The first time I met Pierre Gagnaire several years ago, I was on sufferance. Or so I felt. He was clearly in a bad mood, having just been interviewed in his restaurant during a literary luncheon, where he was responsible for both the food and the entertainment, as it were. Jet lag — he’d arrived only a few hours earlier — didn’t help. I could only ask a handful of questions, through a translator and Gagnaire’s answers were brief and dismissive. Where he did take the time to detail his thoughts, much was lost in the translation.
We’re a far cry from that this time around. Now, he’s the archetypal creative Frenchman — emotional, passionate, dramatic. His speech is peppered with exclamations and interjections, quite often in French, and he gets visibly excited by anything culinary, whether ingredients or cooking techniques. He’s a fan of Australian truffles, for instance, but won’t countenance a Chinese crop. Il refuse.
Language also makes a big difference. Now 65, the molecular gastronomist made a real effort to learn English recently and his joie de vivre comes through undiluted.
That could be an extension of his philosophy. When I doggedly ask about food trends, culinary movements, the restaurant business and retirement, his answer is always the same in essence: we need social connections — with our families, friends, workmates, even strangers — to achieve our goals and make life worthwhile.
“The trend today is to take time to revel in the community, in our family and our friends,” Gagnaire says in response to one question. He repeats that in different ways over the course of our conversation at Reflets, his restaurant at the InterContinental Dubai Festival City. “I think we are at the end of that. Because it’s too dangerous, at the end you become crazy,” he adds, gesturing to his smartphone.
He’s talking about how virtual connectivity has disrupted our lives, but his comments are particularly apposite as the industry grapples with the loss of Benoît Violier. The Swiss chef apparently committed suicide because his restaurant tumbled in the Gault-Millau guide’s famous rankings, though it was recently named the world’s best by a new list endorsed by the French government. (Gagnaire and I met before Violier’s death.)
Fine balance
As with his food, Gagnaire seems to be asking for balance in life. Mobile connectivity means we live such fast, fragmented lives, in different countries and in many moods all at once, that real-world connections leave a bigger impact when they do happen.
“Moi, I think the new trend is the silence, it’s taking the time,” he explains. “The people who have the real power, they are not that,” he says, mimicking the operation of a smartphone. Technology must be put back in its box, in other words. (He himself is forced to interrupt our interview to take a short phone call).
“When a blogger makes the effort to come and see me, for example, I respect that,” he continues. “It may be only 20 minutes, but we connect, we have a real communication. But if you send me a photo by email, there’s no emotion.
“Alors, to recreate a real relationship with people — with your team, with the guest, with your family — is a goal of our society today. When you meet people, you can accept their differences.”
His newest book is a nod to that sentiment. La cuisine de cinq saisons (Cooking for five seasons), he says, is a family book. “It’s funny because it seems the trend,” he laughs. “But it’s not a [conscious] choice. We wanted a simple book, not for special times or events, but for the pleasure of eating every day with the family. It’s not expensive food, the recipes are very easy to do.”
The five seasons of the title come from the fact that we now often experience a second spring season before (in some years after) summer. “In April, we have nothing, there is a gap,” he says. Since his food hews so closely to the idea of seasonality, cooking for this second spring is inevitable. “We talk of climate change, voilà!”
Haute couture
All of that makes him seem like a bit of a futurist, but then he does operate at the haute couture level, with his ideas being copied and reinterpreted regularly. He’s done so for more than 30 years, since he earned his first Michelin stars in the town of St Etienne in 1982. He now has a cumulative 13, and was last year voted the world’s best chef by about 350 of his Michelin-starred peers in a poll for Le Chef magazine, ahead of Paul Bocuse and Joan Roca.
He has said he was a reluctant cook, only going into the kitchen at the age of 14 because it was the family business. He stayed because it was a way to meet people and to travel. Along the way, he has delighted diners with such wonders as a bubblegum soufflé, or Felicia salad, a side dish where all the ingredients are cut to the size of a pomelo grain.
After so long, then, does he think about retiring? “No, No!” he declares vehemently. “Why? You think I must?” You could sit on the beach, I suggest. “No, no, no. I can do that here. I can go to the beach here and they pay me for that!
“If today, I sit down and say, what was my life? It’s a work life. But why not? Finally, with my work I have the possibility to grow, to meet people, to understand life, to share emotions with people. In our job, when we don’t think war, we create tenderness, we create love. That’s important, non?”
The chef as philosopher? Why ever not?
