January? No. We
should produce parsnip or rutabaga instead. It will be better for our health
than tomatoes or strawberries.
CAIRO REVIEW: What is the importance of cuisine for culture?
What is a chef’s contribution to a nation’s culture?
ALAIN
PASSARD: Cuisine is a story. It all
depends on what we do with it. There is an artistic side to it, especially for
me, working with vegetables. We can write beautiful stories with it. What I
mean by that is that when we prepare a dish, we bring so much to it, including
the entire human aspect involved: the farmer, the fisherman, and the market
gardener [produce person at a farmer’s market]. So it’s something interesting
because from all of these factors we are telling a story. Cooking has a grace
to it, like dancing. It’s like going to a show. There is an audience, the
dining room of the restaurant is like a concert hall, and we have a performance
to do. It has to be like this. It’s important to put your heart into it, all
that you do.
CAIRO
REVIEW: Are you afraid of globalization?
It seems like there is a hamburger on every menu at every French restaurant
these days.
ALAIN
PASSARD: No, I’m not afraid. And it’s
really hard to do a good burger. The quality of the bread, its lightness and
taste, the savory stuffing inside the burger itself. But of course it’s a
veggie burger here!
CAIRO
REVIEW: Will we ever see burgers on the
menu at L’Arpège?
ALAIN
PASSARD: We actually have done that
before, a steak made of winter vegetables: rutabaga, celery, Jerusalem
artichoke, horseradish, and salsify.
CAIRO
REVIEW: Will the new generation of chefs
and diners change the face of French cuisine, its formality?
ALAIN
PASSARD: Yes, I think so. This is a
generation that is very creative and talented. We can feel these young people
and all these new restaurants.
CAIRO
REVIEW: When we think of great French
cuisine, are we really talking about an elite group of chefs? In the United
States, there is an impression that French food is in decline. New York Times food writer Mark Bittman
recently wrote: “The vast majority of
restaurants disappoint. The people of France appear to have lost faith and even
interest.”
ALAIN PASSARD: I don’t go out to other restaurants much anymore. But
I think, au contraire, that there is much talent now,
lots of talented chefs, and French cuisine is not in decline. I have never seen
so many Americans in my restaurant as I do now. More and more.
CAIRO
REVIEW: What do you think about Top Chef and other reality cooking shows?
ALAIN
PASSARD: I think it’s good. I declined to
do it myself but it’s part of French cuisine, showcasing talent, and shows lots
of distinction of what people can do in their kitchens. I simply can’t take two
months away from my restaurant, that’s why I didn’t take part in the TV show.
CAIRO
REVIEW: Unlike some famous French chefs,
you have stayed away from commercialization. You have not opened a branch of
L’Arpège in Las Vegas.
ALAIN
PASSARD: I wouldn’t know how to do that.
I’m happy in my one restaurant here, which is my home. The following is a very
important sentence for me: At 14, I chose to be a cook, and I never changed my
mind.