Leontre is a very prolific name. Signifying France's most celebrated patissier, it completes the triumvirate that boasts Bocuse and Verge as fellow office holders. It is also LEONTRE S.A., an international corporation that is to specialty foods what the Cardin name is lifestyle. From his native France to Canada; the U.S., Europe, Arabia and Japan, Gaston Leontre's distinctive logo, a Centaur-like illustration of a quadruped chef inextricably melded with his beloved table symbolises the now seventy year old master chef's philosophy and life's work. Indeed, in gastronomic mythology, the Leontre name occupies a lofty place in the pantheon both for his cuisine techniques, and for a formidable business acumen more seemingly attributable to a Wall Street entrepreneur than a three star chef.

Gaston Leontre's career has been an extraordinarily successful one; from his early years as a teenage apprentice in his native Normandy when he dreamed of being one of the legends of cuisine, to the pervasive presence of the surname that has application to just about every segment of the contemporary culinary world. Lenotre's name has literally turned to gold. Today, LENOTRE is a centre of production and research, an Ecole Gastronomie staffed by the best teachers and chefs in France, and with a student intake of 1800 each year; it is two prestigious restaurants both housed in Parisian landmarks, retail outlets that span the globe recipes books, a gift division, catering operation and a vested interested in the Epcott project at Florida's Disney World with Bocuse and Verge. A formidable inventory of interests in anybody's books, but as yet not complete.

"If this brief resume stops here, dear friends, you must not think that this is the end of the Lenotre story," writes Gaston in his most current C.V. "Far afrom it. The world is a vast place, and as we carry out professional pride to the four corners of the earth, we becoming roving ambassadors of French culture.

Such expansionism implies some considerable manpower, and today LEONTRE employs over 900 people. However, throughout its thirty year history, LENOTRE has also maintained a very strong familial orientation. Gaston's wife Colette, has been by her husband's side throughout the evolution of the business, their son is also involved in the running of LENOTRE, daughter Sylvie helped adapt the recipes for general consumption, and Annie, operates the vast gift division in addition to acting as translator for her father when food as that other universal language, requires some more specialised definition.

The yearly catalogue produced by the gift division, supervised by Annie and circulated around the world, yields a plethora of unspeakably indulgent delicacies - a sort of Gormets Own Annual. Beautifully presented packages displaying a mouthwatering array of Leontre specialities span the full range of the delights of the table. The intricately patterned and vibrantly coloured boxes evoke the Orient in Boite Ispahan, the cool hues of the Greek Islands in Boite Greque; individual chocolates are presented in specially commissioned Limogoes porcelains, boxed Lenotre truffles and sweetmeats, eponymous Champagnes in gift sets and the full range of sizes, dessert and table wines - Leontre Chateauneuf du Pape, Bordeaux and Sancerre accompany baskets and hampers bearing foie gras, truffles, olives, preserves, condiments with crockery, cutlery and glassware - all the arts de la table. If it has anything to do with the palate and degustation, there is bound to be Leontre's stamp on it. He evens imports his own line of caviar.

Similarly, when Lenotre caters for a function, his signature style is omnipresent. A beautifully bedecked banquet table groans under the weight of magnificent peacocks constructed entirely from smoked Parma ham ; country fresh breads baked with intricate leaf motifs, whole stuffed pigs, an enormous fish made from the finest smoked salmon and prawns - an unashamedly decadent display of foodstuffs of the type that quite likely contributed to the fall of Rome. And then there are the desserts, pastries and confections which earned Gaston Lenotre the title of France's most acclaimed and perhaps the world's most celebrated patissier.

Sitting in Pre Catelan, in the heart of the parklands of Paris' Bois de Boulogne, Gaston Lenotre surveys the grand decor and period accroutements of his "pride and joy". This former eighteenth century casino has been transformed into a restaurant/reception and conference facility that crowns his international empire of cuisine.

"I suppose I am like an ambassador," he says through Annie, who despite being well-versed in English has difficulty in keeping pace with the many vignettes that her father instructs her to translate in his spitfire French. "All our friends, like Verge, Bocuse, Troisgros are restaurateurs too, but we are in enterprise."

"We don't have the same approach as what they are doing - they are promoting classical French cuisine; the methodology, the dining experience, the tradition. We can do much more in fact, because we number 900 around the world. The difference also lies in the fundamental mentality which obviously differs between a restaurant and what we are doing all over the world. However, we are obliged to create to create the same quality as is represented in a restaurant, no matter what project we undertake. This is particularly true, when we cater for the large tournaments like the golf near Paris where 2000 people attend and we must feed them all. Also, when we do the Epcott meals with Verge and Bocuse where we are serving up to 5,000 people a day, we attempt to maintain the same level of quality as what we have here at Pre Catelan.

