Le Figaro Lyon
“
The idea was not to make a publicity stunt but to have fun
.”
At the beginning of February, between two advertisements for major international brands, a video of the gourmet restaurant Le domaine du Lac - Racines, located in Saint-Denis-lès-Bourg near Bourg-en-Bresse, was displayed on one of the screens giants of Times Square, in the heart of New York (see video here).
Not a promotional video then, but a little pleasure produced by Mathilde and David Lachavannes, the owners of the Bressan restaurant during their American trip.
“
My wife dreamed of going to New York and as I am part of the French culinary academy, the oldest association of chefs in the world, we decided to go there together for the annual congress
,” confides the chef. to Le
Figaro
after telling his story on Monday to Le
Progrès
.
Big Heads in New York
A few days before their departure for the United States, David takes his car to go to his restaurant and turns on the radio: “
I come across Les Grosses Têtes on RTL and hear Laurent Ruquier talking to a mussel farmer who was traveling to New York in January and whose wife surprised him by putting the video of their exploitation on a screen in Times Square
.
The idea remains in the head of the former cook for the Luxembourg embassy who does research on the internet.
“
We were leaving in ten days, I looked at what to do and it was actually very simple.
You had to upload a video of maximum 15 seconds to an application.
Give the time and date of broadcast and pay 40 dollars
,” continues the chef.
He then contacted a videographer friend who came to shoot drone images of the restaurant and its team 48 hours before the couple left.
“
We sent the video the day before departure with the idea in mind that if it didn't go through, 40 dollars wouldn't be so bad
,” assures David.
“Frankly for me it smelled bad”
On February 1, the couple arrived in Times Square at 5 p.m., an hour before the requested broadcast time for their video.
“
Frankly when we saw the 30x20 meter screen, we said to ourselves: “it can't be possible that this is broadcast there between an ad for Apple and another for Samsung
”.
At 5:59 p.m., the two Aindinois still turned on their phones to capture the hypothetical moment.
“
Honestly, it smelled bad to me.
And at 6 p.m. sharp, boom, we see the video playing.
It was fifteen seconds but it was crazy
,” he recalls.
An unforgettable memory that everyone has been talking to them about since their return to Bourg-en-Bresse.
“
Many customers discuss it with our teams.
We hear a lot of: “but how did they do that?”
or “but it must have cost a crazy amount of money!”
»
Whereas precisely, we never wanted it to be interpreted as a 2000 dollar delusion.
Even at $500, we wouldn't have done it, because the goal was to take our teams with us to New York.
It was above all a delirium
,” concludes David.