Alexandre Durand

**Alexandre Durand**
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**Alexandre Durand** (デュランド・アレクサンダー, *De~Yurando Arekusandā*) is a third-year student of Tōtsuki Academy. He is the current 1st seat of the Elite Ten Council.

## Appearance

Alexandre is a tall, tough-bodied, and attractive young man with sharp green eyes, broad shoulders and a large wing span. He has fair skin and short messy blond hair. He has a notably sturdy and muscular frame as well as incredibly well-developed arms and legs, cultivated from years of training, which tends to make him quite popular with girls. He is often seen with a wide smile on his face. He wears a white gold ring on his left middle finger.

While at Tōtsuki, Alexandre wears the traditional school uniform which consists of a navy blue blazer that has white borders on its pockets and lapels, along with a white-collared shirt, red tie and navy blue pants. When cooking, he wears a maroon apron over his waist and utilises his unique set of kitchen utensils and knives which includes a Nesmuk Jahrhundertmesser.

## Personality

Alexandre is a confident and straight-forward young man who strives to achieve excellence through food. Though he enjoys provoking people and teasing others, he can can be quite condescending, and somewhat selfish at times. He is noted to previously have had a very fiery personality but has slowly changed over time into a more calm and collected individual. He also has a very striking flirtatious personality and enjoys goofing around with his friends. Additionally, he is said to be incredibly intelligent, analytical and cunning.

## History

Alexandre was born in the South-west of Belgium to a young couple of farmers. Growing up his parents struggled to make ends meet, as such, when he turned 6, Alexandre was sent to live with his uncle in Paris, France. His uncle owned a small bistro in the 18th arrondissement. Under his uncle's care, Alexandre started learning how to cook at the age of 6 and eventually mastered French cuisine. Over the years, he would regularly visit his parents on their farm in Belgium as it became more succesful, and comprehensively learned about cattle farming, breeding, and meat quality. As he grow older, it became apparent Alexandre had a natural genius flair when it came to cooking, formulating a unique cooking style of his own, Style Durand which included his extensive knowledge of several cooking styles when he was only a teenager.

At age 14, his uncle felt his nephew's talents were being wasted at his small bistro and so wrote to the head chef at *Relais Louis XIII*, a distinguished French restaurant. There, Alexandre developed a strong presence in the kitchen and his ever-increasing culinary abilities earned him the temporary head chef position at *Relais Louis XIII* where he became the youngest chef to ever win the *Pluspol* award, aged just 15. Once the owner and the tenured head chef returned, Alexandre was recommended to attend Tōtsuki Culinary Academy, a world renowned cooking school famous for its high quality graduates despite the low graduation rate. Wanting to take on the challenge and earn his family prestige in the culinary world, Alexandre departed to Japan to become one of the top students in the most prestigious cooking academy in the world.

Alexandre underwent the High School entrance exam in which potential students are assigned to cook a single dish under specific guidelines, such as making a dish that uses a specific ingredients. He successfully managed to enrol in the academy after making purée soup from four types of green teas. Soon after enrolling Alexandre managed to secure the 2nd seat of the Elite Ten Council, an unprecedented event, before eventually taking the 1st seat in his second year.

In his final year, Alexandre passed the graduation exam with the highest score in Tōtsuki history, narrowly beating the score of Gin Dōjima. He was immediately offered hundreds of lucrative positions in numerous high-end renowned kitchens, restaurants, and culinary corporations around the globe. Alexandre rejected them all in favour of opening his own restaurant in Paris, France. He is currently the owner and head chef of his restaurant, Coupe, offering Alexandre's signature dishes feating his unique style of cooking.

## Cooking Style

Alexandre is widely considered to be one of the greatest chefs to ever attend Tōtsuki and holds a fearsome reputation for his genius in combining multiple cuisines into his dishes. His cooking ability is so great that he was able to earn the 2nd seat of the Elite Ten Council in his first year of High School, which was an unprecedented feat before finally managing to take the 1st seat by his second year.

Alexandre's specialty is French fusion cuisine and his cooking style revolves around drawing out the best aspects of ingredients which creates a distinct blend of flavours. He describes the flavours of each dish to be fun and satisfying, yet blend harmoniously in unique ways. By concentrating on bringing out the goodness of the food and voiding his presence from the dish, Tatsuki creates a paradoxical state of expressing himself in his dishes without actually doing so. He has shown a high level of mastery when it comes to blending flavours of multiple ingredients, showing incredible finesse when crafting unique flavours with difficult ingredients. All of Tatsuki's dishes are regarded as sublime masterpieces by many eminent critics and gourmet circles. Alexandre's dishes are not rooted in a single cuisine rather employing an array and fusion of techniques and ingredients of other cuisine types. He most notable uses Chinese, French, Italian, Spanish and Belgian cuisine techniques and ideas to give rise to his own style.

