The Chef of the Century Joel Robuchon

Joël Robuchon

This spring, to be precise on April 16, 2010 I purposely flew over to the western part of the planet to Las Vegas in order to visit the French cult restaurant “Joel Robuchon at The Mansion” at the MGM Grand Hotel. For its refined cuisine the restaurant received three Michelin stars. As a person crosses over the threshold of this place, it is as if he gets transferred into another world, the world of refinement and primness. Cordial personnel, nice music, gilded furniture and luxurious arm-chairs upholstered with velvet, clinking of glasses, shimmering of candles and “singing of birds of paradise” plunged me into the unforgettable and unique world of Joel Robuchon. The personnel of the restaurant, mainly French-speaking people, are dressed in a stylish black uniform with a purple welting, everybody passed through a special training based on the program “Luxury Attitude” (luxury class standards of behavior). For demanding customers here all the conditions are created to plunge into the world of comfort and pleasure as well as to enjoy masterpieces of culinary and confectionery mastership a la Joel Robuchon. The program of my visit included tasting the “big” menu of the restaurant with specially selected wines. For the period of more than 4 hours that I spent in a perfect atmosphere in this marvelous restaurant I tasted more than 16 dishes and about the same number of wines with them. Only bread was of about 40 kinds, needless to say about deserts and masterpieces of French chocolatiers, the number of which was almost one hundred. My taste receptors hardly managed to receive the incoming information about the train of flavors, texture and fragrances of culinary pretentious dishes. In remembrance of my dining in the restaurant I was given a cookbook by Joel Robuchon with his dedicatory inscription and autograph. As I was leaving the restaurant I thanked the chef and all his assistants as well as the personnel for a splendid time I’d had in the fabulous country called Joel Robuchon.

French chefs are trendsetters and ideologists of modern high cuisine based on longstanding traditions and refined gastronomy…

Such names as Alen Ducas, Paul Bocuse, Fabris Devine, Pierre Gagnaire a long time ago became legends and are associated with a high style and unsurpassed craftsmanship.

One of the outstanding representatives of French haute cuisine, undoubtedly, is Joel Robuchon. The owner of 14 restaurants located all over the world received numerous prizes and rewards including three stars according to the rating of Michelin. In 2003 he was given the rank of an officer of the Order of the Legion of Honor, while the guide Gault Millau once called him the chef of the century. In 2002 he opened the French satellite channel Gourmet TV and together with producer Guy Job started a daily TV show “Bon Appetit Bien Sur” on the national channel France 3.

Joel Robuchon was born in Poitiers in 1945. One of the most renowned French restaurateurs received his professional education… on culinary courses and began his career as an apprentice chef in one of the hotels in his home town Poitiers. After that Joel became a sous chef and continued to get perfected in culinary mastership by working in different French restaurants one after another.

He started his own business – restaurant Joel Robuchon – in 16th district of Paris where he himself worked as the chef. In 1989 he began to cooperate with the group of companies Sapporo and in several years opened his two restaurants in Tokyo. In 2001another Robuchon opened its doors in the hotel Lisboa (Macao) and in 2004 the maestro started La Table de Joel Robuchon in Paris. In 2005 in coordination with the hotel group MGM he started the first restaurant Joel Robuchon in the USA in Las Vegas …

The main element of Joel Robuchon’s style is, of course, his cuisine. Joel Robuchon thinks that the future of restaurants is not just eating dishes in formal and sterile atmosphere but a more close communication with people who cook these dishes. When a customer sees how a dish is cooked he realizes how much care and efforts are invested into it.

“My goal is to make simple dishes of high quality, and this goal is pretty difficult. I want people to go to my restaurants not once a year but 3-4 times a week and order one and the same dish because it’s simple and based on the quality of ingredients.” It turns out that even such a maestro as Joel Robuchon has problems: “The most difficulty is to find good products. In Japan I’ve worked for many years so I know suppliers over there more or less. But in London or America I had to send chefs six months before the opening of a restaurant so that they could find suppliers.”

As far as tendencies are concerned, Messier Robuchon’s opinion is that “in 1970s-1980s of the ХХ century nouvelle cuisine was popular, which was later followed by notorious fusion but now molecular cuisine is what’s fashionable. However, not all its ingredients are good for your health. I think simple and comprehensive cuisine will be the future. Nobody will want a combination of seven flavors in one plate. Let them be one or two but clear and strong.” The main principle is to choose the best products and not to overload the dish. Robuchon’s hits were the cauliflower cream and mashed potatoes.

Joel Robuchon’s success is flawless combination of components. His style is refined attention to details, a new approach to luxury, in which glamour and pomposity go together with affordability and elegant simplicity.

His passion for the Joel Robuchon restaurant can be explained not by his desire to be acknowledged and cut a brilliant figure but by his intention to create a stylish restaurant without strict limits of dress code and ceremonious rituals. The maestro’s main goal is to make a comfortable nook for genuine gourmets.