Event Location:
Essex House Hotel | 155 West 58th Street

Saturday, May 1, 7:00 pm
Limited to 50 people.
Members and guests, $1,200

For reservations, please call Arlyn Blake at 212.627.1111, Ext. 307.

Between the time we are writing this and the time it goes to print, there is no telling what fabulous new projects the driven, perfectionist, preternaturally talented Alain Ducasse will have dreamed up.

Will he be reaching for more Michelin stars? At his various restaurants, he has held as many as eight. Eight!! Ducasse’s Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo was a rare restaurant within a hotel ever to earn three Michelin stars (and Ducasse himself, at 33, the youngest chef ever to get them); he is also the first chef in 60 years to have held three Michelin stars for two different establishments simultaneously—Le Louis XV and Restaurant Alain Ducasse (now in the Hôtel Plaza-Athénée) in Paris.

Will Ducasse be looking for interesting new concepts? The stylish, eclectic, and fun, yes, fun, Spoon Food & Wine originated in Paris, and did so well, Ducasse expanded the idea to London, Tokyo, Mauritius, and heaven knows where else. We can’t keep up! Or perhaps chef Ducasse has his eye on the countryside? He already owns several renowned, exquisite, country inns in Provence, and word is that any day now he’s opening one in Tuscany and another in southwestern France.

Is Ducasse seeking out new continents to conquer, perhaps? Alain Ducasse at the Essex House in New York, his first venture in America, holds four stars from The New York Times, whose critic, Williams Grimes, wrote that the food “brings diners to their knees.” That was true for Observer writer Moira Hodgson, who ate “the meal of a lifetime” there.

Before striking out on his own, Ducasse worked for a list of chefs so legendary we feel dizzy merely listing them in one sentence: Michel Guérard, Gaston Lenôtre, Roger Vergé, and Alain Chapel; the last Ducasse credits as his biggest influence.

This is the fourth year that Monsieur Ducasse has very generously opened the doors of his quietly luxurious haven to members of the Beard Foundation for a dinner that benefits the Foundation. Our trustees will be donating wines for the evening, wines that you simply won’t get the opportunity to taste anywhere else.