![]() ![]() He won’t be pinned down on implications outside work. Whether it is cooking a dish or cleaning my table, it has got to be right.” “I’m a micro-idiot: I look at the micro-detail. “It’s allowed me to reorganise my life and make certain priorities number one – there will be less work, it doesn’t mean no work, but I will do less.” He will still oversee everything. Surviving Covid has had “huge implications” for Raymond. ![]() Raymond at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons Alun Callender I don’t have to run like a young man I can let others run for me.” The panic attacks have gone and his spark and stamina have returned: “I do a minimum of two and a half hours’ exercise a day, breathing, yoga, stretches.” He should be “fully well” by mid-June: “Every doctor has said I should recuperate 95 to 100%. Raymond, 71, has been working “bloody hard” to recover. There are many cognitive issues… You worry your abilities won’t come back.” His lungs, he says, took a battering and he had to plead with doctors to keep him off a ventilator: “Coronavirus completely breaks you… It takes a long time to recover.” As well as growing weak, his eyesight and dexterity deteriorated: “I did some terrible things: sending texts to the wrong people. But he doesn’t want to downplay “this pause”. Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons Raymond's recovery.Īfter being ill for four months, Raymond has regained much of the 13kg he lost in hospital, when he spent days on oxygen, and seems so perky that a break almost appears to have done him good. It’s simply to do with the coronavirus it still has an impact on my health.” “Sorry, I got lost… You’re going to tell me how we got here… I forget sometimes. Our conversation cartwheels through seasonality, omelettes, toast he has burnt, omelettes again, Hippocrates, Escoffier and Maman Blanc. Such fervour for what this taught him is at its peak today, although Raymond regrets he is not “totally cohesive”. It all goes back to his childhood near Besançon in eastern France, where the family lived off homegrown vegetables and the odd rabbit. They are not just the heart of his restaurant and hotel, they represent his way of thinking: “Food and gardens, for me they go together – actually, I’d put the gardens first.” Raymond lives near Le Manoir in north Oxford, but had been isolating in his west London flat, so hadn’t been to the gardens for two and a half months. Now he was here, he was almost too weak to walk. During his month on the ward, when things were “touch and go”, he longed to drift among the crane-shaped shrubs in the Japanese tea garden and check on the 150 types of apple in the orchard. When Raymond Blanc left hospital this year, after being treated for Covid, he headed for the gardens of Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons. Now, the indefatigable Raymond Blanc is back – with exciting plans for the restaurant reopening and a homage to Maman Blanc.Ĭountry Living interviewed Raymond for our June magazine issue, out now. Many of the next generation of chefs have trained under him at Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons including Michelin starred John Burton Race, Marco Pierre White and Michael Caines.Just a few months ago, he was battling Covid and pining for the lush gardens at Le Manoir. He also runs the famous 'The Raymond Blanc Cooking School' for budding chefs. The renowned restaurant is celebrated for its gastronomic menu based on ingredients fresh from his celebrated gardens. Raymond is Chef Patron of Orient Express property, hotel-restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, which he opened in Oxford in 1977. One day, Raymond took over the kitchen when the chef was unwell and the rest, as they say, is history. The author of many cookbooks, he has also appeared on TV screens on series such as 'The Very Hungry Frenchman', 'How to Cook Well' and 'The Restaurant'.īorn in France, he moved to England where he started his career as a waiter in Oxfordshire. Raymond Blanc's French inspired dishes have won him numerous awards including an OBE and two Michelin stars, which he has held for an impressive 29 years. ![]()
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