Good Taste: A Life of Food and Passion

By Alain Ducasse, Jay McInerney and Clare Smyth

A memoir and manifesto from the world’s most Michelin starred chef, Alain Ducasse, with introductions by internationally renowned writer Jay McInerney and chef Clare Smyth. 

At twelve years old, Alain Ducasse had never been to a restaurant. Less than fifteen years later, he received his first Michelin star. Today he is one of just two chefs to have been awarded twenty-one stars. 

Now, for the very first time, Ducasse shares a lifetime of culinary inspirations and passions in a book that is part memoir and part manifesto. Good Taste takes us on a journey from his childhood, where he picked mushrooms with his grandfather on a farm in Les Landes, to setting up groundbreaking schools and restaurants across the world. He is now taking off his chef’s whites and passing on what he knows to the next generation. 

Ducasse writes a poignant ode to the humble vegetables that have inspired his entire cuisine and to the masters that guided him along the way, from Paris to New York to Tokyo. As he looks to the future, he reflects on just what ‘good taste’ means.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gallic Books
• Release date: Apr 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9781913547714

Alain Ducasse

Alain Ducasse is one of the world's most celebrated chefs. Born in 1956 on a farm in Les Landes, France, he went on to train with great chefs including Michel Guérard, Gaston Lenôtre, Alain Chapel and Roger Vergé. He received his first three Michelin stars in 1990 at the Louis XV restaurant in Monaco. Since then, he has set up schools, created artisan factories and opened restaurants across the world, most notably in Japan, the United States and London. He is based in Monaco.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

by Clare Smyth

It’s hard to put into so many words the greatness of Alain Ducasse – his achievements, his legacy, and the way he transmits his passion and knowledge through the food he serves. His influence on gastronomy cannot be overstated, and his empire extends to all corners of the globe, across every facet of hospitality, as a flagbearer for our profession at its highest level. And his influence on me – first as an idol, then as a mentor – has been immeasurable, something that has driven me all the way through my career and still pushes me on today.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget my first impression of Chef Ducasse. I was twenty-three years old when I first saw the grand dining room of the Louis XV in Monaco, in the pages of a book compiling the best restaurants in the world. I’d never seen anywhere look so glamorous, so beautiful – it appeared, to me, as the pinnacle of our profession, and I knew straight away that if I wanted to work in the very best kitchens, with the very best chefs, I had to go there and be a part of it.

So, I did what any enterprising young chef would do: I went there to eat, and begged for a job. Before dinner, the team invited me into the kitchen for a look around, and the glamour in there was just as breathtaking as the dining room. Spotless counters, gleaming copper pans, crisp white toques adorning the heads of the brigade. The way they moved, the way they worked, was all so elegant. And yet, for how haute and opulent everything seemed, the food was more than pure luxury: it was honest and humble yet extraordinarily refined; proudly vegetable-forward and centred on the purity of each ingredient. This, I would come to learn, was Chef Ducasse’s unshakeable culinary identity, one that endures to this day, and one that continues to set his food apart.

Mind you, this purist approach is by no means simple. It is, in fact, incredibly challenging to execute night after night, service after service, in the Louis XV and in all of his kitchens. Behind the effortless, near-silent movement of the kitchen brigade is a tightly organised choreography, in which even the slightest misstep can throw the whole dance out of order. To cook à la minute is to cook on the edge, bringing anything you’re responsible for – a risotto, three spears of asparagus – to the absolute point of perfection, and then sending it straight out to the dining room. It’s real cooking for real cooks, where you live and die on the strength of your technique and ability.

Cooking this way would not be possible were it not for Chef Ducasse’s skills as a teacher, someone who has trained so many young talents across his empire to embrace his philosophy and embody his values in the kitchen. He is, in many ways, the grand conductor of his orchestra. Calm and considered in everything he does, yet a man in constant motion, going from restaurant to restaurant all over the world ensuring that the highest standards – his standards – are being maintained. Whenever he arrived at the Louis XV, he would cast his eye over everything, and such is the quality of his training that he could leave again more than satisfied, safe in the knowledge that his team were fully committed to upholding his levels of excellence.

He also retains, and imparts, an incredible breadth of knowledge about the produce he works with. When he would taste things in his kitchen, he would know exactly what it was, what it should be, where it came from and what it needed in order to be perfect. Better still, he would always explain why, and it was those moments that I never took for granted: to learn from him is to learn from the best. And I know how important these moments are for Chef Ducasse, too. He has always endeavoured to encourage his young chefs, to share in their journey, and to show how rewarding this profession can be.

When I first arrived to work at the Louis XV, I was given a handbook outlining the twelve values that Chef Ducasse expects of his staff. The one value which resonated with me most deeply, and, in my view, best embodies Chef’s philosophy, is respect. Respect for the produce, and the producer. Respect for nature: its beauty, its bounty, and the urgent need for its preservation. Respect for the guest, who has spent months in expectation of the meal they’re about to receive. Respect for the colleagues all around you who depend on your total commitment, and in turn give you theirs. And respect for the chef’s whites, the profession and its traditions, for those who came before you and those who will succeed you. ‘My move moves the other,’ he says – act with grace, and leave things better than you found them.

And yet, the value that always impressed me the most – the one I see him demonstrate like no other – is ‘audacity’. Chef Ducasse is still leading the pack and a giant of our profession, because he is completely unafraid of facing the future. Less meat, less sugar, less fat, less salt and more vegetables and more grains; sustainability over luxury, and nature above all – these positions might seem scary for our profession to embrace, but time and again, he has proved right.

I’ve held on to that old handbook all these years, and still read through it today; its principles have served me well, and are the foundation of what I pass on to my team. Looking back over my twenty-plus years in the kitchen, I am still learning from Chef Ducasse. He is just as inspirational to me now as he was at the beginning of my career, and I’m certain that this book, with all the knowledge it contains, will guide and inspire generations of chefs to come.

EARTH AND WOOD

I was born on a farm in the south-west of France, in the Chalosse, in the middle of the undulating countryside between the Adour and Gave de Pau rivers that is often likened to Tuscany. My memories are of the vegetable garden, the surrounding forest, our modest lifestyle and the simple food the land offered us.

So many memories. The vegetables we grew. The way my grandmother cooked them. The forest of oaks where I would walk with my grandfather, who was a joiner and carpenter. The family meals every Sunday. The first strawberries. The lettuce, still soaked in dew, that we would go and pick before lunch, and its milky-white sap that would appear when we pulled it from the ground…

It was there on the farm that my first tastes were formed, there that the seeds of my life were sown. It is my native land. Other places and other flavours came along to influence me, and to add to my obsessions, but it was that part of Les Landes where it all began, and which still inspires me to this day.

From my childhood there, came two major passions which can be found in all my restaurants and in my