Mr. Alléno, apparently one of the formative moments for you as a young chef was a trip to Japan in 1988. What was so special about that trip?
Absolutely, I used to work at Le Royal Monceau in Paris and the chef there asked me to come with him to Japan for the summer. We stayed for three weeks in Sapporo in the north of Japan. It took us 24 hours to get there! And at the time, it was not so easy to eat Japanese food in Paris, in those days it was expensive, and I was young, so the accessibility of that cuisine was pretty much impossible. When I visited Japan, I found a new world… I was seeing some things I’d never seen in my life: culture, people, food. I tried real sushi for the first time, I ate soba, I ate soft crab and fugu, I was learning about the natural gift of seafood. My passion for food really started from those experiences.
What was unique about the Japanese approach to cooking that was so inspiring to you?
One of the most important things I learned was the way that they treat the animals and live products… It is a sacrifice. When you kill a fish, it’s a natural gift to you, a sacrifice made to feed you. Nature suffers for us, it’s a contradiction between our pleasure and our responsibilities. So there is a great concern for quality, for treating ingredients with respect. Everything is a gift in Japan, even if you buy an apple or a strawberry, everything is treated as something beautiful. And this was an inspiration for me. Since then, I’m trying to work more with what we get from nature, to have a conversation with ingredients, to find the beauty in all produce and products.
“The more knowledge you have, the more you can do big things.”
What do you mean?
There is a quote from the French intellectual Denis Diderot that says, “What is taste? An ease acquired through repeated experiences, to grasp the real or the good, with the circumstance that makes it beautiful, and to be promptly and vividly touched by it.” This is what I’m trying to do, I try to understand the fineness of things, to recognize quality in everything, to explore more, taste more. I’ve realized that you can spend your life dedicated to the art of food, and never be finished! The more doors you open, the more there is to understand.
It seems like you’re always moving with an open mind to learning.
The more knowledge you have, the more you can do big things.
I read about one instance many years ago where a critic published a negative article about high-end chefs, and instead of letting that bring you down, you took it as an opportunity to learn about your own identity.
I understood in my life that critics are generally objective, it’s not a personal attack. But still, cooking is human work, it’s not a machine back there in the kitchen. So yes, when I read that article from François Simon, who I consider really an expert on food, I was shocked. But he was right! And he opened the door for my own truth.
And what did you discover about your own truth?
Well, I went back to my roots. It goes back to the Diderot quote I mentioned before, it’s about recognizing quality through lived experience. My lived experience comes from Paris, where I was born. It seems like many people forgot that we have a terroir in Paris! I started thinking about this, about how our environment and the history of the city gives distinct tastes and characteristics to our ingredients, and I changed my process with that in mind: sourcing locally, reviving traditional dishes, and adapting the menu in all of my restaurants to their respective region.
These days, you have a total of 21 restaurants under your name. Is it difficult to sustain your identity across so many different locations?
In fact, is not my identity, it’s our identity. It is the identity of the team. I’m always trying to ensure that the team is able to be on their own, to work on their own. My name is on the door because it’s bankable, but it’s still a company working with many chefs. I’m trying to teach them to bring their vision as well.
Indeed, many of the chefs who have trained with you have gone on to open restaurants and earn their own Michelin stars. It must be a great accomplishment for you to see that.
This is an incredible achievement for them, and I’m super happy to see their evolution. I’m very close to the chefs I train and I love to hear what they have to say, to learn from the new generation because they see the world differently. It’s a learning experience for us both, recently we were discussing the fundamentals: what is food? What is a plate? These days chefs have to make everything aesthetic because everything is online, on Instagram… They sometimes forget what the elements can do together. So this week, we spent time cooking together, talking about their ideas, growing them, finding the best quality ingredients to make the dish shine, how to get the most out of simple ingredients, really understanding every element.
Is it important for you to continue pushing yourself with those fundamentals, even now that you’ve been awarded 18 Michelin stars yourself?
Getting awarded those stars, you can see it as an achievement. I saw the eyes of my chefs and staff at my restaurant Pavyllon London when we were awarded our first star. They were very excited, we had a chance to celebrate, to make a pause, but to also know that we can do better. With 18 Michelin stars, I could just stay there! But I think for me, I feel in danger if I don’t make more than people expect. We have to use that as motivation, we have a responsibility to make things happen, to make a success and keep searching for more. For example, at Pavyllon London, we recently started offering breakfast and lunch, to let our menu be more accessible to a business clientele. Today there was even a queue at lunch, because it’s something new and exciting for a Michelin restaurant. Our goal has always been to feed people, to bring them something they can enjoy, because that is the most special part of this job.