If you had strolled past the back door of 61 Lower Sloane Street in the summer of 1967 and timed it right, just as it swung open, you’d have been hit in the face by a tantalising cloud of browning butter and garlic. A new restaurant had just opened, the menus written in French, its food stylish, luxurious, full of flavour – a gamble in an era when the offering in most London restaurants was still largely beige and stodgy.
Michel Roux Jr. was seven when his father, Albert, and uncle, Michel – the Roux Brothers, as they were known – opened Le Gavroche; some of his first memories are of pushing through that back door after school and heading down into the engine room of a kitchen. “It was the smell and the heat of the kitchen, and then walking down the steps and it gradually getting hotter and hotter and noisier and noisier,” recalls Roux.
“All these unbelievable smells. Because the ventilation was terrible – the hot air would be coming up the stairs as if it was a chimney. And then getting to the bottom and seeing Dad and Uncle running around sweating. And Uncle invariably giving me a freshly cooked madeleine.”
The Sunday Telegraph. To read the full interview click here
