Lessons from luxury on creating more with less

Chef Alain Passard's success came from imposing limits to reach new creative heights

By David Dubois

Published: Jun 3, 2025 11:07:22 AM IST

Updated: Jun 3, 2025 11:20:34 AM IST

Sometimes the most innovative ideas arise when we’re pushed to work within limits. Image: Shutterstock

When we think of creativity, we imagine artists staring at a blank canvas, or businesses with unlimited budgets, dreaming up the next big thing. But sometimes the most innovative ideas arise when we’re pushed to work within limits. In fact, many art forms, from monochromatic art to Japanese haiku, build on the idea of doing more with less.

Chef Alain Passard is a master of such “bounded creativity,” one of the core topics of my new case study. Throughout his career he has imposed constraints on himself to elevate his offering. Known for his mastery in haute cuisine, Passard made a radical shift in 2001 by eliminating meat from the menu at his three-Michelin-starred restaurant, L’Arpège. At a time when fine dining revolved around meat-based dishes, this decision was risky, even reckless.

But Passard saw an opportunity to reinvent his craft. He put vegetables back on the table, limiting himself to only working with seasonal produce. He played with techniques traditionally reserved for meat, from smoking celery to cooking beetroot in a salt crust. The chef treated dishes as expressions of nature, constantly improvising his menu based on what was growing in his garden, always abiding by the season.

Today, farm-to-table and plant-based menus are nothing out of the ordinary. But nearly two decades ago, Passard was met with scepticism. Critics warned that eliminating meat would cost him his Michelin stars. Instead, he stands among the few chefs who have repeatedly earned three stars since 1996.

Three lessons on creating more with less

Luxury dining, like many other industries, has experienced significant shifts in customer expectations: the rise of vegetarian cuisine in the 90s, growing concerns over traceability in the early 2000s, and the demand for Instagrammable dishes at a time when social media made food more about images than reviews.

Passard intuitively anticipated all three changes. He didn’t view them as threats or goals to achieve, but rather turned what some saw as constraints into creative boundaries to explore. This approach holds three lessons for businesses, brands and individuals.

Also read: Heritage meets innovation: Staying relevant in luxury

1. Turn constraints into a story

Passard positioned his drastic move away from meat as an artistic evolution. He spoke of vegetables reigniting his creativity and shifted the focus from what was missing to what was gained.

Many brands in the luxury space similarly highlight how their value lies in surpassing physical limitations. For instance, luxury watchmakers develop unique know-how passed down from generation to generation that cannot be replicated. This adds value on top of the scarcity of the raw materials. Patek Philippe, to give an example, emphasises the innovation and artistry involved in creating each watch by telling stories of how material and human constraints are transformed into unique products.

In the service sector, luxury hotels often magnify physical limitations (e.g., hard-to-locate or historic settings) through telling tales of these places. In other words, it is the stories of surpassing oneself that cut through, rather than just the rarity associated with the product.

Lesson: Brands and individuals facing change should blend their constraints into their transformation story. A strong narrative highlighting how one is able to operate within limits helps audiences see bold decisions as intentional and visionary, rather than as compromises.

2. Connect customers to the meaning

Long before traceability became trendy, Passard connected guests to the roots of their meals. In the 2010s, recognising the rising need for traceability and locally sourced food, he purchased two potagers (vegetable gardens) in Normandy and the Loire Valley, granting him complete control over his ingredients. He speaks of each vegetable having a “passport”, revealing its identity and provenance. As a result, his dishes feel personal and exclusive.

Brands can showcase the product lifecycle, as Crurated did in the fine wine industry, or by augmenting sensory connections with the product. For instance, avant-garde restaurant Atica uses unique multi-sensory elements to offer an immersive fine dining experience. By combining olfactive, auditive, visual and culinary touches in the same space, Atica turns a meal into a journey and a long-lasting memory.

Sometimes brands need to help customers travel to the future and imagine the future product. Luxury yacht builder Feadship did exactly this by teaming up with other players to offer a virtual yacht world – on the SuperYacht Times 3D digital platform, anyone can visualise what owning or being on a superyacht would be like.

Lesson: Crafting moments of connection between the customers and a product or a service can increase desire by making people feel part of something meaningful. This further enhances their understanding of the "why" behind the experience.

3. Go deeper, not wider

Passard doesn’t equate growth with expansion. Rather than opening international outposts or launching mass-market collaborations, he invests in food innovation and traceability. Limiting his ingredients to seasonal vegetables pushes him to explore flavours more deeply. Narrowing the possibilities also heightens guest’s experience by inviting them to discover multiple nuances within what they once saw as a single flavour. In a similar way, Picasso’s restricted colour palette during his Blue Period allowed him to focus more intensely on the emotional depth and expressive power of his subjects.

Another way in which Passard goes deep instead of wide, is his obsession with finding the perfect way to cut food, and then simplifying it. This sometimes involves using a different tool to refine a gesture, such as slicing black truffle and black radish with a Japanese mandoline slicer to get perfectly thin slivers for a carpaccio. At other times, this means challenging himself and his team to simplify a recipe: if it takes 12 steps, can they achieve the same or better by removing nine of them?

Similarly, by concentrating on a specific niche or aspect of their business, brands can develop expertise and a unique value proposition that sets them apart from competitors. For example, Patagonia has built its brand around a deep commitment to environmental sustainability and ethical manufacturing practices. By focusing on these core values, Patagonia has created a loyal customer base that appreciates the company's dedication to quality and responsibility.

Lesson: Rather than seeking to grow through expanding repertoire, brands need to think about how to add value through depth, and refine their own processes or products.

Passard’s success shows that self-imposed limits can revive creativity. By narrowing our own choices and focusing on the essence of our craft, we force ourselves to be more inventive. Whether in the kitchen, the studio or the boardroom, we can strive for excellence by removing unnecessary complexity, deepening our expertise, telling compelling stories of change and creating lasting emotional connections.

[This article is republished courtesy of INSEAD Knowledge, the portal to the latest business insights and views of The Business School of the World. Copyright INSEAD 2024]