CORRECTION: Daniel Boulud receives lifetime achievement award
[Corrects spelling of name in headline]Daniel Boulud has joined a small, elite club of world-class chefs such as Thomas Keller, Joel Robuchon, Alice Waters and Paul Bocuse in being bestowed with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the same panel of judges who ranks the 50 best restaurants in the world.
The Frenchman is the 10th chef to receive the award, and the sixth chef from France to be given the title.
For more than 20 years, Boulud has boasted bragging rights to operating one of the most popular dining hotspots in New York, Daniel, a Manhattan institution that serves haute French gastronomy.
The Michelin-starred eatery has also become an international dining destination and makes repeat appearances in many a travel guidebook, resulting in month-long waiting lists.
Over the years, Boulud has parlayed his New York success into building a small restaurant empire, exporting French cuisine to bistros, cafes, brasseries and bars across the US, Canada, London and Singapore.
“For more than three decades now he has been at the forefront of modernizing and even internationalizing French cuisine: his menus informed but unconstrained by tradition, often featuring elegant, pared down reinterpretations of classics incorporating lighter sauces and delicate flavours,” editors write.
It could be said that Boulud’s trajectory into food was pre-ordained: He was born on a farm outside Lyon, the heartland of French gastronomy. Boulud began apprenticing in kitchens as a teenager and worked his way up under the mentorship of some of the greatest French chefs of the 1970s (Roger Vergé, Georges Blanc and Michel Guérard) before wending his way to New York in 1982.
And, the ambitious Frenchman rose to the top echelons of New York food society with his technically exquisite and elegant cuisine, enabling him to open Daniel in 1993.
Despite winning an award that honors the canon of his life’s work so far, the 60-year-old advised, however, that he doesn’t plan on resting on his laurels.
“To me this award is maybe my mid-life achievement award,” he said in a video acceptance speech.
“Because I have a lot more to prove in this world of cooking. I think we are in the most beautiful industries where there’s so much passion, so much dedication and so much reward for everyone.”
Boulud will be presented with the lifetime achievement award June 1 in London, when the World’s 50 Best Restaurants will be announced.
