(FORTUNE Magazine) – Life is quite simple, really. You feel at home in either Rome or Florence. You have a kinship with either dogs or cats. And when someone says the name "Alain Ducasse," you either stare blankly and mutter "huh?" or you fall to your knees, light a candle, and say a prayer to his epicurean genius.

If you include yourself in the former category on this last matter, heads up: Your numbers are diminishing. Because Ducasse--chef, restaurant owner, and businessman extraordinaire--is slowly and irrevocably taking over the world. There's his eponymous restaurant in Paris and his Louis XV in Monte Carlo, which have earned this 43-year-old the honor of being the first chef ever to win three Michelin stars for two establishments. There are outposts of the more casual Spoon in London, Paris, Mauritius, and Tokyo. There are two inns in France, and the hotel company he runs, Chateaux & Hotels de France. There are foundations, and there are cookbooks. And now, like King Kong and Godzilla before him, the unflappable Ducasse is taking on America's most demanding dining center: New York City. With, it might be said, about the same amount of grace.

"Little girls, shut up!" The bespectacled Ducasse, his custom-tailored suit's lapel spotted with schmutz, is bellowing across the lobby of Central Park South's Essex House, the hotel that houses the chef's new multimillion-dollar restaurant. The two jeunes filles in question are having the gall to treat the black-and-white marble floor as a hopscotch grid. It's grating on Ducasse's nerves, which, one senses, are easily grateable. "Hey!" the matronly mother of one of the girls shrieks back, "did you just tell my daughter to shut up?" Ducasse cocks his head, laughs heartily, and takes a swig of his espresso. "New Yorkers and Parisians are both difficult in the same way," he says. "I'm not nervous. I'm not stressed. I prefer to make others stressed."

Only two weeks before the restaurant is due to open, the joint looks as though a wrecking ball has gone to war with the property, and won. There's no furniture, no paint--except on one wall, against which Ducasse is having press photographs taken--and no finished floors. The only way to identify the kitchen, which will be run by Ducasse protege Didier Elena, is the two swinging aluminum doors. There's not a stove to be seen.

Not that the more than 2,000 people on the reservations waiting list are concerned. They're too busy hoping that they might be one of the lucky 65 diners who will secure a table at Alain Ducasse (open for five nights and two lunches a week), at a price of about $160 per person. Some might call such a seating schedule snotty--not to mention unprofitable. But Ducasse, who has negotiated a contract with the hotel, says the plan is all about "elegance, excellence, and refinement. You want to give people the same standards and qualities, and that means you want the staff working together all the time, and obviously, they need to have two days off a week."

Ducasse himself takes no such breaks. This week he's making three roundtrip flights between Paris and New York. Your chances of catching him on the Concorde are better than those of sighting him at one of his restaurants. He supervises the menus and decor, and checks in with all of his restaurants every couple of days, but admits, "In ten years, I've probably walked through the restaurants five times." He shrugs in that way that only Frenchmen can--shoulders up, lips pursed, eyebrows raised. "I respect those people who feel they need to be there and greet guests, but my clients come to the restaurants to be with their friends, not with me. It's more important that the clients know the staff in the dining room, and feel like it's their club." Still, when you ask him who is managing his restaurants, he is adamant: "Moi." His assistant, Marion Walsh, nods. "Mr. Ducasse can be in Tokyo," she says, "but we'll call him and be able to reach him within five minutes. He is aware of every single detail."

If that sounds impossible, keep in mind that this is a man who says he doesn't suffer from jet lag and doesn't require sleep beyond what he's afforded on airplanes. His longtime girlfriend, Gwenaelle Guegeun, who travels with him between their homes in New York, Paris, and Monte Carlo, carries a cell phone for him and checks his e-mail, leaving Ducasse free to write his ideas in the leather-bound notebook that goes everywhere with him--and comes out often, even when someone speaking with him is in mid-sentence. "I organize and cook in my head now," he says, gesturing to the pad. "I'm looking after about 25 dishes at each restaurant, so in some ways, that's more exciting.... I go in there and work out the details with the chef at the beginning of the season, and then it's the chef's job to interpret."

No sooner has he finished philosophizing than it looks as if Ducasse's days of working out the details are numbered: The angry mother of the hopscotching girl rises from her seat, strides towards

Ducasse's back, and stands behind him, arm up, Psycho-style, as if to strike him. Then, placing her hand on his shoulder, she grins like a Stepford Wife and coos, "Hello, Mr. Ducasse. We're so very excited to have you with us!" Ducasse, whose English is comme ci, comme ca, turns and looks at her blankly, but the woman grins at him and says her name very slowly (it must be low on the waiting list). "I can't tell you how thrilled we are that you're here!"

With that, Ducasse turns back around, gulps his espresso, and starts to laugh like a man for whom, questionable manners and all, success is a no-brainer. After all, King Kong and Godzilla did just fine--for a while, at least. And they didn't have the benefit of champagne and caviar.

Coming Next Issue: The Verdict