Celebrity chef Michel Roux says underpaying workers is ‘a stain on my character’

Celebrity chef Michel Roux Jr has said a 2016 investigation which found kitchen staff in his restaurant were being paid below minimum wage is “a stain on my character that I will take to my grave”.

The 66-year-old English-French chef was found to have been paying some kitchen staff at his Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurant Le Gavroche less than the minimum wage in a Guardian investigation 10 years ago.

Following the investigation, Roux apologised and offered backpay to those who had been affected, saying the underpayment was unintentional.

Speaking about the incident to Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Roux said: “At the time, I put my hand up immediately and I wasn’t looking for any excuses or scapegoats, or anything like that.

Roux said the hospitality industry needed to do more to attract young people (Steven Paston/PA)

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“I’m the boss at the end of the day, the buck stops with me.

“It’s a stain on my character and (one) that I will take to my grave, and I feel awful about it now.

“The remedy was to pay what was missing and to try and cut the hours, which is something in our industry that we are really trying very hard to do.”

Roux, who has appeared on TV shows such as the BBC’s Masterchef: The Professionals, Saturday Kitchen and Food And Drink, closed Le Gavroche in 2024 to spend more time with his family, refusing to sell the restaurant as it was “more than a restaurant, it was my way of life”.

He went on to say that long hours were putting young people off starting a career in the hospitality industry.

Roux has appeared on a number of TV cooking shows (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

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Roux added: “I believe that the hospitality industry is working very hard to remedy that, to make it much more appealing to youngsters to come in.

“I think there’s still more to go in the industry, we’re complaining, ‘oh, nobody wants to come and work for us’, look at yourselves. Are we offering what youngsters want nowadays?”

Included in Roux’s Desert Island Discs was The Sex Pistols’ Anarchy In The UK, Bob Marley And Wailers’ Three Little Birds and David Guetta’s Shot Me Down.

The full interview can be heard on this week’s episode of Desert Island Discs, which will air on iPlayer on Sunday and on BBC Radio 4 on Friday November 13 at 9am due to Remembrance Day.