Who

One of the most acclaimed chefs in America, Ripert is the chef of four-star French seafood restaurant Le Bernardin.

Backstory

Ripert grew up in Andorra, the tiny principality wedged between Spain and France in the Pyrenees mountains, and says he aspired to be a mountain climber as a kid. He turned to cooking instead and headed to France to attend culinary school in Perpignan, getting his first kitchen job in 1982: a bottom of the ladder-position at La Tour D'Argent, one of Paris's most acclaimed restaurants. Following a stint at Joel Robuchon's three-star Jamin, Ripert arrived in the U.S. in 1989 and worked as sous chef at Jean-Louis, the restaurant at Washington's Watergate Hotel. In 1991, he decamped to NYC and worked briefly for David Bouley before jumping to Le Bernardin, after the brother-sister team of Maguy and Gilbert Le Coze offered him the position of sous chef. When Gilbert died of a heart attack in 1994, Ripert stepped in to replace him and two years later, Maguy made him a co-owner of the restaurant.

Of note

Ripert (it's pronounced "repair") has presided over the most critically acclaimed restaurant in the city for more than a decade. When he first arrived, many wondered if he'd be able to uphold Le Bernardin's coveted four-star rating. He most certainly has: The restaurant held on to four stars when it was reviewed by the Times in 1995, and proved up to the task once again in 2005, when Frank Bruni paid a visit. Obviously, it's not just the Times that holds Le Bernardin in such high esteem. It's one of four restaurants in the city with a three-star rating from the Michelin Guide and one of just two spots to earn top honors from New York's Adam Platt.

Although Ripert continues to turn up daily to Le Bernardin to oversee the kitchen, in recent years he's branched out and moved beyond haute French cuisine. In 2005, he partnered with Steve Hanson to create the ill-fated Park Avenue South tapas house Barça 18, which closed after a little over a year. Ripert also designed menus for Andre Balazs's Raleigh and Standard hotels in Miami and recently inked a deal with the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain to open restaurants in the Cayman Islands, Washington, DC and Philadelphia.

In print

With food writer Michael Ruhlman, Ripert published out a 2002 cookbook called A Return to Cooking. In 1998, he and Maguy Le Coze published the Le Bernardin Cookbook: A Return to Simplicity.

Personal

Ripert's wife Sandra is a real estate broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman. They have a son, Adrien, and two cats named Mystic and Bowie. The family lives on East 80th Street and spends weekends at their four-bedroom postmodern house in Sag Harbor that's decorated with Buddhas and Ripert's collection of paintings. In case you're wondering, yes, Ripert does do the cooking at home. He refuses, however, to do the dishes.