Indeed, despite the mammoth logistics and vast tributaries of his products, Lenotre is well known for his commitment to using only the finest raw materials and ingredients and he has often gone to extraordinary lengths to secure them. the satisfaction of exacting gourmets from Paris to Tokyo depends on it.

Gaston Lenotre was twelve years old when he made his first dessert - rice pudding, a less than exact indication of the skill he was later to epitomise. He served it to his parents, themselves both chefs prior to the First World War in Paris - his mother at the private home of one of the Rothchilds, his father at a grand hotel near the Opera. Home was a peaceful little Norman village with a population of 150 excluding la famille Lenotre and not much was thought of the little Gaston's first culinary triumph until the following year, when the elder Lenotre felt ill and Gaston was forced to choose a profession to support the family.

Taking as a guide his love of sculpting and moulding, the options could not have appeared to been more polarised - cabinet-making on the one hand, and pastry on the other. Although both require inordinate patience, an exacting eye, and more than a modicum of skill in the decorative arts, his ultimate choice was to see him lauded as the finest in his field in all of France. It was not cabinetmaking.

One year later, Lenotre became apprenticed to a series of bakers throughout his native region and he worked fervently at learning all he could about is craft for the next four years. His dream, however, was to work in Paris for the legendary Rumpelmeyer, and in 1936, with his formal qualifications under arm, the City of Lights is just where the sixteen year old headed. Ambitious certainly, but yet imbued with the notion that he may one day surpass his idol's success.

"I began at thirteen and at that age, I did not think that I wanted to have an empire - I was just very passionate about food and I wanted to learn everything that there was and is to know about gastronomy from patisserie and glace, to charcuterie and boulangerie...I just loved it all! Of course there was pastry, but I wanted to know it all! I often think back to the days when I was a young apprentice in Normandy - so proud of having passed my exams - and my dream of working for the famous Rumpelmeyer in Paris. I think that my disappointment at not being able to do so only fuelled my desire to excel and to see my name amongst the greats of the world's chefs.

"At the time though, war put a stop to my ambitions and as fate would have it, I found myself back in Normandy."

Indeed, the Paris of the mid thirties was not exactly a hive of employment opportunities in the art of the patissier. The Depression had hit hard, and even a city whose day has always began with a pastry and coffee, could not relinquish the chains of economic hardship to perpetuate a most beloved craft. Few openings were available, but Lenotre eventually found work with a pastry chef in a Parisian suburb where he remained for a further four years perfecting his skills. He left war ravaged Paris in 1940 and returned to Normandy working as chief pastry chef in a small bakery in the town of Pont-Audemar.

Around this time, Gaston married Colette who is today, as much a part of the thriving Leontre concerns as her famous husband. Together, Gaston and Colette opened a shop in Pont-Audemar, and although only twenty-six years of age he had by this time, worked half his life as a pastry chef. Pont-Audemar was the turning point in Leontre's career - from the kitchen of the tiny premises he consolidated both his craft and his reputation as a unique patissier with a very special talent.

"Post-Audemar was the stepping stone to greater things and afforded me the chance to perfect my craft, "Gaston fondly recalls. "I was recreating and innovating certain dishes whilst reviving a number of old recipes which had been forgotten in a country suffering under severe rationing restrictions."

"Pont-Audemar was the stepping stone to greater things and afforded me the chance to perfect my craft," Gaston fondly recalls. "I was recreating and innovating certain dishes whilst reviving a number of old recipes which had been forgotten in a country suffering under severe rationing restrictions.

Pont-Audemar was an immediate success. His reputation grew and people from all over the region paid the obligatory visit to Leontre to indulge in his fabulous creations. He was acutely aware of the desires of a people starved for delicacies so, using the fruits of his own imagination and breathing new life into long abandoned recipes, he appeased a collective sweet tooth of whom whimsical indulgence had become almost a memory.

It was here, also that Gaston formulated the key to his culinary credo - use only the finest and freshest ingredients available and your work will already be half a success. Perhaps no other region was better suited to aiding such a philosophy as Normandy. Long regarded as one of the best in all of France, the Normandy table burgeons with natural produce in abundance. The coastal waters of the Channel provide a multitude of fishes and crustaceans and the quality of fruit and dairy products is legendary in France. The butters, creams and apples are especially fine and form the basis of some wonderful provincial desserts - bourdelots, apple turnovers, sucres des pommes, mirlitons...

