Pierre Gagnaire, a man of taste(s)

Three Michelin-starred chef Pierre Gagnaire finds the fuel for his art in the very roots of the French culinary heritage. He reinterprets the great classics of Parisian brasserie cuisine for Hôtel Barrière Le Fouquet’s Paris. Also available in Cannes, La Baule, Toulouse, Marrakech and Enghien-les-Bains, the novel menu juxtaposes Merlan Colbert, tartar sauce and boiled potatoes with the legendary leeks vinaigrette.

Paris, London, Moscow, Hong Kong, Las Vegas and Dubai: with eleven restaurants to his name, for half a century Pierre Gagnaire has been on a quest for straightforward cuisine, ever since starting out as an apprentice commis chef in April 1966.

An atmosphere and menu designed to delight

At the top of the Champs-Élysées, the chef is master of the menu of Le Fouquet’s. This lover of painting and jazz takes small steps that respect the tempo and the sacred rules of brasserie cuisine.

Beef tenderloin and pepper sauce with chips or sautéed potatoes. Ginger-infused blanquette of veal, gently spiced basmati rice pilaf. From this more than one hundred year-old establishment, the menu takes off for the rest of France and Morocco. 

Traditionally French flavours 

As the son of a Saint-Étienne restaurateur, Pierre Gagnaire constantly and tirelessly looks to improve his art. Woking with passion and perfectionism, he wants to surprise others and himself. 

As historian and publisher Anthony Rowley rightly said, there's something of Picasso about Gagnaire – his ability to absorb rules and influences only to transcend them. Thirty years later, some critics can still remember his John Dory parcel with sweet pepper sauce.

The chef admits to being slightly nervous every time he passes through one of his restaurants, such is his desire to amaze and delight. The César Awards Dinner, the highlight of Le Fouquet’s gala evenings and concocted by Pierre Gagnaire, brings together everybody who is anybody in Paris.