Raymond Blanc on nurturing excellence, the sacrifices behind it, and passing on his vision

0:00Raymond Blanc:Hello and welcome to Six Degrees of Purpose, the podcast where Oli and I have a wonderful time speaking with pioneers, practitioners and entrepreneurs about their journeys, their experiences, their values and their wealth. We're bringing a conversation to you today with someone who genuinely needs no introduction. Raymond Blanc has arguably done more than anyone else to shape the way Britain eats. As founder of the Manoir 4 Saison and Brasserie Blanc, amongst other businesses, he's held two Michelin stars for a staggering 40 years, which is an amazing sense of achievement over such a long time period.

0:35But what comes through in the conversation you're about to hear isn't the achievement itself, it's the philosophy that sits underneath it. The care, the discipline and the sense of purpose that he's brought to every business that he has built.

0:48Raymond Blanc:You can find us at thisis6.com on Spotify and Apple now. please do give us a like and give us a comment. Raymond Blanc, welcome to Six Degrees of Purpose. Thank you very much. Our first question I've got for you, why Six Degrees of Purpose? Please, I'm very curious. Why not 360 degrees of purpose? It's a good question. It's a great question. When we were setting up Six Degrees, we had a phenomenal network that we couldn't go anywhere near because we'd left a big bank and we had various covenants in place. We weren't able to talk to anyone. But we were really lucky that everyone we did speak to were really helpful and introduced us to other people.

1:36Raymond Blanc:And of course, that's the six degrees of separation principle. And so that brought around six degrees. It's quite hard naming a business. It's like naming a child. It was very difficult, wasn't it? And then the purpose, we fundamentally believe that purpose underpins everything and it should underpin a wealth strategy for people. And so six degrees of purpose, we are a purpose-led wealth manager and the purpose obviously feeds into then the podcast. Okay, well that's a very good answer. Thank you very much to make me aware of. And that's a very, and I think each business should be led by its principles.

2:17We would love to hear from you about something that we read not long ago that you said, which was that you became an entrepreneur by accident. Can you tell us about that? It was a pure accident. You know, life is full of ups and downs and so on. And before, as a young chap, it's never easy to find your sense of purpose, what your vision is, what your mission is. And I wanted a mission. And it started very badly because my teachers decided to put me into a technical designer or architect. And I hate square and I hate rectangles. I hate any kind of prism or rectangle or hexagonal, any form. I hate physics and I hate geometry.

3:08So it was not for me. So I stopped straight away and I became a nurse. And I like the idea of becoming a nurse. I like the idea of looking after people. And I was actually in my hometown, Hospital Saint-Anne de Besançon, where basically I looked after as a young nurse, of course, apprentice nurse, after young people with leukemia, which was the worst possible department you could go to. and I emotionally I couldn't simply take it it was too much on the top of that there was a this is matrons his castellic matrons which were really tough you know hard and I was caught a few times in a cupboard of the nurses so that didn't have my case but anyway no it was too much it was too much to to give I admire, and that's why I admire, and I'm sure we've all been to hospital, I admire the extraordinary work that these people are doing.

4:12It's really a vocation. Then I decided I want to find my little passion. I want to find something, my core. I want to find my purpose. And in life, we all know, too well, there's sometimes luck, but you also have culture. and my culture helped me enormously my father was a working class person but very highly qualified working class person he worked on the hardness of making watch so he was highly qualified about 20 an amazing man i admired enormously hard working with hard work ethics okay built his own house so He would finish his home, finish his work, and work until 12 o 'clock at night, okay, building his house.

5:08It took him seven years. And he built a house for five people, for five children. There's a beautiful story, just for the fun of it, okay, just for the fun of it. Sports war. My father was a very well-known person, a hero. He brought back the Germans right back to Germany, with the English army, by the way. When the war was over, General de Gaulle left his house and said, France needs children. And my papa said, yes, sir, I will give you seven to you and to France, mon general. No, I will. That's why our men would behave in the past. Okay. And that also connects with the industry as well. Okay.

