You do not need to be a ‘food person’ to know the name Roux. Or to be familiar with Le Gavroche, the family’s cherished Mayfair restaurant, soon to close after 57 years. They are a name and a restaurant that transcend beyond the world of Michelin stars. And this despite the fact the restaurant requires a considerably plump paycheck or a lot of saving up to become familiar with its riches.
Michel Roux – formerly Jr. – the son of the late Albert who founded Le Gavroche with his brother Michel Roux Sr. in 1967 – announced the restaurant’s closure late on Friday. The need for an improved ‘work-life balance’ was the primary cause. For a single restaurant closure to make global headlines is testament to its gravitas: here is a true institution, putting on tables the most precise and classic French cooking.
‘This decision has not been made lightly’, wrote Roux, now 63. ‘Le Gavroche means so much, not just to myself and the Roux family, but to the wider Gavroche team and our guests who have become family over so many years.
I’d like the restaurant to close on a high. It’s about turning the page and moving forward so I can focus on my family and other business ventures. This is not the end of Le Gavroche – the restaurant may be closing, but the name will live on, as will the Roux dynasty.’
Dynastic is true. Le Gavroche is a legacy restaurant, one where history has long been made and one synonymous with Britain’s feted culinary revolution. In 1974, it became the first in Britain to win a Michelin star. Sitting down to sample such then unlikely fancies as foie gras and pot au feu? Ava Gardner, Charlie Chaplin; countless more besides. After being the first to win two stars, in 1977, it became the first to win three, in 1984. It has held a pair since 1993.
And through its doors have come and gone many of the UK’s most celebrated chefs: Pierre Koffmann, Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay, and Monica Galetti among them. It has been reviewed by the best: Fay Maschler named Le Gavroche as ‘one of the 12 restaurants that changed the way we eat’; the late AA Gill heralded its food as ‘magnum-opus eating’; and the treasured chef and author Simon Hopkinson, visiting in 2008 and spending only £54 (a lot then, I understand), gave Le Gavroche a score of 9.75/10.
Few kitchens hold such weight in a world where kitchens are so often forgotten
Its dishes, many old fashioned, remain culinary standpoints in London eating culture. Le Caneton Gavroche is a whole poached duck in consomme, with three sauces and served for two. A relic motoring on with indeterminable staying power.
Only four months ago I was tasked, alongside Reveller editor David Ellis, to cook perhaps the most famous Le Gavroche dish of them all: the Soufflé Suissesse. It has been on the menu since inception and more than 50 might be ordered even on a less than frenetic weekday evening. To stand there in the kitchen, Roux poring over each misadventure with double cream and cheddar cheese, felt special, not least for someone who so adores eating. Few kitchens hold such weight in a world where kitchens are so often forgotten.
And so here I bid au revoir to a titanic restaurant. One to be missed. French cooking has five mother sauces. I might go so far as to dub Le Gavroche one of Britain’s mother restaurants. The others? The Fat Duck, perhaps. Harvey’s, long gone, another. It is difficult to suppose others of the same stature and standing will follow. The glitz and glamour of fine French dining appears to be fading.
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