Star French chef Alain Ducasse has lunch with Lydia

He and the pastry chef at his flagship restaurant at Hotel Plaza Athénée in Paris spent a year and a half developing this dessert, and it explains everything, he says, about the philosophy driving his culinary vision these days.

“At Plaza Athénée especially, we have a new direction. Two or three flavors maximum in a dish. Like in the new dessert we call Citrus. It was a difficult thing to find the right balance of sweet, bitter, acidity. That is one of the most complicated balances to achieve,” he says in his heavy French accent.

“It is a combination of 10 to 15 different varieties of citrus — some fresh, some cooked, some candied, some just the juice. There are different textures. Different flavors. But all is citrus,” says Ducasse, who later that evening was honored by the South Beach Wine & Food Festival at a sold-out, $500-per-plate dinner prepared by an all-star team of chef friends, including Chicago’s Charlie Trotter and Alessandro Stratta from Wynn Las Vegas.

The citrus dish is difficult to envision. Is there an egg base? Does it involve a mousse? A soufflé? Pastry?

“Nothing. For the best desserts, you don’t need pastry or too much of anything. This is just citrus and citrus and citrus. Although it took so long to perfect, it is very simple. It is served in a crystal bowl. So it is very rustic, very essential. But yes, sophisticated and complicated also.”

At 52, Ducasse looks as dapper as ever with his combed-back silver hair and round-frame glasses. If he has ever thrown around any of that clichéd French-chef attitude, such behavior is certainly not apparent today. Over lunch he is casual and warm. He grabs a plain popover from the bread basket with his bare hand and plunks it down on your plate. Because he’s not about to go down in flames alone.

He studies BLT’s brunch menu carefully before deciding on poached eggs topped with spinach, ham, bacon and béchamel on the restaurant’s signature poufy Gruyere-crusted popover bread.

More than filling. But that doesn’t stop head chef Laurent Tourondel from sending out extras. Tourondel runs several BLT restaurants around the country (BLT stands for Bistro Laurent Tourondel) and you rarely catch him in his South Beach kitchen, but he is in town to participate in the wine fest and spend time with some of his food-world homies, Ducasse included.

Always at work

“Besides being one of the best chefs in the world, I think the personality of the man is what makes him so special” says Tourondel, who earlier this month announced a split from his business partner, though he says he will remain involved in nine BLT restaurants, including South Beach’s. “Alain Ducasse always talks about food with so much respect. He takes all of his projects very seriously. Some other chefs with several restaurants around the world don’t travel to their restaurants as much as he does to his. He is always in some corner of the world working.”