Accordingly, only the freshest eggs, butters, creams and fruits were used at Pont-Audemar. Being well-acquainted with all the farmers and dairy men of the area, Gaston utilised these relationships well in addition to searching out new sources of highest quality raw materials. The results were seen in desserts that were both light and elegant, traditionally French and definitively Lenotre.

For ten years, Gaston and Colette - he in the kitchen behind the shop preparing pastries and desserts that were earning a nation-wide reputation, and she greeting and serving the countless customers who descended upon the small premises - watched their venture grow from strength to strength. More than just a regional attraction, Lenotre was a bona fide success story and things could have well remained comfortably so. But Gaston's abiding dream, had always been to work from Paris. Couple with this, the fact that demand well exceeded supply of his cakes and pastries and a larger more accessible kitchen was required to supply not just one but several outlets with his products. Such an objective was not possible in Normandy and so at the urging of his wife, herself a Parisian, Lenotre of Paris was realised.

"How could I not set my sights on Paris when every week, Parisians on their way to and from Deauville were religiously stopping off at Pont-Audemar to sample our wares? So, in answer to this, we launched our first Parisian venture in 1957, on the rue d'Auteuil - and the Parisians wholeheartedly supported us."

The shop was based on the original in Pont-Audemar - traditional cakes and pastries in similar surrounds with a similar service philosophy - Colette at front of house and Gaston baking on the premises. In no time, the Parisians were flocking to the rue d'Auteuil, prompting him to enlarge the premises in 1964 and commence his catering operations. The spread of the Lenotre name was pervasive from this point. A second shop was opened in Boulogne two years later and the husband and wife team of Colette and Gaston formed the company; LEONTRE, S.A.

"As we grew, we became aware of a need for a catering and reception service," recalls Gaston. "Today, although staffed by extremely professional and very creative master chefs - who really do not need me! - I still enjoy putting on my chefs hat and working in the kitchens there."

The kitchens of which Gaston speaks are headquartered in Plaisir, thirty miles outside of Paris near Versailles, the realisation of another longtime dream - to centralise operations servicing his now considerable amount of shops in Paris. Here his research laboratory distribution points and independent kitchens are housed.

Within the enormous kitchens, Gaston began to train chefs in the different specialities with which he had cemented his reputation. Despite the logistics and the expense, he continued to have butter and creams shipped in from Normandy and adhered stringently to the use of the best ingredients he

TIAN DE CANARD

POIRE AU VIN

1 roast duck

200 g girole mushrooms

20 g chives

400 g spinach

pre-cooked pastry

500 ml red wine

1 pear per serve

Saute and roughly chop the giroles and mix with the chives. Arrange on the bottom of the pre-cooked pastry and cook in a quiche dish in the oven.

Roughly chop and boil the tomatoes quickly, then arrange the tomatoes in a bed on top of the mushrooms. Cook the spinach with butter and then lay it down on top of the tomatoes.

Cook the duck in a roasting pan, then remove the skin and finely slice. Arrange on top of the spinach.

sauce:

Reduce down a sauteed shallot, 500 ml red wine, the roasting juices of the duck, salt and pepper and a tablespoon of butter.

garnish:

In red wine, poach the pear with sugar, cloves, the zest of an orange, black peppercorns, and cinnamon. Then, arrange decoratively on the plate.

TURBOT AU POMMEAU:

100 ml apple puree

300 ml cider

80 g shallots

70 g champignons

parsley sprigs

1 piece of turbot 140 g, braised

300 ml cream

1 litre light fish stock

Saute the shallots and champignons in a bit of butter then add the apple cider and reduce. Add the cream and the fish stock and reduce again. If necessary, bind with a little cornstarch very gently and then pass through a chinois. To finish, add the apple puree. Nap the sauce around the braised fish and garnish with the cassolette and baked apples

cassolette

Butter and then line a small fire proof dish with puff pastry and bake until golden. Then remove gently and fill with 50 g of spinach and 2 chopped carrots sauteed in butter.

garnish:

Apple quarters cut into fine slices cooked in the oven on a buttered baking tray.

Creme Chibouste:

1 cup milk

1/2 vanilla bean

3 egg yolks

35 g granulated sugar

20 g corn starch

Place the milk and the split vanilla bean in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Cover and keep hot. Whisk together the sugar and egg yolks until the mixture whitens and forms a ribbon, then gently stir in the cornstarch with the whisk.

