Born in 1956 on a farm in the southwest region of France, Ducasse grew up around ducks and geese and was surrounded by boletus mushrooms and foie gras. His early childhood established the path that would lead him down the road to culinary success.

Ducasse started working at the age of 16 in the southwest of France, and then spent the next years of his life working for famous chefs and restaurants, including Michel Guérard, Gaston Lenôtre and Roger Vergé’s Moulin de Mougins. A few years later, he was chosen to lead the kitchen at La Terrasse at the Hotel Juana in Juan-Les-Pins. It was in this restaurant in 1984 that he was awarded two stars in the Michelin Guide.

In 1987, Ducasse moved to the Hôtel de Paris in Monaco to become Chef des Cuisines, managing Le Louis XV. At the age of only 33, he made the 33-month-old restaurant the first hotel restaurant to be awarded three stars in the Michelin Red Guide. In 1996, he opened the Alain Ducasse restaurant in Paris, and by 1998 Ducasse became the first six-star chef. This was followed shortly by the opening of his first concept restaurant, Spoon, Food & Wine in Paris, featuring multi-ethnic cuisine, which ultimately led to the opening of the same concept in Hong Kong.

Over the years, as a chef heading haute cuisine restaurants Le Louis XV-Alain Ducasse in Monaco, Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée in Paris, Restaurant Le Meurice Alain Ducasse in Paris, and Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester in London, he has also become an innkeeper, a publisher and a creator. Currently, he is president of the hotel association Châteaux & Hôtels Collection and runs country inns in Provence (La Bastide de Moustiers and L'Hostellerie de l'Abbaye de La Celle) and in Tuscany (L'Andana).

Ducasse is dedicated to actively training professionals through his Ducasse Education department, comprised of Ducasse Institutes in Paris and Manila, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Pâtisserie in Yssingeaux (Haute Loire) and other educational partnerships throughout the world. In May 2009, he opened École de Cuisine Alain Ducasse, his first culinary school for non-professionals, on the rue du Ranelagh in Paris. The year 2009 also marks the collaboration between Alain Ducasse Enterprise and the esteemed Clinton Global Initiative. In May 2013, Johnson & Wales University (Providence, RI) conferred the degree of Doctor in Culinary Arts, Honoris Causa, upon Ducasse.

Among his latest projects, Ducasse is opening Rivea at the Bulgari Hotel & Residences in London in 2014.