5:50So very happily, he came to my mom and said, Annie, I am going to give seven children to General de Gaulle and to France. and my mom looked at him, no more, it's five. Yes, and he built a house for five children. Great story. But around that, it's a harshness. It was post-war. This period of time was really hopeful, full of hope. There has been so many disasters which had happened to families and so on, and we were rebuilding France. And we were working hard. Everyone was working hard. As kids, we were working hard. And of course, my papa did a beautiful, huge garden, three times bigger than the garden, to feed a family of not of seven, but of five.

6:38Okay, so immediately I learned about seasonality, about the earth. Actually, he made me taste earth at the age of six or seven. Just earth from the... Just earth. Okay. Just earth. I remember this. For some reason, it was raining. he decided to the garden so three kids would follow follow him up and he took a big clump of shiny earth wet and sticky and shiny i said look so i said papa yeah you always say yes to your father okay so yeah smell it oh i didn't like it so i smelled it it was acid it was no and then taste it. Oh my god. No. I looked at him. He meant it. Okay, so I did a piece of earth and I ate it.

7:31And I've never had such an experience in my life in terms of taste. Never. Because what I discovered is a multitude of olfactive senses. It was acid. It was bitter. It was sour. It was sweet. It was gritty towards, of course, there was a few living things as well into it.

7:57And then suddenly a few years after that, I dare to ask him, okay, Papa, I understand why you asked me to look at the earth, because the color of the earth will tell you what can grow in that earth. That means if it's red, there will be iron. okay so you have a mega problem okay with many vegetables especially peas and broad beans and so on if it's if the earth is clay clay is sticky no root vegetable will grow okay I understand that but why on earth did you make me test it and that's when I discovered that my father had a sense of humor that was a joke but that joke actually taught me a hell of a lot okay about the complexity of the earth and also it had a proposal garden was not about fries it was never flowers you know in our garden it was all about growing food to feed the family yeah so see it's act of love okay because my mom treated it as an act of love really shaped very much my life as a cook, as a chef, definitely, and gave me the deepest understanding, okay, of work, the deepest understanding of seasonality, the deepest understanding of varietals, okay, and of course cooking as well.

9:31So I had a good start after my total failures, okay, in the world of technical design or architecture, then as a nurse. But what made me fall in love with food actually was pure chance. I was looking for that passion, that little thing that we all have in ourselves. And if we work hard enough, we will find it. We will find it. And it's worth finding for. Because it will change your life and countless other people. And eventually it was a summer night in my hometown, Besançon, Place Victor Hugo, this great poet writer. And suddenly it was a beautiful summer day. The leaves were bristling. It was a very warm, balmy evening.

10:22And then suddenly I see a restaurant, a terrace restaurant. Very smart, very luxurious. Lovers, hold your hand and say, I love you. Toujours, forever, encore. The guests enjoying their beautiful food. The crepes Suzette being flambéed. The maître d 'hôtel in black ties, you know, and the commie owns a red Bordeaux jacket with silver epaulette. It was a ballet. It was a ballet, you know, from this crepe Suzette, carving the fromage, or a beautiful sea bass being flambéed. And I fell in love so deeply. So that is silly because I should have known, I should have been a chef a long time ago, But that's when I really discovered it.

11:11And it changed my life. The day after, I asked, I want to see the boss. I want to see the boss. And he was a man who scared me a bit, I must say, because he was an older man, about 70, gray hair, gray eyes, gray suit, everything was gray. Very serious man. And I told him for one hour, I will be the greatest chef in the world, that he must take me in his kitchen. Okay. So he listened very patient. He was patient, I must say. He had a great virtue, his patience. And then after he listened very well, he gave me a job, not as a chef, but as a cleaner. So I became immediately the best cleaner. It was like Versailles.

11:54The toilets were shiny. I would go on my huge 18th century mirrors on the ladder. I would take my paper and my vinegar and shine these mirrors until there was not a single smear. Everything was shiny. It was really just like Versailles. And then everyone loved me, respected me, because I did my job well. Then after I became a washrap, but I nearly lost my hands because there was no gloves, the chemicals were very harsh, so I became a glass washrap. And the glass washrap was another huge learning for me and the step leading me to who I am now and my curiosity.

