Ludovic Lefebvre (; born 18 April 1971) is a Michelin-star French chef, restaurateur, author, and television personality. He trained in France for 12 years before moving to Los Angeles. He was awarded the prestigious Forbes Travel Guide Five Star Award at two different restaurants, L'Orangerie in 1999 and 2000 and Bastide in 2006.
He went on to create LudoBites, a multi-city restaurant tour, followed by opening two restaurants in Los Angeles: Trois Mec and Petit Trois. LA Weekly named Trois Mec Best New Restaurant Los Angeles in 2013, Los Angeles' Best Restaurant in 2014 and 2016, and Ludo Best Chef in 2015.
Early life and training
Lefebvre was born in Auxerre, Burgundy and grew up in Charbuy. His interest in food began during childhood in his grandmother's kitchen. In his early teens, he worked doing menial tasks at local restaurant Maxime.
Formal culinary training began at age 14 at the restaurant L’Esperance in Vézelay under chef Marc Meneau, where he worked for three years. He then worked with Pierre Gagnaire at his eponymous restaurant in Saint-Étienne (now closed), then with Alain Passard at L'Arpège, where he trained in what he describes as "the school of fire," learning to control and play with heat. Ludo concluded his formal French training with Guy Martin at Le Grand Vefour, from whom he states that he learned the business side of the food service industry.
Career
Restaurants
In 1996, Lefebvre moved to Los Angeles and began working at L'Orangerie at the invitation of head chef, Gilles Epie. At 25, he was promoted to executive chef and went on to see the restaurant become one of the top-rated in California, receiving the Mobil Guide five-star award.
In 2004, he moved to the restaurant Bastide on Melrose Place, which was also awarded the prestigious Mobil Guide five-star award under his direction. The dishes he created there included panini au foie gras with an apricot-based accompaniment, poularde marinated in Pepsi-Cola with popcorn, and panna cotta topped with caviar in a salted-butter caramel sauce.
After the restaurant closed for renovations, he decided not to return. Ludo asked his friend who owned Breadbar, Ali Chalabi, if he could take over the bakery at night for three months when it was otherwise closed. There he created a special event dining experience which ultimately became known as LudoBites and was deemed by LA Weeklys Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, Jonathan Gold, as "a transforming moment in the Los Angeles restaurant scene."
He created the opening menu for the restaurant Lavo at the Palazzo in Las Vegas, and returned to Los Angeles in 2009. In May of that year, Ludo revived his special event dining concept LudoBites at Breadbar for another three months which ran for two years. He went on to do nine total LudoBites pop-ups in Los Angeles, and one in Hawaii, crashing OpenTable twice and booking six weeks of reservations in 47 seconds.
Bon Appetit called Ludo "the king of pop-ups." Food writer Richard Guzman wrote of his experience at this venue: "I was sad. The meal was over. In a way, eating at Ludobites is like hooking up with someone way out of your league while on vacation with none of your friends around to witness it and no chance of replicating the experience." The restaurant achieved national acclaim when New York Times restaurant critic Sam Sifton summarized his experience in an article on August 3, 2010: "The first night eating all this was an amazement. The second was about ten times better – each dish perfectly executed, with every flavor in place, every temperature correct, every plate a fully realized piece of art. It was only the fifth night the restaurant had been open."
In September 2010, Ludo brought fried chicken to the streets of Los Angeles by opening his food truck, known on the streets as LudoTruc. In October 2013, Ludo took his fried chicken concept to the next level opening his first brick and mortar location, LudoBird, inside the STAPLES Center. In March 2016, the second location of LudoBird opened at City Walk, Universal Studios Hollywood.