“I am the son of Parisian hoteliers and restaurateurs, born in Suresnes. For a long time, my parents ran an establishment on avenue Carnot, in the 17e borough. Then they bought land in the Loiret, near Gien, had a house built and relocated our lives and their hotel-restaurant there. I was 14 years old, I had a terrible time with this move.
My father made good local bourgeois cuisine, he has always been passionate about all aspects of the profession, while my mother was not very happy with the restaurant side. My brother Laurent and I worked in the restaurant, in the dish, in the service. From time to time, I helped in the kitchen, I made cakes that my father sold by share, that gave me confidence.
Eat well and please
But I was focused on the idea of leaving, making a living, emancipating myself and returning to Paris. For my training, my father asked the Auberge des Templiers of the Dépée family, which had room in the dining room, that started me. Under other circumstances, I could have become a pastry chef. I think that everyone who works in the dining room is in this profession because they are primarily interested in cooking, rarely in service. Eat well and please, these are our credo.
The Auberge des Templiers is a real beautiful old-fashioned house, where you learn to do everything, the service, the copper pots, the cellar … Alain Francoz, my apprentice master and room manager, had a constructive rather than repressive approach, that permeated me.
After my training I moved to England to take up a post in a medieval mansion above Heathrow. Then I worked in Mougins, Méribel, Cannes… In 1991, I passed a professional competition and won the prize for the first Chef de Rang in France. I immediately received an offer from the restaurant Le Louis XV, in Monaco. This is how my collaboration with Alain Ducasse began, which brought me to the Plaza Athénée, in Paris.
Back to basics
Things have changed a lot here in twenty years. We started with Jean-François Piège in charge of the kitchen, then Christophe Moret, Christophe Saintagne and the return to basics, today “naturalness” with chef Romain Meder and pastry chef Jessica Préalpato. We reinvented everything: the hall, the uniforms, the kitchen; the tablecloths were removed from the tables, the meat from the menu and the sugar from the desserts; emphasis was placed on vegetables, grains and fish. It was radical.
My job is to tell the story of the restaurant to our guests. Not easy when you have completely changed the DNA! But I took part in the innovation, we became avant-garde, and we won three stars with these very vegetal, committed menus, which decline bitterness, acidity, roughness. I lost my bearings and found others.
But at home, our rallying dish, the one that keeps kids coming back, is steak tartare. It is a dish that represents my profession, which involves precise gestures, a staging for the client. It is a bit the essence of our profession… Even if it is currently banned from the menu of the restaurant of the Plaza Athénée, it remains my reference. “
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