12:43And all the wine, okay, so the wine, the glass were all hand-blown. The breakage was immense. It was about 40 % breakage. And at the time, businessmen, French businessmen, were having about four or five wines at lunch. Never mind at night. Okay, so, and the breakage was immense. But in no time I learned, I asked my grandmother to give me a linen cloth because a linen cloth wouldn't leave no fluff whatsoever. And that was the best hand-woven linen, okay, cloth in my village. And I caressed my glasses. I learned a technique of cleaning them. and I cut down the breakage by about 80%. So the boss loved me, the waiters loved me, the sommelier respected me.

13:38And so I was just a little glass washer up. And at the same time, I would taste all the wine. Not doing it, because a drunken chef is not good. Okay, but taste, just taste these wines. And in six months, I knew all my Cabernet Francs from Macabernet Sauvignon, from Mouvert, from Pinot Noir, etc., etc. And I was learning every night I would work until 2 o 'clock in the morning, either cooking for friends, okay, or learning about all the great classics of French cuisines, okay, the whole history of French cuisine, whether it is chemistry, the science of it, the nutrition of it. You know, I would dwell myself in all the history of gastronomy across France.

14:25and that was really but then life we all know it is always full of surprise so I became a waiter so I was coming closer to the kitchen and I became of course guess what the best waiter because I had the best mentor and again you realize what mentoring I remember Jacques he was called Jacques, I still remember him now he took me under his wings and he looked after me he kicked me sometimes passing by because I was too slow carving a turbot or flambeying the crepe Suzette gently not nastily okay and he really looked after me and in no time I learned all the carving all the flambeying and so on and I could go in the kitchen and I realized the food, tasting the food it was so rich my mom's food was never like that you know in France we have three kitchen, three cooking, family, bourgeois cuisine, and haute cuisine.

15:28And that was haute cuisine. And in France, haute cuisine was full of cream and butter. You would fall off your chair with a criss de foie if you had too much. I wanted to tell the chef, but I had to tell him, he was a giant, and I saw him thumping a few young people on the floor with a fist. Wow. So those kitchens were harsh, so harsh. And so I had to be very careful on how I would approach him and say, Chef, what about using single cream rather than double cream? Or what about adding a little sabayon to the sauce to light it? And then I came again and he didn't take my recommendation very kindly.

16:22very respectfully as well and he took a cup upon and full force a giant as always mustache bristled his eyes darkened and this giant throws his copper pound in my face and broke my my jaw and and i was in the hospital and on that day the boss came to see me and uh um it was really interesting was he first started to, how can you say that to the chef? The chef is a god. The chef makes a reputation of his hotel, of his restaurant. And you tell him he cannot cook. You can hardly argue when you have warriors all across your place. So he went on his monologue and he then said, but young man, I've seen you.

17:07You are going to go far. So I'm going to help you. And he helped me. On that day, I lost my job. I lost my jaw, a great deal of my confidence. And then he helped me by exiling me in the worst possible place where you could go to England. Food hell in the 1970s. Great rock and roll, my new. Absolutely. Rock and roll for the few. Opera for the few, rock and roll for the many. A society very divided.

17:41Raymond Blanc:Yet you kept your value of passion. I mean, you can hear the passion, Raymond, in your voice when you talk about food, the knowledge you have, the drive for excellence as well in each of the jobs you've done. And you came here and you carried on that despite having been knocked in the face. What drove that? I think what drove it is the chef will never manage to break that idea that one day I'm going to touch excellence. That was my aim, touching excellence, even for a few seconds. And that's our purpose. That's really, I felt it was my purpose, and I knew it had to be in the world of gastronomy, in the world of hospitality, in the world to give a total stranger the very best moment of their life.

18:33Create an environment where you feel surrounded with joy, with celebration. I didn't want to create these haughty waiters, these haughty restaurants full of ancestors looking down at you in a disapproving manner. I want to create an environment which was warm, kind of gastronomy, which was not driven by, you know, you can see. I'm sure you've been to these restaurants where you have a tall metro hotel coming with this car to the van, where you have 3 ,000 ones, and he planks it to the table, and he looks at you, and he asks you to choose, and you feel belittled. I wanted to create an environment which is about joy, about giving pleasure, about sharing pleasure, teaching my team, growing my team.

