Stéphanie Le Quellec opens a restaurant dedicated to seafood cuisine
On Saturday October 1, Stéphanie and David Le Quellec will open Vive, a new restaurant focused on seafood.
[Updated September 27, 2022 at 10:22 a.m.] Stéphanie Le Quellec chain projects. The two-starred chef of the restaurant The scene in Paris will inaugurate on Saturday October 1st a whole new establishment called Vive.
This restaurant, opened with the complicity of her husband the chef David Le Quellec will give pride of place to seafood. On the menu? Fried squid and spicy mayo, Red tuna pistou mint-coriander or Crab with shelled court-bouillon, raw coral cream and toasted bread. These lovely dishes will be offered in a setting of around fifty covers spread over two floors, with a granite bar on the ground floor. Lives will open on October 1 at 62 avenue des Ternes, in the 17th arrondissement of Paris.
Biography of Stephanie Le Quellec
For Stéphanie Le Quellec, cooking is obvious. As a child, she preferred to prepare pancakes and shortbread with her grandmother rather than playing with dolls or modeling clay. His family passed on to him the taste for the pleasures of the table, home cooking, sharing, and the love of good products. At 14, the day of the results of the patent, the girl decides to enroll in a hotel school. 'At that time, cooking was less attractive than today and I was a woman! But I was lucky that my parents believed in me'.
On the sidelines of her training, she multiplies internships in traditional houses in the south of France. Once the BEP, the baccalaureate and the BTS hotel and catering in her pocket, she began her career in 2001 behind the stoves of the famous Le Cinq restaurant in Paris . 'The 80-person brigade, the military rigor, the search for the second star... I was thrilled. It was a revelation', she remembers. She learns alongside chef Philippe Legendre, best worker in France, and meets his future husband David Le Quellec during these first years of work. In 2006, she joined Terre Blanche, the Four Seasons Resort in the Var, near Philippe Jourdin , also Meilleur Ouvrier de France.
In parallel with her activity as sous-chef, she participates in cooking competitions, such as the Stars of Mougins . One evening, her stepfather challenges her to sign up for season 2 of Top Boss , for a case of champagne. She thinks she won't be selected, but receives a phone call from production two weeks later. Chef Philippe Jourdin advises him to try the adventure, because 'it would save me ten years on my career'. It's decided: she participates in Top Boss 2011. 'Thanks to this competition, I learned to let go, to become more creative, less academic'. Over the course of the tests, she impresses the jury composed of Jean-Francois Trap , Thierry Marx , Ghislaine Arabian , Cyril Lignac and Christian Constant , and ends up winning the contest. 'It was a step in my learning process, just like my other professional experiences' , she assures.
The fame of the show gave her the boost she needed, and Stéphanie Le Quellec was named chef of the restaurant at the Parisian hotel Prince de Galles, The scene , in 2013. This establishment, renovated in 2016 and decorated with two stars, offers an original concept: the dishes are prepared facing the customers. She wants to move the lines: 'I want desecrating palace gastronomy , make it friendly, welcoming and less intimidating, without taking away any of its magic, charm and elegance'. Nine months later, the long-awaited reward arrives: La Scène earns its first star at the Guide Michelin , who 'welcomes a first year rich in all the related emotions'.
In parallel with her daily work, the now thirty-something, mother of three children , returned to the small screen in 2017 with the show on M6 My mother cooks better than yours!. On social networks, viewers do not fail to note the chef's weight gain during her pregnancies. Not enough to disconcert Stéphanie Le Quellec, who does not hide a love of challenges: 'Cooking is my passion, my life, I put heart and emotion into it. But I couldn't do anything without my team'.
Where to find his restaurant?
Instead of opening a restaurant of her own, as many contestants on the show have done Top Boss , Stéphanie Le Quellec had preferred to stay in the palace kitchen. 'I think I am deeply a hotel chef' , she explains. 'Cooking is not limited to gastronomy, there are multiple fields of expression that can all be found in a hotel. I like that a lot'.
At prince of wales , an establishment open since 1929, she managed her team behind a white marble counter, from the large open kitchen. This gastronomic show allowed him to emphasize a simple and tasty cuisine , without artifice .
In October 2019, she opened her new Stage in the heart of the 8th arrondissement of Paris, at 32 Avenue Matignon. A new adventure. ' Opening my own house symbolizes for me the return to my fundamentals, to my initial dream, that of the 14-year-old girl entering hotel school as one enters religion. '. In January 2020, the award falls with two Michelin stars.
The chef is also at the head of establishments MAM, where she offers family cuisine, and Vive, a space dedicated to seafood.
How to define your kitchen?
'In life, I am frank, straight and direct, brutal sometimes. My cooking is like me'. The menus at La Scène are short, efficient and seasonal, explains the chef. Her simple yet sophisticated kitchen adapts perfectly to the Prince de Galles, a discreet and elegant establishment. But this result is the fruit of long-term work, where the scents of travels are mixed with the desire to reproduce strong emotions. 'It's the eternal story of Proust's Madeleine'.
His model cook: Jean-Francois Trap . The one she rubbed shoulders with during her time at Top Boss impresses Stéphanie Le Quellec with her culture, her technique and her ability to transform her knowledge into the plate. The 'kitchen poets' Pierre Gagnaire and Alain Passard also serve as inspiration.
The one who has evolved alongside the greatest is anchored in a traditional universe. But she likes to detach herself from her classic bases to develop a personal and free cooking . Her secret: not following fashion trends, to stay herself. Result: marked tastes, concentrated flavors, increasingly stripped dishes, and a lot of sincerity. Quality products, carefully selected, are simmered and roasted, as is French tradition. For her, 'Faced with the evidence of taste, you have to have the intelligence to step aside. The only thing that counts is the idea of enjoying yourself'.
See this post on InstagramA post shared by Stephanie Le Quellec (@steflequellec) le
What are its emblematic recipes?
Great French cuisine, and noble seasonal products, it gives revisited classics like calf milk from the Basque country, free-range chicken in two courses, wild line sea bass in a broth with mild spices, grilled scallops with pistachios and celery cooked on a spit, saddle of rabbit and gnocchi, liver poached duck from Landes, sole soufflé with lobster, and to finish, a creamy floating island or vanilla 'in five leaves'.
Stéphanie Le Quellec no longer forbids the obvious because 'everything has already been done'. His signature dishes are the small red mullet cooked with fear , served with gnocchi, spring on the plate , a vegetable dish based on peas, or even the laughter of veau declined in all its forms. As she says herself, her personality shines through in her dishes.
Source journaldesfemmes.fr
