An audience with Michel Roux

Michel Roux, OBE (officer of the order of the British Empire), Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur and MOF (meilleur ouvrier [master craftsman] de France in patisserie), seems like a kindly, old-fashioned gentleman. Dapper in his chef's whites, he is patient and articulate, with a courtly demeanour, bright blue eyes, grey-white hair, a deep voice and an endearing habit of peppering his heavily French-accented English with British phrases such as "bibs and bobs". He's entertained the super wealthy and many heads of state, including Queen Elizabeth (he cooked for her 70th and 80th birthdays). He knows how to use a computer but he still writes his cookbooks in longhand, using a pencil.

When the chef went to England 45 years ago, he had a revolution in mind: he wanted to pull it out of what he calls, "the dark ages".

Roux and his older brother, Albert, succeeded beyond their wildest dreams - the list of cooks who have trained at their Michelin-star restaurants reads like a who's who of top chefs: Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay, Pierre Koffmann, Marcus Wareing and Marco Avitabile (who used to be chef at Grissini at the Grand Hyatt in Wan Chai, and whose gnocchi Roux describes as "ethereal").

The Roux brothers opened Le Gavroche in London in 1967, when English people thought of food as sustenance, not something to be eaten with pleasure. By 1982 Le Gavroche had gained three Michelin stars - the first restaurant in England to do so (although it now has two). In 1972, they opened The Waterside Inn in Bray, which received its third star in 1985 and has retained them ever since - the only restaurant in Britain to have kept the top rating for so long. In 1986, the brothers went their separate ways, with Michel taking The Waterside Inn, and Albert Le Gavroche.

Roux (who's often called Michel Roux Snr, to differentiate him from his brother's son, Michel Jnr) is in Hong Kong for The Waterside Inn promotion at Caprice, which runs until Saturday. We spoke last month, when he came to meet Caprice chef Vincent Thierry for the first time and to taste-test the dishes prepared by the restaurant's cooks from classic Waterside Inn recipes Roux had e-mailed. "This was one of the best tastings I've had; it was almost as if I was eating at [The Waterside Inn] - very close to it. It was a pleasure," Roux says.

It's safe to say that the cuisine in England - at least in parts of the country - wouldn't be nearly as respected today if it were not for Michel and Albert Roux.