There are few UK restaurants as globally influential as Le Gavroche. The Mayfair establishment has trained more than thirty Michelin starred chefs, including Gordon Ramsay, Marco Pierre White and Monica Galetti.
Two-Michelin starred Chef Patron Michel Roux Jr has been at the helm since 1991. He now invites you to join him in his kitchen to learn how to prepare classic French cuisine in your own home.
The UK's culinary legend gives you a behind closed doors insight into his world and techniques, teaching you his chef’s secrets, his philosophy and the influence of his culinary hero, Georges Auguste Escoffier.
The master chef will begin by showing you how to prepare an omelette Roux style – one of the first tasks he sets chefs who want to work with him. ‘You can tell a lot from an omelette’, he says ‘the preparation, the seasoning…the care.’ He will then show you how to prepare the truly Michelin starred omelette – an Omelette soufflé. This has never before been shared on TV or elsewhere.
For the rest of the course Roux will use brasserie staple, ‘Steak Frites’ to showcase some of the essentials of classic French cuisine. He will cover sauces, salads, side dishes and how to bring it all together.
Throughout the course Michel Roux Jnr shares his own chef’s secrets, demonstrating techniques learnt through years of experience training the world’s top chefs. Unlike simply following recipes, where it can be hard to perfect techniques, Michel teaches you through demonstration, and will then give you feedback on your own work.
Throughout this course, you will learn the secrets of ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’ to cook to master classic French cuisine. This relaxed and creative course is for enthusiasts through to professionals wanting to learn from a master chef, and for anyone who wants to learn how to curate a Michelin star dish at home.
The Roux Philosophy
In your first lesson you’ll be welcomed to this intimate course, introduced to the curriculum and given full access to the kitchen of the legendary Le Gavroche. Michel will give you an insight into his history, career and culinary philosophy and talk about the important role education plays in becoming a top chef - as well as explaining his excitement about interacting with all the students on this course and the journey he will take you on.
The master chef will reveal one of the first challenges he sets chefs who want to work with him - preparing a basic omelette. He will demonstrate how you can prepare an omelette Roux style and then how to prepare the truly Michelin starred omelette – an Omelette soufflé.
By the end of this lesson and assignment you will be immersed in the Roux philosophy, ready to develop the skills and values taught in the following lessons.
Stocks & Sauces
In this lesson you will be given a solid understanding of basic stocks, how to use these to make some iconic sauces and how to bring this knowledge together to make the perfect steak with a pan-cooked sauce.
Taking you through the stock preparation step by step, Roux will give you an understanding of just how fundamental stocks are to French cuisine - but also how versatile they are.
You will then be shown how to make three very different classic sauces: red wine sauce, truffle and madeira sauce and finally pepper sauce.
Finally, you will bring all your new knowledge and skills together to pan fry a steak with a sauce, just they do in Le Gavroche.
Pairing, preparing and dressing your salad
One of Roux’s concerns is that many people (including many practising chefs!) do not know how to pick, prepare and dress salad.
In this lesson, you will be shown how to make a mind-blowing dressed salad, but perhaps more important - shown how to make high quality, delicious and nutritious salads a part of your daily culinary routine.
Roux starts with the basics - a walk through the different types of salad and their tastes, textures, seasonality – and how they can be combined.
You will then be shown a variety of delicious dressings and how they should be paired. These will include a classic French dressing, a citrus dressing and a walnut dressing.
Iconic potato dishes
In this lesson, Michel will show you three classic potato dishes, talking you through their heritage before showing you how they can be prepared as delicious sides - or meals in their own right.
The first recipe is one which has been passed down through generations and is one of Roux’s personal favourites. He will show you the secret to a truly great Gratin Dauphinoise, demonstrating techniques and preparation skills that you can embellish. Next, you will be introduced to a Pomme Boulangère and finally shown how to create a Pomme Anna.
By the end of this lesson you will have mastered a form of alchemy - turning a humble potato into something truly sublime.
