Chef Guy Martin celebrates 25 years with Le Grand Véfour
On the edge of the Palais-Royal gardens, starred chef Guy Martin moved into one of the finest institutions in French gastronomy a quarter of a century ago. An anniversary that pays tribute to 25 years of complicity and reflects a certain pride in their achievements.
Twenty-five years of love
When asked to reflect on 25 years of gastronomy at one of Paris’s most emblematic dining rooms, Guy Martin likens his cooking to contemporary art. Like a noble material in perpetual motion. On the contrary, it’s very much alive and in tune with the times.
Anticipating the market and playing a major role in raising awareness. “There are always breeders, growers, fishermen and, above all, young people setting up in business who want to do well. I’ve been working with them since I started out. I never forget my responsibility to
them. It was her farming roots that instilled in her the values of the land and taught her that she had cycles… “I’m from Savoie and in the mountains, you don’t cheat.
Disregarding fashions and taking care never to distort the product, Guy Martin never forgets to be generous. Sitting at the table at Le Grand Véfour should be a feast!
“I love the idea of welcoming the Cocteau and Colette of today, young people who have sometimes broken their piggy banks to treat themselves to a meal in this establishment that has seen the Tout-Paris pass through since the Revolution. Each customer is unique: I don’t cook for table numbers, but for guests with different sensibilities. I’m always fascinated to see how the same dish can be received very differently depending on the emotion involved. The journey is different for everyone, and it can sometimes go very far.
Like this spontaneous impression received from a customer, comparing his tomato-based composition to a Buddhist temple. Open-mindedness illustrating zenitude. “The excellence of a dish is when I am certain I have expressed the best. I also always ask my collaborators if they are proud of their dish.”
Every new service involves a reappraisal, but you must always keep your self-confidence.
Grand Véfour style
Is self-confidence the key to lasting success? Not only. You also need to know how to appropriate the history of the place and reinvent it. Lasting in the kitchen also means not calculating, always being attentive, listening and… no doubt experiencing great emptiness. Finally, longevity is a question of seriousness and a certain elegance that endures the years. “And elegance means warmth and love for the customer. We’re not here to give lessons, and that’s the first thing I made sure of when I arrived: never betray, surpass
rather than take the easy way out”.
No stuffy service, then, but genuine availability. Illustrating the first nobility of the profession: making people happy. With desire and passion as his leitmotiv.
One of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received?
A customer who had reached the pinnacle of her career, but who told him she didn’t have the “fire” she felt in him. “That’s what always strikes me about you: you’re always amazed,” she told him. It’s also when one of the most Oscar-winning film composers started crying when he tasted his Savoy cake, traditionally served at the end of a meal. “He had been living in Los Angeles for years and had forgotten what his childhood tasted like. All his memories came flooding back at the first
bite,” recalls the Chef. “The greatest satisfaction? Seeing people leave happy, capturing the emotion of each customer at
receiving a dish. Some people have high expectations, and my only challenge is not to disappoint them.”
A quarter-century of transmission
Because a brigade is also a human adventure. You can’t have a table at this level without great chemistry in the kitchen, and unfailing bonds and trust. “Despite the mix of ingredients, a recipe is a unity,” emphasizes the Chef.
Guy Martin wanted all the teams to have lunch and dinner together in the restaurant’s legendary dining room, so that they could share the experience with customers. “I try to transmit to them a love of beauty and goodness, and to share my knowledge of the product. Taste education and product expertise are essential. Training
young people from different backgrounds is also what enriches me.”
It’s a way for the Chef, who started out as a pizza maker, to give back what he has received. “There aren’t many professions in which you can make your dreams come true. But we’re lucky enough to be able to transform the product: it’s extraordinary, so we mustn’t let this opportunity pass us by. That’s why I always ask
my young people what their dreams are…”.
A role of knowledge broker, as when, with CABAT (Cellule d’aide aux blessés de l’armée de Terre), he helps wounded soldiers find a new future. I like creating jobs, working on new concepts, even if what interests me above all is cooking”, admits the Chef. Managing people and a business with ‘peasant’ common sense means keeping a kind of distance and freshness.
