(Paris) “I am uncompromising”, says Guy Savoy, elected for the sixth time best chef in the world by the La List ranking, whether it is a question of taste, the promotion of the French art of living or the management of its teams.
Unbeatable in this aggregator which establishes its prize list based on reviews from the international press and gastronomic guides, some explain this success by the “consensual” side of its cuisine.
“Pleasing everyone? It is not the goal. I am uncompromising, I want to be unique,” the 69-year-old three-star chef told AFP in his restaurant at Monnaie de Paris on the banks of the Seine.
But “gluttony is primary for me. I don’t want to intellectualize. I enjoy it or I don’t enjoy it.”
A lukewarm juice of mushrooms and watercress precedes the champagne, and the appetizer begins with Brussels sprouts, one of the most unloved foods, in tempura.
Bright green spinach, Guy Savoy’s “favorite vegetable”, “just wilted, cooked in seconds” punctuates the meal in dishes of sea urchin tongues with caviar, lobster with carrots or vegetal Wellington with truffles.
“I only like Brussels sprouts shrunken and trellis-coloured spinach, I don’t eat them,” says Guy Savoy, who dares to offer products which, if poorly prepared, could have led to traumatic experiences.
Defend the wine
Breaking “all the academic rules”, this autumn it accompanies hare à la royale with a Sauternes, sweet wine that suffers from an old-fashioned image.
He says he “does not adhere” to the fashion for non-alcoholic food and drink pairings, which came from Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries and which is settling in France.
“We export 14 billion euros worth of wines and spirits. It is directly related to tourism. People who have drunk and eaten French products with us want to drink again what gave them sensations”.
“Airbuses are manufactured everywhere. Wines are landscapes, jobs that will never be relocated, unique know-how,” he adds.
He admits having learned from the Anglo-Saxons that the decor was important and that “rock and roll places” were needed to succeed, while the French “thought that the welcome and the cuisine were enough”.
But “the DNA of French cuisine is the ideal marriage between cuisine and wine and we are a showcase for the French art of living”.
“As of 8:30 a.m.”
Having had its best year in 2019, the restaurant is picking up again after the health crisis, which the chef experienced badly because of the decisions “imposed” on the profession.
He has just published a book, The gesture and the manner, long live French cuisine over this period to “evacuate the stench” of the confinements.
The restaurant “is full for lunch and dinner”, the Asians have returned – Koreans, but also Thais, Malaysians and Indonesians as well as Americans and Canadians.
If the environment is struggling to recruit, with restaurants closing at noon or reducing the opening days, Guy Savoy is not in this configuration. After the post-COVID-19 reopening, “everyone was there, from the last intern to the oldest. There are people who have 30 years of house”.
“I pay for them and I love them. If you just like them, they’ll think you’re fooling them. If you just pay them — an amount on a payslip. I am in the middle of them from 8:30 a.m. ”.
He refuses to feel like he’s in crisis again when “we hear absolutely crazy figures on the increase in energy”.
“I can’t wake up in the morning thinking what my electricity bill is going to be. I’m used to hazards, the fish rises 50% if there’s a storm”.