19:25I wanted my team to own what I own, the values that I own. I wanted to create a form of gastronomy which is totally different from what existed before, which was full of gold. For example, you enter the restaurant, everything was about gold, everything was rich, everything was a luxury which was so imposing you felt ill at ease. The experience starts on picking up the phone. The anticipation of the moment is always even more important than the moment itself. So imagine you heard about this place, Le Manoir, whatever other place, and you know it's a very special place, and you decide, you save your money, and you pick up the phone, and you're really excited, and you hear a voice, I'll give you two scenarios, you hear a voice, and the voice is really nice, very professional, but when you, you know, when you, and it gives you all the right information, formations, but that's it.

20:39And you leave the conversation and you feel disappointed, you know, and you have doubt in your mind. Is it the right place? Should I go and spend my money here? I heard so many great things about this place because it was flat, it was not It was not helpful. It was not warm. I didn't feel the warmth. I didn't feel... Okay, so you have doubt. And doubt is the worst thing. We all know what doubt does to our psyche and to our decision making and so on. So let's take another situation. You save your money. You phone the manoir, or Barcy Blanc, or whoever, you know, or Marco Pierre Watt, or whoever it might be, okay?

21:30And then you hear a voice which is wow, which is warm, helpful, will go in every single direction to make your experience better. Madame, is it your birthday? Is it a special cake you want? What kind of flavors would you like? Strawberries? The strawberries are the best! The very best! Or the first raspberries from Scotland, you know, Glendale of our artists. We can create some most beautiful dessert. and you can feel that warmth, that kind of, which embraces you. And you know that you are going to have that special time. And then you're going to tell the impact of that. Immediately, you're going to tell at least 10 or 20 people, oh my God, I phoned them and the lady was absolutely amazing, so helpful, so much look forward to it.

22:24Do you see the difference to the approach of business, what doubt can do? So with doubt, it's exactly the contrary. That means you go and you come with this doubt. So if anybody fails, that's going to be worse. So you have this doubt in your head, and we have to work twice harder to bring back the guess. So what is the trust of the guess? That's what we're talking about. so that guest can celebrate and enjoy himself. So it's just one little thing. It's just a phone call we're talking about here. For me, a good business is a vision. Yes, it starts by a vision. And the vision must be very strong, very defined.

23:15But a vision can be realized if everyone embraces it, if your team offers it, because all very well for you to have a vision. You know, if you have a business, you employ 250 people, and if they don't own it, you aren't. So it's to really passing on this vision. So the vision must be effectively, yes, there must be a proper, I hate the word, plan, but that vision must be supported by pillars. You know, each and each of these pillars hold particular values. For example, I wanted my papa to come at the Manorokal Saison. Working class people didn't go in three-star Michelin or two-star Michelin or her son.

24:08They didn't. But I wanted it. And I wanted to create an environment which was joyful, supportive, an environment which was not full of gold and ancestors and so on, an environment where you immediately feel what I wanted. Immediately I worked on, we created 14 gardens through the years, you know, all organic values. Okay, so you had all these pillars, okay, these pillars supported on sustainability, supported on organic values, creating extraordinary gardens which will become, which have become the core values of the Manoir. And of course, this garden would be the canvas on which I grow and cook my food.

24:52It would serve my table. Okay, so we are 14 gardeners. So it was mostly about people. And people, and definitely this vision had to be shared, and not just shared, owned, owned, 100%. by everyone working with me. And it's never easy because since kitchen in the 70s, there were savages. Really, it was so, so bad. It was so, so, so... I've seen things which were... It was very tough, very hard. It was... And I didn't want... I wanted to create also, but I wanted to create. It's a modern luxury, a responsible luxury, a luxury which helps community, your community, a luxury which helps young people, of course, to grow in the ladder of success, to give confidence.

25:54You know, the old boys say now, oh, they're young. Oh, they're rubbish. They're young, they're lazy. They're young, they don't know. They'll never know. Wrong. Give them a good mentor and you'll be amazed. Yeah, sure, it's going to be very difficult, more difficult than normal. You'll have to have anchor cheese, always in your pocket, and constant support. You need much more patience, much more support. Okay, a good HR department is crucial to succeed. Okay, so, and if, I'm amazed, are brilliant the young can be if you give them the right pathway and you support them, you care for them, you grow them, you give them trust, you give them the confidence.

