Pierre Gagnaire

There's been a lot of flowery prose describing Pierre Gagnaire's cooking. The generally accepted view is that he personifies the romantic idea of 'the chef as artist' better than anyone in France today - and there's a lot of competition for that title.

This is understandable, his approach to cooking is most definitely of the cerebral school. He frequently collaborates with friend, the famous French physical chemist Hervé This, his menus often read like Rive Gauche poetry and there's a section on his website entitled Mon Universe.

Looking like the suave Gallic answer to Kris Kristofferson, until recently, Gagnaire's image did nothing to discourage the notion that he was all tortured culinary jazz daddy chained to his stove.


But since 2003, when he started consulting on the ambitious Sketch in London, Gagnaire has both opened up and opened more restaurants, including the casual experimental Gaya, on gay Paris' Left Bank, and international operations in Tokyo and Hong Kong, with a Dubai outpost about to open. Nevertheless, it's at his eponymous Paris flagship that his creativity still flows most fluently, the kitchen throwing out the sort of combinations that seem insane on paper but look like works of art on the plate and feel like them on the palate.

What you're left with at the end is an overwhelming sense that he simply wants to feed and please his customers.

6 Rue Balzac, 75008 Paris, France
+33 (0)1 58 36 12 50
www.pierre-gagnaire.com