Claude Patry ~ Paul Bocuse

In culinary terms,this is an extraordinary montage of my good friend Claude Patry and his mentor Paul Bocuse. It spans Claude's thirty seven year distinguished career as a first class chef. 

The top photo is of  Bocuse and his crew long before he became famous internationally and he was just setting out to world wide fame. Claude is on the extreme left  and Bocuse is on the right. At this stage Bocuse was just an ordinary chef with his own restaurant; but he had something the others didn't have. He had a lot of showmanship and business savvy. My friend Claude did his apprenticeship there long before all the cooks of the world were  knocking on Bocuse’s door to learn the business and get a reference from him.

This montage shows Claude in 1969 as an apprentice and then in 2006 just as he retired. I was supposed to go back to France for his retirement party but unfortunately, and much to my regret, I couldn't make it. 
After leaving Bocuse Claude came to The Meridien Hotel Cairo Egypt where I got to know him. We have remained friends ever since. When he left Cairo he went to Paris where he worked in a Russian restaurant and, as I was in Paris at the same time, we saw each other weekly and  our friendship continued. He later went to work in Michelin star restaurants such as Roger Verge's Moulins de Mougins. He then opened his own restaurant which was very successful for many years.

He was an excellent cook, he had a great talent for his profession and it all came very naturally to him. He was more cut out for the finer side of cuisine and individual restaurants than the rough and tumble and incessant politics of  hotel life.