Strain out the vanilla bean and pour the hot milk into the egg and sugar mixture, beating all the while with the wire whisk. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and bring to the boil again, stirring constantly with the wire whisk so that the mixture does not stick to the bottom of the saucepan.

Boil for one minute, stirring vigorously, then pour into a bowl and lightly rub the surface of the cream with a lump of butter to keep a skin from forming as it cools.

Crepes

80 g butter

250 g flour

1/3 cup oil

60 g granulated sugar

6 eggs

2 cups milk

Cook the butter until it is barely light brown and has a slightly nutty smell. In a mixing bowl, mix the four, oil, sugar, eggs, melted butter and 1 cup of milk. Beat until this mixture is smooth and continue adding the remainder of the milk. Allow to stand.

Make the crepes in two crepe pans, cooking them for about 1 minute on each side. When cooked, keep the crepes warm until ready to use.

Make a rectangle shape using the crepes placed on top of each other. Spread with the chibouste cream, and then refrigerate for 20 minutes. Remove from the fridge and roll the rectangle up. Divide the roll into sections to serve. Sprinkle with sugar and garnish with orange segments, crystallised orange peel, and sorbet if desired.

could possibly find. He now managed to combine the skill of the artisan with the practicality of increased manpower.

By 1970, Gaston had opened four new outlets in and around Paris heralding a continuing era of unbridled success and unprecedented profile. Then in 1971, Gaston's 'Ecole Gastronomique' was opened in Plaisair under the direction of Gilbert Pon'ee. Teaching staff include some of France's top chefs - specialists in every facet of cookery from; the finer points of glace to the intricacies of charcuterie and the art of the chocolatier. In 1986, enrolments numbered 1800 - qualified chefs from all over the world who have come to Plaisir to appropriate the Lenotre philosophy of quality in the manner of the finest culinary traditions.

"When I was young, chefs did not want to share their recipes with the younger people, there was always a veil of secrecy behind them," says Gaston. "I saw that the only way to maintain the quality and the mentality that is so important in recipes of a high standard, was to give back to the young chefs who are coming up - to ensure that a certain way of thinking and cooking was being maintained. I knew that it was very important that one day, if I could, be able to teach gastronomy to the world as well as prepare it for them. When you first learn gastronomy, you cannot learn anything beyond what is fundamental - you must master this first. Later on, you specialise, when your confidence and your abilities have become stronger and stronger. There was no school for adults at the time, for chefs with some experience to expand their skills and that is where my school comes in. I am happy to share my recipes with others."

What Gaston teaches in each of the forty courses, is the underlying philosophy of quality in the raw materials in addition naturally, to his celebrated techniques. He is a culinary evangelist in the form of a self-styled educator and is intolerant of the shortcuts that many of his brethren have taken to using.

"You cannot prepare a truly fine dessert without top quality ingredients. There can be no skimping here - if a recipe calls for a pound of butter, then you must use a pound of the best butter, and no substitute," he says. "It is impossible to create fine desserts with mediocre products and some products - like artificial flavourings - might even prove harmful. Unfortunately, make bakers today, no longer pay attention to the quality of the ingredients they use, and the result is a dessert that is only a parody of the real thing.

"You will never seen finished products as the base of recipes in our restaurants. Often restaurants will buy ham or fish or something that has already been prepared before adapting it for use in their establishments. That never happens with LENOTRE. All our products are sourced from Plaisir and are prepared from scratch on the premises, never for convenience and never, ever frozen. We buy fresh everyday: to be a good chef is to understand that the freshest of everything must always be used."

Today, LENOTRE is a vast concern, spanning both hemispheres and some of the toughest international markets, and encompassing such terms as franchise and licensing, traditionally quite foreign to the culinary arts. In 1975, the first franchise contracted in Germany was signed with the HERTIE group in Berlin soon followed by franchises in Hamburg and Munich. Lenotre then embraced publishing, releasing the first in a series of three books on desserts and entertaining.

Pr'e Catelan was acquired in 1976 transforming Lenotre into a restaurateur for the first time. Today, Colette Lenotre manages the magnificent premises with Chef de Cuisine, Denis Bernal concocting the marvellous menus. In addition to the restaurant proper and the twelve different receptions salons, the full conference facilities and audio-visual systems are manned by an enormous complement of eclectically skilled staff; from inhouse florists and interior decorators to translators and pyrotechnicians.

