GREEDIEST CHEF OF ALL?
An insatiable appetite for women. A taste for the high life. And a bid to pot a slice of ex-wife’s millions. Is Albert Roux the...
HE WAS Britain’s first celebrity chef, a charismatic pioneer of fine dining who helped change the tastes and habits of the nation. Albert Roux is famous for other reasons, too, of course, not least for his charm, his self-confessed philandering, and a colourful private life that, even at the age of 80, remains well stocked with elegant blondes.
But one of the women in his life – a blonde as it happens – has found the Michelin-starred chef to be less to her taste in recent times.
Indeed, Cheryl Roux, 53, the chef’s second wife, has spent the past two years locked in unpleasant and often acrimonious divorce proceedings with him – a wrangle in which the rotund restaurateur had sought to obtain a substantial slice of her own multi-million-pound fortune.
And just a few weeks ago, Cheryl finally walked away from London’s High Court with her head held high – and her wealth intact.
Neither party has been willing to discuss the disintegration of their eight-year marriage, or the final settlement. But The Mail on Sunday has pieced together the story of a bruising legal struggle which left Cheryl fearing she would lose as much as half of her estate to the free-spending gourmet, and concluding that he had only married her in the first place for her money.
Built up through her own family inheritance and considerable business acumen, Cheryl’s fortune has been conservatively estimated at £10million. And it seems that Roux, despite his impressive restaurant empire, was determined to take his share in cash, property and valuables.
However, while the final figures from the settlement have not been disclosed, we can now reveal that Roux has been seriously disappointed – receiving significantly less than he had demanded.
‘Albert got just a fraction of what he had hoped for,’ says a friend of the couple, one of many who have rallied round Cheryl as she sought to preserve what she brought into the marriage.
‘His list of demands was endless and he is used to getting what he wants. But not this time,’ said another friend, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity.
‘Albert made some greedy demands, and at one point Cheryl was going to give in and just hand him the money. But she hired a good team of lawyers who advised her well. She has emerged victorious. She is thrilled.’
Cheryl is also furious, and understandably so – not least because the high-living Roux has continued to wine and dine a string of girlfriends despite pleading for a financial settlement.
The protracted legal wrangle, and his apparent refusal to settle out of court, mean that for two years Cheryl has not been able to complete the divorce and move on with her own life. In contrast, her estranged husband has so ostentatiously been living his to the full.
‘Cheryl is a wealthy woman in her own right and believes now that Albert only married her for her money,’ said the friend. ‘
‘She is convinced he did it to secure his own financial future.’ This is an allegation, it should be said, that Roux denies absolutely.
‘She thought she was going to have to hand over millions. She genuinely believed her family fortune was going to end up with Albert. He has spent a lot of money entertaining his many lady friends since they separated. But thankfully she has now safeguarded her inheritance.’
For his part, Roux’s attitude is mixed – a combination of brave face in public and, it is said by those who know the couple, incandescence in private. He is not used to losing.
For decades he has been feted as a culinary genius, the first British-based chef to win a Michelin star, an innovator who, after arriving in this country from France in the mid-1960s with his brother Michel, helped transformed the palate of Britons.
THE son of a charcutier from Burgundy, he has two children from his first marriage, to childhood sweetheart Monique. They divorced in 2001, after he met Cheryl Smith, an elegant Zimbabwean 27 years his junior, at an international wine and food festival. Initially, Cheryl rejected his advances, aware of his reputation for
carrying on multiple affairs and of his penchant for young blondes from Eastern Europe. ‘When I met Albert at first, he had seven girlfriends, two of whom believed they were living with him,’ she has said previously. ‘I told him I wasn’t prepared to be part of his harem.’
Undeterred, Roux spent seven months wooing her with flowers, and discarding his other girlfriends, before finally Cheryl relented and agreed to date him.
They married in 2006 and for a period, at least, the relationship seemed to go well, with Cheryl said to have played an important part in a restaurant business which today has outposts around the world.
In the UK, the venues include Le Gavroche in Mayfair, a restaurant at the Greywalls Hotel in Muirfield, East Lothian, the Roux at The Landau situated at London’s Langham Hotel, as well as Roux at Westminster’s Parliament Square.
For a while, it seemed Roux was a changed man. But eight years later, when Cheryl initiated divorce proceedings, it was, predictably, Albert’s womanising that was cited as the chief reason for the breakdown of their marriage. Court papers revealed that she said her husband had ‘committed adultery with a woman, the identity of whom is known to me, at various times and at various locations, including the marital home and bed’. Roux did not contest the claim.
Since then, he has led the life of a single man – as, of course, he is free to do, but spending money all the while. In the past two years, his coterie of close friends has included an artist, a hospitality manager and, most significantly, the woman said to be at the heart of his break-up with Cheryl – a former cloakroom attendant at his own restaurant, Roux in Westminster.
He is said to have become completely smitten with Nataliya Lutsyshyna, 41, treating her to expensive lunches, dinners and trips overseas. He has admitted in the past that he began seeing her ‘a week to ten days before the end of my marriage’.
Shortly after he and Cheryl separated, Roux told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The divorce is now in motion, though I did not file for it. My wife told me to get out and started proceedings.’
His newly single status has allowed him to also rekindle his friendship with Debbie Spivey Izo, an American divorcee in her 60s, who he dated before he married Cheryl.
The two years have also seen him step out with British landscape artist Lynne Moore and Eastern European hostess Ljiljana Pavicevic.
It is also widely believed that Roux maintains a close friendship with another female companion, Celine Kohler, who lives in France.
Even his own friends say they have been concerned at his recent outgoings, claiming he has spent thousands on Ms Lutsyshyna.
‘Several of his friends are concerned about the amount of money he has spent,’ said one. ‘Every time he takes Nataliya out, he lavishes expensive gifts on her.’
Though his restaurants remain highly respected and popular, latest accounts suggest they are not hugely lucrative, with profits from the business registered at around £100,000. At least he has foresight: the chef wisely gave up an early dream of joining the priesthood, correctly judging that he lacked the necessary commitment.
Roux and younger brother Michel first opened Le Gavroche on London’s Lower Sloane Street in 1967. It became the first restaurant in Britain to win a Michelin star, the first to win two, and, in 1982, the first to win the coveted three stars. Regular clients included the Queen Mother.
ALBERT trained several chefs who went on to gain Michelin stars of their own, including Gordon Ramsay, Marco Pierre White, Pierre Koffmann and Marcus Wareing. Albert no longer chases Michelin stars and says instead he wants to ‘recreate the kind of restaurant I remember from my home town… the kind of place you can go to eat without ringing the bank for permission’.
That could certainly be helpful for Albert himself – particularly now that he has been disappointed by the courts. ‘The truth is Cheryl has won fair and square,’ said one of her friends. ‘Albert is absolutely seething about it because he is accustomed to getting his own way.’
But while Cheryl is refusing to comment on the settlement, Roux has been quick to dispute the claims of his wife’s friends.
He says he is ‘outraged’ at allegations that he had been greedy in pursuit of a financial settlement.
‘That is totally untrue,’ he maintained yesterday. ‘What? So I have no money? I am destitute? That’s laughable. It’s a joke. I have not been greedy. As for the allegation that I married Cheryl for her money, that’s totally untrue too. Laughable and untrue.’
For Cherylm however, the settlement means she is at last free to apply for a decree absolute and plan for some kind of future.
‘Cheryl has had years of hell,’ a close friend said.
‘But now, finally, she can get on with her life and keep what is rightfully hers.’