Blanc expressions
He has new partners, Le Manoir is going from strength to strength, but the third Michelin star eludes him. So how is life treating Raymond Blanc? Jenny Webster found out.
Raymond Blanc is looking fit and lean and, despite a hectic schedule, he is obviously enjoying life. He has plenty to enjoy. This year the 52-year-old celebrates the 18th birthday of Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, the two-Michelin-starred establishment that has kept him in the public eye for nearly two decades. Celebrating with Blanc are the two new loves of his life: business partner Orient-Express Hotels and his girlfriend, nutritionist and author Amanda Ursell, whom Blanc met during an interview for the Daily Telegraph last autumn.
After 10 years, out has gone former business partner, the Virgin boss with the same initials, Richard Branson. It was a move that the naturally exuberant Blanc had not anticipated and one that took the wind out of his sails.
"I thought, with Virgin, that I would have a partner for life," he says, regretfully. "You have an understanding, a trust. It was a great disappointment when Richard decided to sell his assets in Le Manoir."
There was an emotional wrench as well. A friendship had developed between the two RBs, and Blanc had visited Necker Island, Branson's hideaway in the Caribbean. "He kept asking me and I couldn't find the time to go," Blanc says, "and then he told me that he had booked me in for a whole bloody month, so I went." Branson, too, was a regular visit to Le Manoir, allowing Blanc to look after him.
"Richard is not a great gastronome," Blanc says. "Give him a simple fish soup and a coq au vin and he will be more than happy."
The partnership began in 1992 at a point when Blanc had decided that a restaurant with rooms was not commercially viable and that Le Manoir should be developed into a hotel. Unable to raise the £6m needed from the bank, Blanc approached Branson, offering 50% of his shareholding if he would come in as a partner. Branson agreed and the relationship was established.
It was a relationship that lasted until last year, when the airlines, badly hit by the events of 11 September, began to shed interests outside their core business.
Last December, it was rumoured that Virgin was looking to sell Le Manoir to Orient-Express, although this was denied at the time. By February this year, the deed had been done, in a deal worth £27.5m, including the sale of Branson's 50% equity stake in Le Petit Blanc brasseries in Oxford, Cheltenham, Birmingham and Manchester. By this time, though, Virgin was the majority shareholder in Le Manoir. During the partnership, Blanc had sold more shares, leaving him as the minority shareholder, although he categorically will not reveal what percentage of shares he has left. "It's irrelevant," he says indignantly. "It's none of anyone's business."
At one stage, Blanc contemplated a management buyout (MBO), going through a frenzied period of trying to salvage Le Manoir for himself. But it was not to be. "It was the worst possible time to sell hotel assets [after 11 September]," he recalls. "There was a book to be finished. I hardly had any time. I was meeting possible investors in corridors, in cars in car parks. It was crazy. Yes, I feel a degree of resentment at not having been given the proper time to do an MBO. But time passes, and c'est la vie."
At the same time, Virgin was also talking to a number of possible investors. One came through loud and clear, and that was Orient-Express. For Blanc, it was the perfect solution. "Having talked to them for a number of days, I knew they could be my perfect partner," he says. "They have luxury hotels of their own [the Cipriani in Venice, for example]." In return, Blanc would act as a consultant to Orient-Express and provide a valuable training ground for the company's chefs.
Comfortable ethos
From the outset, Blanc says he felt more comfortable with the ethos of Orient-Express than with that of Virgin. "Virgin was always cutting capital expenditure to maximise the profit line," he says. "I've always been in the business of excellence, and to achieve that you have to go full-steam with heavy capital investments. Virgin didn't quite understand that. My new partners are great hoteliers with a huge track record."
What Orient-Express also understands, according to Blanc, is his own involvement in Le Manoir, and for this he makes no apologies. "Le Manoir is me," he says. "It sounds very arrogant, but it is true. Every flower that is planted in the garden, every beam of light, is down to me. Orient-Express understands that very well. They have invested as much in me as in Le Manoir and in my vision for the future."
There are several aspects to this vision. The 32-bedroom property has undergone a £6m investment over the past few years and, in terms of rooms, Blanc feels there is not much more he can now do. "Thirty-two bedrooms is about the right number," he says. "Our ability to be successful is our ability to personalise everything we do. We don't have a nasty card on the pillow telling you to have a good night. We have the general manager shaking your hand, and that's what counts. Each room is a fantasy, not a bloody boring bedroom."
Where there will be further investment is in a spa. It's not a new plan. Blanc has been trying for some years to add a luxury spa to the property but has always come unstuck with planning permission. He believes that he has now largely cut through the red tape and hopes to start pressing ahead with a spa, with French perfumier Givenchy as his partner in the venture.
