'Even my cot was in the kitchen'

Some foods, like artichoke, asparagus and eggs, don't go well with any wine, he says, and the traditional glass of red that accompanies the cheese board is a gastronomic misconception verging on the criminal.

"Even my wife automatically chooses a red," he says incredulously. "Cheese is probably one of the least red wine-friendly foods about. If I wanted something to drink with a good Camembert, I'd go for a glass of champagne." His bright, dark eyes go a little misty. "Champagne is beautiful."

Roux doesn't drink Monday to Friday. He's in training for the London Marathon, which he's run for several years in aid of charity. But even if he weren't keeping fit, he says he has too much of an addictive personality to allow himself more than the occasional weekend tipple. "It would be too easy, working here ... "

Michel Jnr always knew he was going to work in the food industry. In fact, he was almost born on the kitchen floor. At the time, Albert was private chef to the Queen Mother's racehorse trainer Peter Cazalet in Shipbourne, Kent, and Monique, who helped him out in the kitchen, went into labour at the stove.

Michel Jnr's cot was kept in the kitchen, and as a toddler, he would sit under the kitchen table, playing with scraps of puff pastry instead of Play-Doh. He loved to eat: a photograph in his book shows him as a distinctly chubby five-year-old seated at a miniature table spread with goodies and a round of Camembert, lifting a large beaker to his lips.

Roux was given diluted wine to drink earlier than he remembers, and was always given a sip whenever his parents opened a particularly fine bottle. "Wine has always been a very important part of my upbringing. And I could clear the playground just by opening my packed lunch," he says. "I'd have a ripe Camembert and some garlic sausage and the other kids would just scatter!"

He left school at 16, and started years of training with spells at restaurants around the world and a year's French military service cooking in lavish style at the Elysée Palace for the outgoing president Valéry Giscard D'Estaing and the incoming François Mitterrand. ("It was the first time in my life I'd ever seen truffles served as a vegetable," he recalls.)

He took over the reins at Le Gavroche in 1994. "It was nerveracking," he says. The restaurant lost its three Michelin stars, but Michel Jnr has won two back and insists he prefers it that way.

"It was a weight off my shoulders," he says. "To be honest, a two-Michelin-star restaurant has a better quality of customer. Three star restaurant customers are collecting passport stamps, two-star customers are wanting enjoyment. There's usually a much better atmosphere in a two-star restaurant."

He also refuses to join the growing chorus of critics of the Michelin guides, which he calls "very, very strong".

On top of running Le Gavroche, Michel Jnr attends to its sister outpost in Mauritius and a private members' club in the City. Yet you won't see him throwing punches at celebrity parties. Instead, after a hard shift, he hangs up his whites and goes home to Clapham, his wife Giselle, who used to manage one of the Roux brothers' brasseries, and his pretty daughter Emily, 14, who wants to be a chef, too.

He admits that work does put a strain on his marriage. "This profession has a very high split-up rate. It's not nice, not easy."

He adds: "That's why it's good that Giselle used to be in the business. She understands the problems. You really do need a very understanding partner."