ABOVE: The Roux Family
The Roux Family
With countless cookery programmes on TV and bookshop shelves heaving under the weight of celebrity chefs’ books, it’s hard to believe that until relatively recently the British attitude to food was largely based on survival and necessity. In 1967, when French brothers Michel and Albert Roux opened their restaurant Le Gavroche in London, food rationing had ended only 13 years previously, Fanny Craddock was at her zenith and the general British public were still several years away from discovering Italian and Indian cuisine.
Understandably, Le Gavroche was welcomed with open arms and diners were treated to a variety of gastronomic delights, the likes of which their French neighbours had been enjoying for decades. Following on from the success of Le Gavroche came, among others, The Waterside Inn, in Bray, which is now run by Michel and his son Alain.
Sitting in the small lounge close to the restaurant’s reception area, Michel explains to me how different British culture was when he and his brother first arrived in Britain. “In 1967, people didn’t talk about food. They didn’t talk about sex,” he says in his baritone voice, still thick with a French accent. “At that time in the UK, there was no one [creating fine food], but in France it was different. There was Michel Guérard, who has had three Michelin stars for over 30 years, the Troisgros brothers, who’ve had three Michelin stars for 35, 40 years. They are what I call pioneers of great food. Dream food.”
Having kicked off something of a food revolution himself, it is heartening to hear about those who inspired him way back when the name Le Gavroche was merely a character in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and not synonymous with excellent French cuisine. “Le Gavroche is the boy who died on the barricade,” explains Michel. “It’s a sad story, but we chose it because it was a young boy who came from the gutter and fought his way for a belief. Well, we fought our way for a belief – what we thought was right, which was good food and we wanted to bring good food to the UK.”
And that is exactly what they did. The Roux brothers’ empire grew and, before long, they had 450 employees, a number of other businesses and five different restaurants including The Waterside Inn. It sits on the banks of the Thames in a delightfully peaceful corner of Bray in Berkshire – a location that could only be considered quintessentially English. Formerly a pub, the inn was transformed in 1972 and has never looked back; it has held its three Michelin stars longer than any other UK restaurant.
As someone who was determined to improve food culture in Britain and has seen it evolve over the last 40 years, you would think that Michel would be pleased about this country’s more recent change in attitude to food. But the contrary is true. “It has taken on proportions which are, in my opinion, a bit silly,” he says. “You go to the continent where people have been enjoying food and wine all their life – I’m not just talking about France, but Spain, Italy, Germany – but those people don’t have television programmes like that, with people who don’t know what they’re talking about. What garbage! I mean, just give us a break, especially as some of them are useless.” Although he refuses to name names, it is clear that Michel thinks our new-found obsession with food has gone a little too far and questions the motives of some of those appearing on television today.
“They’re written by people who want to get hype out of the programme and that’s the wrong reason. If you have a TV programme on food, you should have a certain respect for the food.”
Michel concedes that the situation is now better than it was back in the dark ages of the 1960s. “It’s nice to know it has changed,” he says.
“In ’67, it was very poor and there was no enthusiasm for food, no care or love, and now there is something. You do have some very good chefs. Gary Rhodes, Rick Stein, Brian Turner, those kind of people I don’t mind.”
Although Michel’s opinion of a number of television chefs may not be so favourable, the Roux brothers have been responsible for training hundreds of world-class chefs through the Roux Scholarship. Set up in 1983 it has become the most prestigious contest for young chefs and the winners have gone on to be the chefs and proprietors of some of the country’s best restaurants.
Michel has extremely high standards (demonstrated, while in my company, when one staff member was told off for leaving a table lampshade slightly wonky and another for opening a door with his foot because his hands were full), but he is no less hard on his own flesh and blood.
Son Alain, 40, is now chef patron of the Waterside Inn, and although it was a natural choice for him to become a chef, the top position was by no means a birthright – a sign that French food in Britain is now a much more competitive sector. He has had to work as hard as any trainee chef and although he was born in Britain, has spent eight years working in top restaurants in France before joining the team at the Waterside as a demi-chef de partie aged 23 and working his way up from there.
Although he now holds the top job, he admits that it was tough to work alongside the hard taskmaster that is his father. “The first two years here were pretty tough. We really didn’t know each other much and we hadn’t worked together,” he says.
“My father is a very demanding person and was more demanding of me than the rest of the team.” But, as he points to the name badge on his white chef tunic, he admits there comes a certain responsibility with carrying on the Roux name; a responsibility he shares with his cousin Michel Roux Junior, son of Albert, who is chef de cuisine at Le Gavroche. So while Michel Roux Senior zips around the world teaching his famous masterclasses, the shy and softly spoken Alain maintains the restaurant at a standard set by his father.
But as Michel has demonstrated, there is more to being a famous chef than just cooking in the kitchen. He is now working on another recipe book, having sold 1.5 million copies of his other books around the world, while Alain is considering his own. “I would like to do a book. My cousin has done three and my Dad has done ten,” he says.
Whether there is enough room in the bookshops for another famous recipe book, only time will tell. One thing is sure, however, the Roux name – whether it is Michel, Albert, Michel Jnr or Alain – will always be synonymous with good food.
The Waterside Inn, Ferry Road, Bray, Berkshire, SL6 2AT.
Tel: 01628 620691. www.waterside-inn.co.uk
ROUX FAMILY TIMELINE
- 1967: Albert and Michel Roux, the sons of a French charcutier, arrive in Britain and open Le Gavroche at its original location, Lower Sloane Street.
- 1972: The brothers open The Waterside Inn in Bray, Berkshire.
- 1981: Le Gavroche moves to Upper Brook Street.
- 1982: Le Gavroche is the first UK restaurant to be awarded three Michelin stars.
- 1985: The Waterside Inn is awarded three Michelin stars.
- 1986: Michel Roux becomes sole chef-proprietor of The Waterside Inn, while Albert Roux becomes sole proprietor of Le Gavroche.
- 1991: Michel Roux Junior takes over as chef de cuisine at Le Gavroche.
- 1992: Alain Roux joins the kitchen as demi-chef de partie.
- 2002: Alain joins his father as chef-patron, taking full control of the kitchen.
- 2003: Albert and Michel are voted the UK’s most influential chefs by their peers in a Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine survey.