The £4.5m needed for this project might come from Orient-Express but Blanc is adamant that, even if it does, he will repay the money to retain the control he so obviously relishes over his business. By way of a financial return for Orient-Express, Blanc reckons the addition of a spa will raise occupancy from 82% to 95% and turn Le Manoir into a longer-stay proposition, rather than attracting guests for one night to celebrate a special occasion.
The addition of the spa will also move the concept of Le Manoir forward. "Country houses will die if they don't reinvent themselves," Blanc says. "Nobody wants to go in these places and see their ancestors looking down at them. They want to celebrate and have fun."
A fan of fun
Blanc himself is a great fan of fun in both food and life. His well-documented relationship with Amanda Ursell has seen the latter switch from a low-fat diet to one that embraces the fun side of food.
"Before meeting Raymond I was a typical low-fat girl, eating on the run, grazing here, picking there. But now I've let my senses take over and I'm happy to wait patiently for a meal that looks, smells and tastes delicious," wrote Ursell in the Daily Telegraph earlier this year. The same ethos applies to Le Manoir and this, according to its excitable boss, is the key to the hotel's success. "Come to Le Manoir and you will see an amazing mix of informally elegant young people who just want to enjoy themselves and want to be comfortable," he says. "Just look at the car park. It's not full of smart cars - 70% are just normal cars. We don't aim to be fashionable. I hate fashion. Fashion dies as soon as the next one comes along,"
But there's still one piece of the jigsaw missing, the critical third Michelin star - the one that has always eluded Blanc. Former general managers speak of Blanc working himself into the ground in the past in a bid to get it, and the disappointment when, year-after-year, he was unsuccessful.
But age, or maybe the passion of new relationships, are great mellowers, and today Blanc seems pragmatic about whether he gets a third star or not.
"If I had just a restaurant where I could close one month a year," he says, "I would have had that third star 17 years ago. But when you want to achieve the highest form of excellence, when you start at six, do breakfast, then coffee, then afternoon tea, then room service menus, it puts the kitchen under pressure and it really is a much taller order.
"It would, of course, be nice, mostly for the team and Gary [Jones, the head chef]. But, no, I am not hung up on it. Today, chefs give much more importance to Michelin. But Michelin is not written for chefs, it's written for consumers who want to find the best places to eat."
How long will Blanc go on? As long as he is enjoying it, he says. "Eventually, I will go back to France, but I will live a bit in England as well. When Le Manoir is ready, I will be able to leave it to Orient-Express because they are the next owners."
As it was 18 years ago, Le Manoir is still an engrossing project, giving Blanc little time for anything else, and this has been the price of success. "Time is always a luxury and I would like more of it," he says. "I'd like to see more of my sons Olivier and Sebastian, my friends, have dinner parties at home, but I'm so knackered that I can't do it.
"Having said that, I'm not moaning, you cannot have it both ways. If you are an achiever, you've got to understand that. Maybe there's another way, and I would love to find it if there was, but as far as I know there isn't."
Raymond Blanc
Blanc was born in 1949 in Bresancon, France. When young, he nurtured an ambition to be an architect, but then came to England, where he ran a pub.
At the age of 28, he opened his first restaurant, Les Quat'Saisons in Oxford. He then relocated the restaurant to Le Manoir, a dilapidated house that he bought in 1984. Le Manoir remains the only country house hotel in England to have held two Michelin stars for 18 years.
Some 18 Michelin-starred chefs have been trained in Raymond Blanc's kitchens. They include Marco Pierre White, Paul Heathcote, John Burton-Race, Michael Caines, Eric Chavot and Richard Neat.
Raymond Blanc's Top 10
Top 10 restaurants and hotels
1. Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons
2. Chewton Glen
3. Fat Duck
4. Gidleigh Park
5. Claridge's
6. Pétrus
7. Waterside Inn
8. Landmark hotel
9. Harry's Bar
10. The Ivy
Top 10 ingredients
1. Organic vegetables from the garden of Le Manoir
2. Organic "Highgrove" lamb
3. Crème fraîche
4. Beurre fermier
5. Rod-caught sea bass
6. Creel-caught langoustines
7. Extra-virgin olive oil
8. Fleur de sel
9. Tamarind
10. Lime leaves
Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons
Great Milton, Oxfordshire
Ratings: Michelin: two stars; AA: five rosettes, four red stars; RAC: gold ribbon
Member:
Rooms: 32
Lunches: 80/90 per day
Turnover: £9m (£10m anticipated next year)
Occupancy: 82%
