Tim Hughes talks to famed French chef Raymond Blanc

He is one of our favourite television chefs – known to millions as the affable face of one of the country’s best restaurants.

But this weekend, Raymond Blanc is leaving the heat of the kitchen of his Michelin-starred Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Great Milton and heading into the countryside – wellies and all.

The star of TV series such as Kew on a Plate, How to Cook Well and The Restaurant will bring his Gallic culinary brilliance to the woodlands of Cornbury Park, West Oxfordshire for the Wilderness Festival, where he will prepare a series of long-table banquets for festival-goers.

And while the rustic surroundings of Cornbury Park are a far cry from the clipped borders and trim flower beds of Le Manoir, he says he cannot wait to serve up a menu specially designed for the four-day celebration of music, food and arts, running from tomorrow until Sunday. He will share top billing with the likes of Bjork, singer-songwriter Ben Howard and jazz-funk artist George Clinton.

“Yes, it will be a challenge, there is no doubt about that,” he says, smiling. “But where there is a will there is a way.”

“It will be no problem cooking for 100 people,” he says, in an accent as rich and deliciously French as his signature soupe de framboise.

“It will be a military operation. We will have teams of people cooking certain things. You need rigour, discipline and total organisation as talent alone is never enough to carry you. That’s the first thing I teach the young people who come and work with me.

“I want to see what I can get out of it. Hopefully it will be as much as possible, but sometimes you have to accept.”

This may be Raymond’s first foray into the woods at Wilderness – where he will be joined by fellow Michelin-starred chefs Angela Hartnett, Nuno Mendes and James Knappett – but he is no stranger to festivals, having hosted a live cooking demonstration at Jamie Oliver and Alex James’s Big Feastival on Alex’s farm in Kingham.

“I nearly did Wilderness last year, but time was a big issue,” he confesses. “But this time I will be there with the help of [development chef] Adam Johnson, who is my wonderful field marshal!”

He declines to reveal the secrets of his menu for Wilderness, and accepts, with a laugh, that the festival will be something of a learning experience. “I love the idea of being asked to create a theme for this though,” he says. “The festival looks brilliant!”

Born into a working class household near Besancon, in the Franche-Comté region of eastern France, Raymond acquired his obsession with food and its provenance from his parents – Maman Blanc being a notable cook and Raymond’s father a keen gardener and forager, the young lad joining him on trips into the surrounding woods.

After a short-lived and unfruitful stint as a glass washer and waiter near his home town, the young Raymond packed up his Renault 5 and crossed the Channel, arriving in Oxfordshire for his first real kitchen job – at the Rose Revived in Newbridge.

It was there he also met his first wife – the owner’s daughter Jenny. They went on to have two children. They divorced in the mid-80s. He subsequently married psychotherapist Kati Cottrell, that marriage also ending.

From Newbridge he came to Oxford, working at La Sorbonne in the High Streetand then setting up his own Les Quat’ Saisons in prosaic surroundings at a parade of shops in Banbury Road, Summertown in 1977.

Despite overreaching himself financially, the gamble paid off and the establishment was an instant success, being named Egon Ronay Guide Restaurant of the Year and picking up two Michelin stars.

“When I came to England, food was a disaster!” he laughs. “But I didn’t come on a white horse to try and save it. I was just a young man with a big dream to create a beautiful restaurant and Oxford gave me everything. When I got here and held a frying pan, I knew where my heart lay.

“England was in a terrible abyss and I felt for it, but instead of laughing I fought for the nation and we got through together.”

iIn 1981 he went on to open the first of what became a nationwide chain of La Maison Blanc cafes and bakeries and then, two years later, made the move to Great Milton, turning an old manor house into one of the country’s finest restaurants.

Not content to sit on his laurels – or Michelin stars – in the 90s he opened a chain of four Le Petit Blanc brasseries. Now known as Brasserie Blanc and financially-backed by the Loch Fyne Group, they can be found from Portsmouth to Manchester.

Informal and serving homely fare rather than the gastronomic, and admittedly pricey, flights of fancy on offer at Le Manoir, they are, nonetheless, run on the same principles.

“ A visit to Le Manoir is a special treat. People might go maybe once a year, or once a lifetime, but this is a place I want people to be able to come all the time.”