My passion for cooking began as a child, when I found the utmost pleasure in watching my mum spend hours in the kitchen. Just as I inherited a love of food from my mother, my mum's passion was similarly born in the kitchen of her own grandmother, where a fabulous cook "Mère Ménard" worked. Both women showed me the pleasures of working with fine products and home-grown food freshly picked from the garden. On holidays, we would visit my great-grandmother in the Nantes region, and we would roam around the garden with big baskets, collecting fresh fruit and vegetables for tarts, soups, and various homemade dishes.
On my twelfth birthday, my parents gave me a gift that forever changed something in me. Every summer, we spent our vacations in the Jura region with my father's family, and the year I turned 12, my grandparents invited me to a gourmet restaurant above Lake Saint Point. For me, nothing is more beautiful than the lake's exceptional setting, and the superbly dressed table was equally magnificent: foie gras terrine, chicken in white wine sauce, and fricassee of morels. From this early age, I knew that I would work in gourmet food.
The particular attention I pay to the produce I work with was naturally part of my career choice. After studying abroad, I found a position at a company that provided farmed fish to chefs. I started in sales and then moved on to a marketing manager role, all the while learning about the industry, the myriad of fish in the sea, and how each fish is individually farmed. I also learned about the scarcity of certain fish, and I share this awareness with the students that come to my kitchen. My extensive knowledge of seafood is apparent in my cooking, and I became an expert in obtaining fresh fish of the highest quality, with which I make creative, perfectly prepared seafood dishes.
After 13 years in sales and marketing in the seafood industry, I was eager to return to my first passion: cooking and the pleasure of sharing a good meal.
I completed my training at LENOTRE Institute. I worked under the direction of Meilleurs Ouvriers de France for a year, there I learned rigorous cooking techniques. I graduated with the highest honors: the Grand Master Class Diploma LENOTRE. It was then that I went to the other side of the work-space and began to work with great chefs at the Pavillon Elysée.
Driven by my passion, it seems clear to me now that I need to share these skills. That's the story of my cooking workshop, where I'll be waiting to share my "secrets gourmands" (gourmet secrets) with you.