26:47It's amazing. And that's why I'm really sure there's a cost to it.

26:57Not only there's a cost, but there's a time. It takes time. It takes longer. But when you succeed, it's the most amazing feeling. To see these young people, which were once treated as belittled and being useless, coming of age and asserting themselves and feeling so proud and being brilliant, professional, and embracing all your values of creating a modern business. Because the old business was the old business model in the restaurant business. Look, to be a chef years ago, 60s, 70s, 80s, you have to have frontal lobotomy, you have to be a social outcast, you have to be an academic failure, and then you become a chef.

27:48And then you would be thrown into that pool. Oh, the British system was very sectioned, you know. then you would be thrown into that pool where employers would grab you, use you, don't train you, pay you badly, treat you badly. How could this industry move on? That's why we need to change it and we are changing it. And there are many of my friends who are now embracing those values and it's really exciting because we are going to create an environment all across the UK and beyond which really is going to be a very successful profile of a business. If you had to give a piece of advice today to your younger self, what would that be?

28:37Surround yourself with the very best talents, whether it is a banker, whether it is an accountant, whether it is a maître d 'hôtel, a general manager, an HR person, because when you have that person then your business will work and I struggled a lot before I struggled a lot because I didn't have a business mind I was always turned too much towards total excellence at any cost and you do mistakes which cost a lot if you it's so easy to lose a business by making the wrong shows and too often people surrounding you, your advisors are the right advisor choose the best possible advisors. I remember it was Petit Blanc I don't want to say the name I met an extraordinary GM, extraordinary front of us all the skills and all the knowledge and it was a period of expansion and I said to myself can I afford him and I said no after a lot of reflection and he was the right man to build my business to grow it with huge health and it was great and I said no and that's where I fell.

30:18You see? So you think back at this, but you learn, same time you learn. Okay, so after, believe me, I am very well surrounded, I'm very well protected. I have some extraordinary people around me, and that's an advice I would always give to any young person who starts this business. Please choose your partners so lovingly, carefully, make sure that going to deliver what you need or what your business needs. What stands out in your businesses over your whole career is how much you've infused your vision, values and DNA into everything that you've built and you've managed to translate your vision into something that other people can take on for themselves.

31:04I'd be curious just to explore the fact that today you're at an inflection point in the career, and you're stepping back from an executive role at the Manoir to take on a lifetime ambassador role, and you're giving day-to-day control, you're passing that on. I'd be interested and curious to hear how that feels after so long. First, all that is prepared. It doesn't just happen overnight, that would be terrible management. That's five years that I knew. I think to give up control sounds like a form of repression, taking away things from you. But actually, I was ready for it. Because when you've worked 50 years of your life, you're not creating a number of businesses like Maison Blanc, like Brasserie Blanc, like Le Manoir, and worked very hard and long hours and so on.

32:06So I was ready. I was ready. And the business was also ready to move on, okay? It needed investment. And because Belmont saw and VMS saw the value and the beauty of Le Manoir and what it has achieved for 40 years, two-star Michelin, the highest level of excellence. and created new concepts, a new concept of sustainability, new concept of luxury, new concept of training, new concept of gardens, experiences, give true experiences to guests. And they have embraced these values, which they have passed on in all of their beautiful hotels across the world. So there's one part of me which I was also ready for it to do a bit less, you know, to have constant, because when you run a business, and of course I had a wonderful general manager, Nile Kingston, who was absolutely an amazing Irish man, amazing man.

33:15Our meetings were never more than 10 minutes. It was so easy, because he was himself, he's a great manager, but his parents were builders and farmers, so he loves gardens as well. It's very rare to see a general manager who actually understands and loves gardens and he loves people. And so together, it's so easy. So, Narl is going to stay. We chose, with Belmont, we chose Monsieur Arnaud Donquellet who is one of the greatest chefs in the world. Okay, he has got a Swiss-Tarmichel and Lapinette, he's got two Swiss-Tarmichel and Cheval Blanc, his Japanese restaurant just got two stars. So he's an upper-coming chef now, which is really, but with the same, we are friends.