Georges Perrier, owner and head chef of three of Philadelphia's finest restaurants, is a hard man to get hold of. Perrier, who opened his flagship restaurant, Le Bec Fin, in 1970, is a celebrity chef, (one of the first), and his staff treats him as one -- which means that it can take a long time to schedule an interview. But there's a good reason for that: after 30 years of pioneering gourmet dining in Philly, he is a minor deity in some city circles. Despite a reputation for a hot temper, especially with journalists, he is affable, an incredible self-promoter and, most of all, a devout, single-minded perfectionist.
Perrier's devotion to his craft has been a personal standard since his early teens, when he ran away from his home in France to pursue his dream of being a chef and, eventually, of coming to the United States. That devotion has never been more evident than in the past year, as Perrier fought to regain Le Bec Fin's fifth star in the Mobil Travel Guide -- America's oldest guide to noteworthy restaurants and hotels around the country. The fight, which included not one, but two drastic changes in his staff, was eventually successful. "I regrouped. I went back to the drawing board and looked at it and... I realized I was not doing what I was famous for."
Still, Perrier drives himself onward, always striving to be the best in his field. "If you want to be a chef you have to sacrifice something in your life, otherwise you will not be successful," he says. "To be a chef, it's not a nine-to-five job. It's a 24-hour-a-day job. You can maybe not date a woman; there is a lot of sacrifice you have to make." "Hard work, hard work and more hard work," is how he describes his job, but he adds that, if he had to do it all over again, he would.
However, he does regret one recent move : opening his third restaurant, Le Mas Perrier, in the Philadelphia suburbs. "If I had to do it all over again," he says, "I don't think I would have opened that third restaurant." Splitting his focus among the three restaurants leaves him little time for other endeavors.
Perrier notes that the fame he has received in the years since Le Bec Fin opened is well deserved. He likens himself to a pioneer in opening the first truly modern continental restaurant in Philly -- which has since become a culinary epicenter in the northeast. "I think I was the renaissance man of Philadelphia," he says. "I think what we have today in the city of Philadelphia, it's because of me, because I started something and the people followed."
Fame has followed Perrier through his career, as has controversy. He has been famous for a temper that has led to the firing of the same maŒtre d' twice in the same day, threats of violence against Philly journalists and sexual harassment charges. But today, 32 years after he opened Philadelphia's eyes to haute cuisine, he is still innovating. As he says, "You got to have talent, and when you put it with work ethic, you got the right ingredients [for success]"
