“We're in the game!” says Olivier Couvin, chef at the Paul Bocuse house with Gilles Reinhardt, as he leaves Monsieur Paul's office to join the kitchen, which is buzzing as lunch service approaches.
This office, where the table sits around which Paul Bocuse gathered with his wife, Raymonde, his close collaborators for the Sunday lunch, is the only room of the famous address of Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or, which has remained intact since the disappearance, on January 20, 2018, of the blue-white-red collar boss of Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF), who landed in 1961. However, it did not seem easy to touch this institution marked by the charismatic figure of the one who took over, in 1957, the reins of the inn created by his grandparents, in 1924.
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Tradition and innovation
Trained by Mother Brazier and Fernand Point, the man who can be considered the first great communicator of the profession made this place an international emblem of French gastronomy.
An influence consolidated by the three stars that it won in 1965 and which would shine for fifty-three years, but also by its restaurants opened in Florida in the 1980s, by its corners in Japan, by the creation, in 1987, of its international cooking competition, the Bocuse d'Or... The iconic Élysée soup, sea bass in crust, red mullet in potato scales, Bresse poultry in bladder also making this address an unmissable stop for lovers of large tables.
The place could therefore have remained in the juice of its specialties.
But Mr. Paul didn't see it that way.
If during his lifetime he reigned supreme, he had prophetically said: “When I am no longer here, you will cook your own cuisine, the one that seems most in tune with the times and the desires of the customers.”
And he had organized his departure, entrusting general management to Vincent Le Roux, husband of his granddaughter, who arrived in the company in 2007, and the smooth running of the kitchens to the faithful MOF Olivier Couvin and Gilles Reinhardt, combining between them more than forty years of house.
The trio, supported by a team of seventy people, maintains this “lighthouse” without playing the outdated card.
“Tradition in motion, that sums up our work well,” explains Vincent Le Roux.
We had to enter a new era, as Paul Bocuse asked us, but without making a revolution.
The facade, painted red and green in 1986, then decorated with gilding and drawings in 1993, was therefore renovated identically: it is in any case classified as a remarkable heritage site.
We redid the kitchens for the well-being of the teams, as well as the rooms, keeping the same floor on the ground floor.
Paul Bocuse asked us to keep it.
We have reduced the number of seats to eighty, and we are closing two days a week.
The iconic building of Collonges-au-Mont-d’Or (Rhône).
Frédéric Durantet
From the kitchen to the room
The restaurant is celebrating its centenary in style.
“The year 2023 was exceptional, and the start of 2024 makes us very optimistic,” enthuses Vincent Le Roux.
French people and foodies from all over the world flock here.
The Paul Bocuse restaurant is a destination.”
In these times of uncertainty, the Paul Bocuse beacon is, indeed, reassuring.
Once the door is pushed open, we are immersed in a unique French art of living.
Indoors, the ballet is magnificent.
There is the dessert cart that circulates between the tables: the star!
Pastry chef Benoît Charvet, 2018 world champion of frozen desserts, who arrived at Paul Bocuse in 2019, redesigned it, and also introduced the plated dessert.
There are also the tables on which we finish cooking, we cut, we flambé.
The meal is a spectacle performed by thirty-five people.
The main room, on the ground floor of the restaurant.
press photo
“Everyone has a role and perpetuates this service at Bocuse, a quality service, but which is not stuffy,” explains Maxime Tschirhart, maître d’hôtel.
A timeless reception skill, which is nevertheless updated.
“I see us as a conservatory of gestures and our recipes, but above all not as a museum.
A museum is immobile!
Here, things are moving,” insists Vincent Le Roux.
And young talents are attracted by this approach.
When the restaurant industry complains of not being able to recruit, there is a rush to Collonges.
Elena Calzati, 16, who has been learning indoors since August 2022, doesn't see herself leaving.
Passionate, she took and won the competition for Best Apprentice in France in October.
The team invested and did everything for Elena to win the title.
“We release people to prepare for the competitions, we order the raw materials to practice,” adds Maxime Tschirhart.
There are few houses that put these resources in place.”
A school of high standards
This osmosis between those who knew Paul Bocuse and those who arrived after his death is indeed the advantage of the former hotel-restaurant du Pont.
In cooking, the sauce between generations also takes place.
The explanation?
Here, it’s a family and a restaurant “like no other”, whispers Gilles Reinhardt.
Arriving as a commis in the house in 1995, because “it was the best”, he left three years later to join Les Crayères, in Reims, but returned there in 2000 as sous chef, and was named executive chef in 2015 “It’s not easy to get the keys to the Paul Bocuse restaurant.
You have to be up to it.
Mr. Paul had passed on his codes to us, which we try to continue without getting into a routine.
So, we now change the menu four or five times a year, paying attention to seasonality, whereas in the past it was completely fixed.”
For Olivier Couvin, his partner, a former paratrooper who held on to climb the ranks of this demanding school, succession is not such a heavy weight to carry.
Olivier Couvin, Benoît Charvet and Gilles Reinhardt Pascal Etienne Lattes - Thuries
“We continue the story.
Paul Bocuse's cuisine is not that of a chef, it is that of a country, of a region.
It illustrates the richness of our repertoire.
We just have to bring it up to date with what life brings us, our encounters, our travels…” Thus, the Pierrelatte frog legs, the white pudding as light as a cloud made their appearance on the plates, and the Fernand Point French fishing sole fillet reached perfection after five years of trial and error!
In 2020, the loss of the third star was still a shock, plunging Gilles Reinhardt into a deep depression: “It was a terrible message, as if after the death of Paul Bocuse nothing was possible.”
Four years later, morale has returned, and the entire crew vibrates with a crazy energy driven by one ambition: to make the next hundred years as beautiful as the first hundred.
Elena Calzati, Best Apprentice in France.
Aurelio Rodriguez
Restaurant Paul Bocuse, 40, rue de la Plage, 69660 Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or