Joël Robuchon, master chef who transformed French fine dining and elevated mashed potatoes to haute cuisine
Apprenticed as a cook at 15, Robuchon, incredibly earned three Michelin stars for his first restaurant within three years, and went on to run a worldwide culinary empire. For all his flair, he liked to be judged by the humblest of dishes
Joël Robuchon, who died on Monday at the age of 73, dreamt of becoming a priest but was thwarted by a lack of money. That forced him instead to take a job as an apprentice cook at the age of 15 – a career move that ultimately saw him not only rise to the highest echelon of the culinary world, and earn more Michelin stars than any other chef, but be named one of four chefs of the 20th century by French restaurant guide Gault Millau.
The French chef’s worldwide empire of restaurants included Robuchon au Dome in Macau, l’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Hong Kong, and Joël Robuchon Restaurant in Tokyo, Singapore (since closed) and Las Vegas – all of which had three Michelin stars – plus a host of other establishments with one and two Michelin stars.
Robuchon was born in 1945 in Poitiers, western France. After starting his culinary career, he rose quickly through the ranks, becoming a Meilleur Ouvrier de France (“master craftsman”) when he was 31, and attaining three Michelin stars for his first restaurant, Jamin, in Paris, in 1984, after it had been open for only three years – an incredible feat.
In 1996, at the age of 51, he shocked food lovers and fellow chefs by announcing that he was retiring from the day-to-day grind of running a restaurant to focus on passing on his knowledge, partly through television programmes that demystified cooking.
Robuchon’s retirement from the kitchen didn’t last long. In 2001, he became culinary supervisor and adviser for Robuchon a Galera at the Hotel Lisboa in Macau (now Robuchon au Dome at the Grand Lisboa).