Then in 1979, came one of Gaston's most important coups. In conjunction with the SEIBU group, the first franchise shops selling LENOTRE products opened in Japan. The way to a nation's heart it seems, is through its stomach and today, there are eleven Lenotre outlets in Japan supplying a nation eager to familiarise itself with the French way of life.

"In Japan alone there are 200 people working to prepare food for LENOTRE," says Gaston. "There are 15 chefs amongst them preparing delicacies that people can eat in the shops themselves, although we do not have restaurants there. When I made my first trip to Japan in 1971, I thought even at that time that the Japanese were very interested in French gastronomy however, we waited for eight years to sign our first agreement. Everything that we can do in Paris and in fact, the Japanese love all the traditional pastries, pate des fruits and chocolates.

From 1982-83, two new shops were opened in Paris and one more in Plasiri, and a year later Canada was targeted as a welcoming LEONTRE market with the opening of a first shop in Montreal to be partnered in 1986 by a second on the Quebec capital. Lenotre then secured his place on the Champs Elysee with the acquisition of the prestigious Pavilion Elysee, a belle epoque mansion in the lush garden setting of the Carre Marigny. Gaston has transformed it into the Elysee Lenotre, a period showpiece boasting one of the world's best sommeliers and a kitchen of chefs dedicated to Gaston's emphasis on fresh produce cooked in the traditional manner but with a lighter, more modern approach to the regimented classical elements such as saucing. In that same year, the tenth French LENOTRE outlet opened in Neuilly whilst in the Middle East, the twenty-eighth was launched in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

But perhaps the most prestigious commendation in 1987, when the little Normandy pastrymaker became a member of the elite Comit Colbert. To celebrate, Gaston purchased an additional 14,000 square metres in Plaisir to expand his central base.

Within the entire sphere of his considerable and eclectic activity Lenotre maintains that he has never lost sight of the abiding concern of quality and excellence in all he prepares. The freshness and lightness that characterise his pastry, are now significant features of the other culinary disciplines in which he has forged his identity.

When pressed to answer why and how he has built an empire from a humble rice pudding all those years ago, his answer is both accurate and frustrating simple. "Discipline," he says firmly. "That is the first and most important point. One must learn the skills, intricacies, the techniques and then one must teach them to others. I have so many interests because I am obliged to. You see, very often, if you want something done well or to a certain method, you must do it yourself. Then, you can do anything!

"The young chefs want it all too quickly," he laughs, "ignoring the challenge of being a good chef and not taking the time to master our profession. They often leave France to go overseas to cook but when you are a long way from home , often you cannot find the best products, you may not know where to look and you may fool yourself that your customer cannot see the faults.

"In France, each day, a chef can see if he is getting better and better , because the customer knows. To my mind, you must practice your craft for at least ten years before you could even consider yourself to be a good chef. And even then, you must have breached all the disciplines in gastronomy - start with patisserie which is an excellent base because it is really a mathematic science. You have to make your confectionary, your chocolates, your desserts with meticulous precision, after that you can go on to another discipline and then continue to develop. I t takes time and dedication, but if you want to be the best, this is what you must do."

Perhaps a legacy of his regional upbringing, is the generosity of both spirit and amount in the servings he profers his customers. No trifling bonbon encased in layers of disguising tissue, or lone chocolate island in a sea of colourful wrapping at LENOTRE retail, and certainly no parsimonious nouvelle cuisine architecture on the Pr'e Catelan plates. Gaston clearly enjoys the provincial style of hospitality (albeit with a distinctively silver service delivery). He dismisses the preoccupation with waistline and cholesterol levels, provided one excerises restraint in general..

"At home you can eat less," he declares. "When you dine with your family every single day, then you must be careful about what you eat and how much you eat. But it is not every single day that one dines in a three star restaurant and therefore you can afford to be a little bit freer with your appetite and we can be with the servings. When you are having a party with your friends, when you are eating out for the pleasure then, I believe that one ca n, and should eat what one likes!"

Although it may appear that Gaston LENOTRE could well have exhausted the avenues of further expansion, nothing could in reality be further from the truth. There are projects in the offing that will take advantage of the Common Market, and LENOTRE S.A. will invade Spain, Italy and perhaps some more of Germany in the near future. For himself personally, well, Gaston Lenotre's ambitions are a little less virulent. He wants to do a bit more fishing. "Now I work every day," he says a little wearily, "so maybe next year I will take it a bit easier." Then again, a whole Eastern Block has probably never experienced the joy of a freshly baked brioche, a croissant that exists as the perfect show case for the finest Normandy butter, or a rich chocolate created only to melt in the mouth. Perhaps he had better put next year down to the one that got away.