AP Interview: Alain Ducasse cooks for Cannes stars

French Chef Alain Ducasse speaks during an interview with the Associated Press at the 64th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 14, 2011. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

CANNES, France —For celebrated French chef Alain Ducasse, imagining a menu sure to please the fickle taste buds of Hollywood’s elite is not a problem.

The difficulty lies in keeping focused.

“With all these gorgeous women who go walking by this window, the hard thing is to keep your mind on the mushrooms and the asparagus,” Ducasse told The Associated Press, gesturing at the floor-to-ceiling window in the kitchen of his new pop-up restaurant at the Cannes Film Festival. “That’s really the main challenge.”

Only the happy few have the privilege of eating in the latest establishment in Ducasse’s ever-growing empire: throughout the 12-day-long festival, his team of five chefs serves up three-course lunches for about 100 festival guests, including jury members and other VIPs.

The secret to serving the likes of Jude Law and Uma Thurman — jury members whom organizers said lunched there Saturday — is variety, Ducasse insisted.

“Everyone must be able to find something that appeals to them, which is why we have pasta, we have vegetables, fish, meat, poultry — everything,” he said. “We try to keep it local and fresh, which here in the south of France is easy because the produce is so wonderful this time of the year.”

A few offerings on the menu, which changes daily: white or green asparagus soup, tomato and olive tart, stuffed zucchini flowers, baked pesto with foie gras sauce, fish medley and apricot and pistachio pie.

Ducasse said Cannes holds a special place in his heart because it’s where he got his start, working the kitchen of a famed chef who prepared the meals for the festival VIPs.

“That was in 1977, and I haven’t been back working at the festival since,” said Ducasse, who has three Michelin three-star restaurants, in Paris, London and Monaco.

His “grand retour” to the festival kicked off with a bang Wednesday, when he and a team of 40 chefs prepared a sumptuous multi-course gala dinner to mark the opening of the French Riviera cinema showcase.

Housed in an oversized, seaside tent next to the festival headquarters, the Electrolux Agora pop-up restaurant is outfitted with a small but high-tech kitchen where the chefs and waiters work with bustling efficiency.

The restaurant closes its doors with the festival, which wraps up next Sunday.

It might be in a tent, “but I consider this a real restaurant where for 12 days, we make perfect food,” said Ducasse, adding with a smile, “At least we try to make perfect food.”