Where the Chefs Eat asks your favourite cooks for his or her high restaurants in cities throughout the world. For this version, we communicate with Yannick Alléno.
Yannick Alléno is a heavyweight in the meals world, holding no fewer than 17 Michelin stars throughout 19 restaurants. When I meet him in London, at his restaurant Pavyllon in The Four Seasons Hotel on Park Lane, I’m determined to ask him what it’s prefer to obtain such recognition, however worry I’ll come throughout as a dribbling sycophant.
As with many profitable individuals, although, he’s very fast to credit score these round him, demonstrating unwavering humility and nearly a zeal to maneuver on to different questions. “This is all the result of being surrounded by a fantastic team,” he insists. “I’ve got maybe 1,200 people on my books now, so these are not my stars; these are our stars.”
At the age of 56, Alléno insists, “I feel like a kid of 28, so I can’t see myself slowing down”, and, with a lot on his plate – group or no group – one wonders how he would even when he needed to. Aside from Pavyllon London, he additionally heads up restaurants in Paris, Monte Carlo, and Corcheval, amongst others. Seeking to redefine French gastronomy, Alléno grew and skilled below the shadow of Auguste Escoffier, as most in France did for years, however by his use of sauces, fermentation, and a contemporary strategy to cooking, he developed a method that delighted and finally led to untold recognition. He has sought to “reinvent the basis of true French cooking” and tells me that “creativity is very important; when designing a new dish, I open the door for discussions. My team and I will test everything together and, when it’s good, we will get it on the counter, but in a three-star restaurant, for example, we might spend three months on one creation.”
I ask Alléno the place house is, as he works in so many alternative locations, and he solutions me merely: “The world is my home, but my main residence is in Paris.” One place he adores, nonetheless, is the South of France: “Oh my God, I love it.” He has the extremely celebrated Le Table le Pavie in Saint-Emilion with a winery listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and “I’m hoping by the end of the year we will have a Pavyllon in Lyon. I love Lyon. From there, I take the car and stop at Saint-Joseph [the wine region] and then drive further south. I love that when we are there, we are close to the Mediterranean Sea and Monaco.” Alléno tells me he “tries to go every year to the South of France” so, who higher to offer us his 5 favourite restaurants in the area, which, unsurprisingly, all glitter with Michelin stars of their very own…
L’Oustau de Baumanière, Baux-de-Provence
This is a well-established, extremely revered restaurant that has been working (below no fewer than three Michelin stars) since 1945. It is known and, “for me, [Chef Glenn Viel] is a genius with roasting vegetables.” Set inside a Relais & Châteaux lodge, it has an enormous wine cellar well-known throughout France, so unsurprisingly, wine performs an enormous half in every meal for the extra oenological of company. Aside from the distinctive meals, the setting is value a go to by itself, so it’s greatest to ebook a room and nestle in for an evening or two. Baux-de-Provence – the close by village – is picture-perfect, and the place itself is a shocking Sixteenth-century farmhouse with a neighbouring 18th-century nation home, referred to as the Manoir. “My favourite dish there was a very memorable red mullet dish served with a fine ravioli of sweet pepper and cuttlefish and compressed with fennel.”