He has demonstrated great skill with a knife, able to crush lobster shells with it and even cut them with extreme precision. Growing up in Paris, France, Alexandre developed into an infamous individual as a ruthless rising young chef. His strong presence in the kitchen and abilities earned him the temporary head chef position at *Relais Louis XIII* where he became the youngest chef to ever win the *Pluspol* award, aged 15. Alexandre's cooking is most notable for his ability to concentrate flavours for maximum impact, to the point where it transcends logic.

### Cooking Skills

* **French Cuisine** - Alexandre's main forte is French cuisine with an emphasis on the creative usage of different meats
* **Italian Cuisine** - Alexandre exhibits excellency with Italian cuisine and often utilises Italian cooking techniques and ingredients in his dishes.
* **Chinese cuisine** - Alexandre is well-versed in Chinese cuisine, demonstrating a keen mind in the application of spices through Sichuan cuisine, one of his favourites styles of cooking to incorporate in his individual style. He has mastered the usage of various Chinese cooking techniques such as stir-frying and using a wok.
* **International Cuisine** - Alexandre is very knowledgeable and flexible with his choice of cuisine, effortlessly applying his ingredients to Chinese, Peruvian and French dishes
* **Confectionery** - During his Stagiaire, he was personally trained by Momo Akanegakubo in the art of baking and confectionery, due to his passion for sweet foods. Alexandre has developed great skill as a pâtissier, particularly excelling in chocolate confectionery.
* **Spice Mastery** - Alexandre has a great affinity with spices, displaying a wide variety and vast wealth of knowledge of their properties. He is well aware of how certain preparations of spices during the cooking process can change the overall flavour of a dish, even if the spice preparation was the only change. Alexandre's ability is vast enough that he is able to perfectly balance sichuan peppers and chili peppers in his cooking using the ma-la-wei technique. He is known to be able to use a lot of spices and create cohesion, and inversely, use just a single spice to make a powerful dish.
* **Knife Specialist -** Alexandre is known to possess extreme dexterity and precision using a wide plethora of knives within a short period of time. In mere moments, he can completely skin and bleed out a cow in order to procure several high-grade steaks.
* **Butchering** - Due to his expertise in meats, Alexandre knows exactly what cuts from a freshly-prepared beef will bring out the maximum amount of flavour in her dish. His skills with a butcher's cleaver allows him to easily cut off the best parts of a fresh A5 grade beef in under a minute.
* **Superb Sensibility** - Erina Nakari, the director of Tōtsuki Culinary Academy, noted that Alexandre does not need a food thermometer to measure the internal temperature of his meat. His lips are so sensitive that he can feel the exact temperature with extreme precision.
* **Instinct** - Alexandre has a natural affinity for understanding the ingredient quality of meats and spices.
* **Culinary Logic** - Alexandre is a natural at synthesising cuisines with his logic in order to create a perfect dish.
* **Astute Learner**- Alexandre is particularly observant, able to effortlessly learn a wide variety of skills in a short period of time, even in activities outside of cooking.
* **Molecular Gastronomy** - Alexandre possesses a great skill in molecular gastronomy, the culinary branch of science that investigates physical and chemical changes that occur during the cooking process. This cooking style also focuses on the three pillars of artistic, social and technical aspects to form this style of cooking, making it more of a scientific cooking style.

## Dishes

### Original Dishes

* **Steak de Ronde de Chevreuil Grillé au Charbon de Bois avec Sauce aux Châtaignes**

* **Lièvre À La Royale**

* **Riz de Homard au Curry au Cognac**

* **Aubrac à la Crème de Truffe Noire**

* **Moelleux au Chocolat**

* **Tartelette au chocolat et caramel au beurre salé**

* **Crème brûlée à la vanille de Madagascar**

## Cooking Duel Records

### *Official Shokugeki*

**Lose**: Alexandre relinquishes the 1st seat of the Elite Ten Council and Tatsuki becomes the new 1st seat.

**Lose**: Alexandre is forced to operate under the Tōtsuki brand name for 5 years.

## Etymology

* His given name, **Alexandre** (アレクサンドル) means "warrior" or "defender of men".
* Alexandre's surname **Durand** (デュランド) means "enduring."

## Trivia

* His hometown is Ciney, Belgium.
* His favourite colour is maroon.
* His idol is Marco Pierre White.
* His favourite feel-good food is Tagliatelle ai Gamberi.
* Despite rarely seen cooking it, Alexandre's favourite cuisine is Mexican.
* His first name *Alexandre* is a reference to the author of his parents' favourite book, Alexandre Dumas.
* He is fluent in 5 languages, namely: French, Dutch, German , English and Japanese.