Fat Duck owner Heston Blumenthal can say ‘bonjour’ but ‘still’ doesn’t know much of the French language despite having spent the past seven years in the country
Heston Blumenthal said he can’t speak or read French – despite living there for the past seven years.
The celebrity chef said he can just about mutter ‘bonjour’ but ‘still’ doesn’t know much of the language.
He made the admission while discussing how he fell in love with cooking after visiting the Michelin-starred Baumanière restaurant in the South of France. The Fat Duck owner, 59, told The Go To Food podcast: “After eating at the Baumanière, I bought French cookbooks. But I couldn’t speak or read any French.
“I live in France, but I still can’t speak French. I can say bonjour. I translated some of these chef cookbooks from French to English with a dictionary, word by word.”
Blumenthal visited the restaurant 40 years ago and said he can still remember how it made him feel. The three Michelin starred chef said: “We turned up, the sun was setting. It was in this beautiful valley and I remember things like the noise of the feet of the waiting staff crunching on the gravel, the smell, the intoxicating smell of the lavender, sommelier with a handle-bar moustache.
“I might have made the handle-bar moustache up, by the way. The wine list was the size of a billboard. They were pouring sauces into soufflés, carving legs of lamb at the table, cheese trolley the size of a chariot. And I’d never experienced anything like this in my life. And I thought, I want to cook, this is it.”
He said when writing the Fat Duck cookbook, he realised that he wanted to “replicate my emotion of the experience in that restaurant”. Blumenthal and his family moved from London to a village in Provence, France, in 2018.
His confession is likely to draw comparisons to legendary Only Fools and Horses character Del Boy, played by Sir David Jason, who famously has a limited grasp of the French language – despite believing to the contrary.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