” Over the past 25 years, Le Grand Véfour has served the Presidents of France, the greatest painters and architects, and legendary figures such as Roger Moore, Paul McCartney and Marianne Faithfull…
Each visit is almost as memorable as when I received 80 French artists at once, to celebrate Jean Marais’ 80th birthday,” confides the Chef.
Le Grand Véfour, the story of a legend
Seduced by the 18th-century setting and the history of the premises – the very concept of the restaurant was born here, just after the French Revolution – the Michelin-starred chef has since acquired this former “Café de Chartres”. The historic meeting place for the Tout-Paris of political, artistic and literary life.
In 230 years, from chic brasserie to table adored by Bonaparte and Josephine, Mac Mahon, George Sand, Victor Hugo, then Cocteau, Guitry, Aragon, Sartre and Colette, this address has established itself as a symbol of the great French culinary tradition.
This top-flight cuisine finds its setting in the dining room, in a hushed, intimate atmosphere, barely disturbed by reproductions of allegorical women, mercurial mirrors and tributes to the illustrious figures who used to hang out here…
Today, its excellence and personality make it one of the jewels in the crown of the prestigious Relais & Châteaux family.
Emblematic dishes
Few chefs can boast of creating dishes that have stood the test of time. Guy Martin’s ravioles of foie gras with truffle crème foisonnée has become a benchmark. With his Parmentier de queue de bœuf aux truffes and his tourte aux artichauts, he has given a new lease of life to dishes inspired by the popular
.
A place of memory par excellence, Le Grand Véfour is also the house that has had the elegance to maintain the Pigeon Prince Rainier III, dedicated at the time by Raymond Oliver to the famous monarch.
Itinéraire d’un enfant gâté
Born in Bourg-Saint-Maurice, nothing predestined Guy Martin for gastronomy, even if he was sensitive to the seasons, to what nature had to offer, and to the family joys that resonated around the pleasures of the table. As a teenager, he was as enchanted by Monet’s quest for light as he was by the Rolling Stones’ innovative
audacity.
As chance would have it, while browsing through Ali-Bab’s Gastronomie Pratique, the pizza-maker decided to try out most of the recipes on his own. This was followed by a first position in a restaurant in Annecy.
At the age of 23, his career took root at Relais & Châteaux, first at Château de Coudrée (74), then at Château de Divonne (01), where he soon became director, then head chef at just 26. He was awarded his first star six months after his arrival, and his second in 1990. This was a decisive year, when Jean Taittinger asked him to take charge of the kitchens at Le Grand Véfour. He took up his position behind the piano on November 1, 1991.
Since then, he has won countless awards: voted Chef of the Year in France and abroad, ranked among the world’s top seven, he was also voted Chef of the 21st Century in Japan. What’s more, this year’s “Eric Verdier – Culture & Goûts” award recognized Le Grand Véfour as one of the 20 greatest restaurants in the world.
The man who could have embarked on a career as a guitarist chose to become an inexhaustible explorer of flavors, in search of the ultimate emotion, the one of which Mozart said: “I’m looking for the notes that love each other”. Chef Guy Martin has found them, in the sublime tribute he pays to nature every day.
” Guy is proof that you can start from the bottom and work your way to the top, without ever having worked with the great masters”. Paul Bocuse
“I chose cooking without any filiation in this profession, solely because it’s a way of expressing oneself, of giving. And because cooking helps me to live.” Guy Martin
Team spirit
“You’re only a good chef when you have a good team,” Guy Martin never forgets. On his way to the top, the Chef has managed to surround himself with the best and earn their trust. He has turned his brigade into a family, giving them the opportunity to “express themselves, with pride in their work”. All ideas are good to listen to in order to renew himself, as long as he always keeps in mind the sincerity of the work accomplished. “And renewal is what makes it last,” concludes the Chef.
Among the loyal followers is Pascal Pugeault, the Chef des Cuisines, who has worked alongside the Chef for over 26 years, sharing “the same philosophy and a perfect understanding. Together, we are merchants of happiness. As for Christian David, for more than 25 years he has directed a service of great precision, mixed with a great deal of elegance, enthusiasm, freshness and kindness,” admits Guy Martin. But also Joris Rousseau, loyal to the piano of course, Romain Alzy, the chef-sommelier who has risen through the ranks, Flavien and the entire front-of-house team…
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