Juan Arbelaez, a chef at home

It all started with a 45-second video posted on his Instagram account on March 17, the first day of confinement. Juan Arbelaez, hyperactive Parisian chef-restaurateur announces “lots of tutorials” for the coming forties, and invites his subscribers to send him requests for tips and recipes. A call seized with theft by Quotidien , which already perceives, like many media, the comforting potential of cooking in these difficult times. The talk show presented by Yann Barthès immediately contacts the thirty-something to broadcast his videos on his show.

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" Quotidien initially asked me for my rushes, but confined to Fronsac with a poor quality network, I could not send them to them ," says the cook. My wife (host Laury Thilleman, Editor's note) having a master's degree in journalism, we edited the first video ourselves. You have to believe that the result was convincing! ” Thirty one-minute films, delivered turnkey by the couple, will be broadcast on TMC between March 18 and May 8. But also on the chef's social networks, in formats suitable for everyone - Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube and Facebook.

Carrot peas, poached egg, cassoulet, falafels, ham shells, quinoa risotto, nuggets, brioche, French toast, hazelnut brownie: the cook has carte blanche in the choice of recipes. “What pleased was the diversity of the dishes: sweet, salty, very fatty, healthy, traditional, traveler ... I adapted to the situation: recipes without flour or pasta home when these basic ingredients could not be found on the supermarket shelves. I also took into account the trays returns to adjust the difficulty of the recipes, as well as the many messages sent to me by the public. The idea was to be of service to people, to share advice, with humor, to make the daily life of students, parents, academics or young couples more pleasant! My goal was not to give prestigious chef's recipes, but to bring, while remaining natural, a little joy and happiness in the middle of this ocean of bad news! ” Unsurprisingly, it was the simplest recipes, often sweet, which made the most amateur cooks react: pasta, cookies, yogurt cake, fried potatoes ... "Our live on perfect cooking barbecued prime rib was a hit! ”

Cell phone in leaven

It is therefore alone - or almost, his wife coming to the rescue in case of difficulty - that the chef, armed with his mobile phone, filmed himself day after day in the kitchen before making his edits. “ Each recipe represents up to five hours of work: one to two hours of filming and two to three hours of editing. Not to mention the after-sales service: I received a lot of messages, photos of makeshift pasta dryers made with brooms. With Laury, we also made videos of sporting challenges, cooking lives ... The house looked like a real production company! ” A new job, with the risks that go with it: “One day, while I was filming a homemade bread recipe, I dropped my phone in the leaven! I had to let it dry for two days and clean what had stuck with a pick ... A real adventure! ”

With an average audience of 1.7 million viewers over the season (September to June), Quotidien has proven to be a powerful sounding board. Result: 103,000 more subscribers on Instagram in a month (there are 245,000 today), and a notoriety that is soaring. “ The showcase was huge. It is not for this purpose that I accepted the collaboration, but I recognize that my media exposure exploded and that it helped us from the reopening of our restaurants, and for the launch of the new ones. Many people who have watched my videos want to visit us, for our greatest pleasure! ” A success such as the cook does not intend to stop there. “It gave me a glimpse of a new facet of my profession, which I want to continue to explore. So I decided to reserve one day a week for filming. The confinement has pushed us to reinvent ourselves, it seems important to me to keep what it has given us that is good. This period also reassured me about my cooking and my restaurants, centered around sharing. If this is made difficult by social distancing, we can see that this is what people want, around simple and accessible cuisine. "

Seven restaurants in Paris and the Var

If he is still less media than Cyril Lignac, to whom M6 entrusted at the same time a daily cooking live, Juan Arbelaez is not a partridge of the year either. Born in Bogotá (Colombia), he arrived in Paris, aged 18, to learn French cuisine. Having graduated from his class at the Cordon Bleu school, he began his training with Pierre Gagnaire, who remains for him “an icon” . There followed two solid experiences in palaces - the George V with Eric Briffard and the Bristol by Eric Frechon -, then an appearance in the third season of Top Chef which began to make him known to the general public. At 25, he opened his first Plantxa restaurant, in Boulogne-Billancourt, where the South American heat radiates from high volume salsa to shimmering street art frescoes on the walls, not to mention traveling dishes including the famous ceviche. Since then, the energetic entrepreneur has opened numerous businesses. There are now seven of them, including the YAYA Greek taverns with the Chantzios brothers, founders of Kalios oil, and the healthy canteen Vida with his partner the ex-Miss France.

And tomorrow ? Juan Arbelaez, who will be found in a second season of Cuisine impossible with Julien Duboué, on TF1, on August 7, has just inaugurated a third YAYA in La Défense, as well as the Mediterranean table Vigna in Lorgues (Var ) . And intends to open a small festive Colombian restaurant, in the form of a homecoming, by the end of the year, in the capital. “The confinement pushed us, chefs and restaurateurs, to be creative. This job has always been difficult, but it was necessary more than ever to adapt. We are going to get up, people are not going to stop coming out. But we must not fall asleep on our laurels. I prefer to focus my energy on giving my clients the best possible time and making them want to come back, rather than fighting against insurers or lessors who will give me nothing. "