Albert Roux: French chef who brought a culinary revolution to Britain

He and his brother Michel’s Le Gavroche restaurant was the first in the UK to get three Michelin stars

At Dublin’s Aviva Stadium in 2013 (Rex)

Albert Roux, who has died aged 85, achieved what he likened to an Olympic gold medal when Le Gavroche, the London restaurant he opened with his younger brother Michel, became the first British establishment to be awarded the maximum of three Michelin stars.

Bringing from their native France the haute cuisine style that would shake up the restaurant industry, the brothers introduced diners to delicacies such as poulet de bresse, soufflé Suissesse and lobster mousse with caviar.

They became known as the godfathers of modern restaurant cuisine in Britain and trained some of today’s best-known celebrity chefs, including Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay.

But Albert was no fan of that genre. In 2010, lamenting the “food porn” dominating television, he told The Daily Telegraph: “Nowadays, people join the trade who would have been better off joining Rada.”

Of Nigella Lawson, he observed: “I’ll watch her for a few minutes. But it’s all excessive, really, and has to go back. It’s like the miniskirt, which could only come from Britain.

“Because there has been such a suppression, such puritanism about a woman showing her legs here, suddenly you have to show it all – and that same mentality applies to food and alcohol in this country.”

Albert Henri Roux was born in the southern Burgundy village of Semur-en-Brionnais in 1935 to Germaine (née Triger) and Henri Roux, a pork butcher.

The family moved to Paris in 1946 and, on leaving school at 14, Albert had thoughts of becoming a priest but then decided to train as a pâtissier.

Then came work as a pastry cook at the British Embassy in Paris and a commis chef in the kitchen of banker’s daughter Cécile de Rothschild, where he rose to the position of head chef.

In 1952, he moved to Britain when his godfather – a chef in France for the Duchess of Windsor, the former Wallis Simpson, whose marriage to Edward VIII caused a constitutional crisis and the monarch’s abdication – arranged a job for him in the scullery of former MP Nancy Astor at Cliveden House, Buckinghamshire.

He was then private chef to property magnate Sir Charles Clore before serving with the French army in Algeria.

On demob, he was back at Britain’s embassy in France as a sous chef, then spent nine years as private chef to the Queen Mother’s racehorse trainer Peter Cazalet at the Fairlawne estate in Kent.

Cazalet’s son Edward was one of those who financed the Roux brothers’ first restaurant, in Lower Sloane Street, Chelsea, which took the name Gavroche from the wide-eyed street urchin in Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables.

Hollywood film stars Ava Gardner, Charlie Chaplin, Robert Redford and Douglas Fairbanks Jr were among the VIP guests at the opening.

The restaurant boasted quality French ingredients until then unavailable in Britain, smuggled across the Channel by Albert’s first wife, Monique.

Le Gavroche gained its first Michelin star in 1974 and a second three years later. The restaurant moved to Mayfair in 1981, a year before being awarded three stars.

During that time, Albert and Michel had made their mark with other establishments, including the Waterside Inn, a hotel on the Thames at Bray, in Berkshire, which opened in 1972.

The brothers expanded their business interests to include a charcuterie, a patisserie, contract catering and a restaurant supply company.

They also launched a scholarship scheme in 1984 where young chefs could win a three-month apprenticeship at a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Michel – who had followed his brother’s career path by training as a pâtissier in Paris and working at the British embassy there – eventually took sole responsibility for the Waterside Inn.

Albert continued with Le Gavroche – until handing over to his son, Michel, in 1991 – and, as the entrepreneurial half of the brothers, kept control of the other concerns, although he eventually sold them off to the Compass Group and others in the 1990s while continuing to work as a consultant.

He went on to open his first Scottish restaurant, Chez Roux, at the Rocpool Reserve boutique hotel, Inverness, in 2009 – with Michel Jr – by which time his gastronomic philosophy had changed.

“Now, I don’t want a Michelin star,” he said. “I want to cook honest food, the sort of food that my mum used to serve us at home, using fresh products, and do as little as possible to it. It’s all about letting the product speak for itself.”

Roux’s love affair with Scotland began during what he called “a holiday of a lifetime”, touring the country in his Morris Minor in 1963, when he found a “paradise” of streams and lochs where he could enjoy his lifelong passion for fishing.

With his brother, Roux wrote books such as New Classic Cuisine (1983), The Roux Brothers on Patisserie (1986) and French Country Cooking (1989). They also presented a 13-part BBC television series, The Roux Brothers (1988).

Albert was made OBE in 2002 and a chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur in 2005, and took British citizenship in 2015.

His first two marriages, to Monique (1959-2001) and Cheryl Smith (2006-2016), both ended in divorce. He is survived by his third wife, Maria (née Rodrigues), whom he married in 2018, and Michel Jr and Danielle, the children of his first marriage. His brother died in March 2020.

Albert Roux, chef and restaurateur, born 8 October 1935, died 4 January 2021