Daniel Boulud

Daniel Boulud By: Carl-Henri Boulos

Grew up in Lyon, by the age of 12 knew he wanted to cook, by 14 he was working in a restaurant. Grew up in a farm, says that food was always a topic. At the age of 17 went to Jeorge Blanc and grew to became the sous-chef by 19.

First 6 months of working in the food industry was a pastry cook, his pastry chef was gay and he became a friend of the pastry chef but never knew what even gay was as he says. To this day they are still friends. Doesn't think restaurants have to be 4 stars to express good food and great cooking. Between the 70s and 80s worked for a Famous chef/owner of the Moulin de Mougins in Southern France Roger Verge.


First time in the US, was 1980 and went to D.C. Soon left for New York where he fell in love. Was first noticed at the Chef at the Place, and couldn't use the creativity that he wanted. Became the executive chef at Le Circque in 1986, during a service cooked for 5 Presidents, in 1992 was succeeded by Pierre Schaedelin as executive chef for Le Cirque.

With the help of a $2 million investment from Joel Smilow, the former chairman and CEO of Playtex, in May 1993 Boulud opened Daniel, on the ground floor of the Surrey Hotel, on East 76th Street. Soon after it opened, Marion Burros, who was then the New York Times's lead restaurant reviewer, criticized aspects of the setting and the service and awarded Daniel only two stars; in response, Boulud increased Daniel's service staff by 50 percent. After dining at Daniel again in early November 1993, Burros upped the restaurant's rating to four stars. (The New York Times's assessments of restaurants carry considerable weight among in-the-know gourmands and restaurant lovers. Among the thousands of restaurants that were or are in business in New York City, the only others that have received four stars from the New York Times are Bouley Bakery, Lespinasse, Le Cirque 2000, Jean Georges, and Le Bernardin.) In 1998 Boulud relocated Daniel to the site of what had been the Mayfair Hotel, on Park Avenue, and had it decorated in the style of the Venetian Renaissance (in 16th-century Italy). After it reopened, in January 1999, William Grimes downgraded it to three stars, complaining, as he recalled in the New York Times (March 14, 2001), that there were "too many dull dishes"; he disliked the new decor, too, which he described as "stodgy and awkward, the lighting harsh." By the end of 1999, Grimes had restored the restaurant to its exalted status as a four-star establishment. Boulud's struggle to achieve near-perfection at the reopened Daniel is the subject of Leslie Brenner's book The Fourth Star: Dispatches from Inside Daniel Boulud's Celebrated New York Restaurant (2002). Brenner was impressed by what she saw as Boulud's lack of pretensions, despite the glitz and glamour with which he has been identified, as well as the varied aspects of his personality. "The minute he crossed the door into the kitchen," she told Tanasychuk, "he turned into a different person. He seems like a very gentle and kind person when you talk to him in the dining room. And maybe he is. But when he crosses the threshold into the kitchen, when he goes through those swinging doors, he gets very sort of military. He's like a general who just sort of galvanizes everyone with his presence."



Was invited to a wine tasting by the Princess of Malaysia, who he turned down to be her personal chef. During a time as a special guest chef at Cornell, Daniel attended a Frat Keg party at this time he decides to cook for the fraternity, once he went into the kitchen said it was a war zone pulls the cabinet to the floor and said, "This kitchen is a piece of shit." Goes back to Cornell, into the kitchen for which his banquet was to be made the next day takes some caviar and makes Caviar Omelets for the whole fraternity and it's guests. An excellent ambassador for the culinary chef community as some would say, because of how humble and modest, a personality lost in this business.