Celebrity chef breaks leg
2 March 2010, 06:46 | Updated: 3 March 2010, 08:35
Celebrity chef Raymond Blanc has had to spend time in hospital after falling down the stairs at his Oxford home.
The Michelin-starred chef, 60, who owns Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons restaurant at Great Milton, broke his leg in five places in the fall.
His fiancee, Russian-born doctor Natalia Traxel, was at the house when the accident happened and she rang for paramedics who took him to Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital.
In his blog, Raymond has said: "I am lying in a hospital bed, with every comfort being lavished upon my person! I am now in a private room, white on white, south-facing so the early March sun floods the room! Choice of mineral water, very sexy robe (you know, the one which opens at the back!), a 62 inch flat screen television!
"My broken leg rests on silk cushions and two gorgeous nurses - one blonde, one brunette - are holding my hands and singing lullabies...
"That bit was a dream. But what is true is that everyone has been hugely professional, kind and supportive - thank you to them all."
A self-taught chef, Blanc was born in Besancon, eastern France. He started his career in England as a waiter in the Rose Revived Restaurant in Oxfordshire, taking over kitchen duties when the chef became ill.
Blanc had moved to England after being hit with a frying pan and sacked from a restaurant in Besancon for telling the chef a dish was too salty.
The former factory worker and his then wife Jenny opened their first restaurant, Les Quat' Saisons, in Oxford in 1977, remortgaging their house to raise the cash. The hotel and restaurant Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons opened in 1984.
He's now famous for being the star of the reality TV show 'The Restaurant'.