Avignon, the chefs’ picnic will be served on the banks
After a one-year hiatus in 2020, due to the Covid pandemic, the people of Avignon are returning to their famous picnic for back-to-school chefs, organized on the banks of the Rhône, opposite the Pont d’Avignon and the papal palace. Launched for the first time in 2017, this gastronomic event brought together more than 3,000 people in 2019 and the organizing teams are keen to bring together more this year.
Purposely designed to bring together the widest possible audience, this picnic aims to offer as many people as possible the opportunity to get as close as possible to the world of cooking and allows cooks to come out of their kitchens to meet their customers. The chefs and partners of this meeting are mobilized around common values: the promotion of local products with local and seasonal supplies, the promotion of home-made products, sharing with young apprentices from the Avignon hotel school. . As well as a brigade of volunteers from Avignon.
This picnic for chefs also highlights the best in the region in terms of committed producers: Syba vegetal ice cream, fresh Kookabarra juices, Côtes du Rhône wines, pains d’Augusta Pains. and Merveilles, organic and local compotes from A Côté, coffees and teas from Maison du Bon Café, dairy products from Cowing out, Avignon’s first urban dairy.
Beyond a delicious meal concocted by 17 of the best craftsmen from the papal city, this picnic is above all a day dedicated to the pleasure of living together, in a magnificent setting, with the free concert by the group Manu & Co and activities for kids (with Bricks For Kids). “This country meal must also meet environmental obligations, breathes one of the instigators of the meeting. Every year, we limit the production of waste even more by using glass jars to condition the menu. These jars will be kept at the end of the day or will join the recycling cycle ”. The baskets distributed will each contain a Kookabarra eco-cup as well as wooden cutlery.
The recipes imagined for this picnic for chefs will give pride of place to local agriculture and breeding, like the Crau-Alpilles lamb. And, new for the 2021 edition, a hot dish will be served to the guests, prepared live from an open kitchen… And no need to queue, the hot dogs served by the cooks themselves!
Date October 3 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Chemin de Halage in Avignon. Reservations on the site www.lepiqueniquedeschefs.fr Hot dog, € 9.50 (limited quantity) and basket price: € 26. Gourmet market on the sidelines of the picnic. Valid health pass required.
… and on October 20, the Gourmandise festival for a gala dinner chefs picnic
After a first in 2019, the Transmission dinner is once again organized this year in Avignon on October 20 in the Grand Tinel room of the Palais des Papes. This evening in the colors of Bolivia aims to collect funds that will be donated to the association Gourmandise festival. La Gourmandise aims to make French gastronomy known, but also and above all to improve the techniques and knowledge of today’s chefs while training the young chefs of tomorrow. Ultimately and through the arts of the table, the Gourmandise festival will allow young people from Bolivian hotel schools to come to France to discover the excellence of global gastronomy in order to disseminate in Bolivia but also throughout Latin America.
Some of the city’s most famous conductors such as Guilhem Sevin, Florent pietravalle Pascal Auger or Marc Fontanne will animate the pianos, as will Édouard Loubet and Anthony Bisquerra (2-star chef of the Alpaga in Megève) who will come to the Vaucluse on purpose. The Parisian and godfather of the dinner, Yann Brice Meilleur Ouvrier de France 2011 pâtissier, will be accompanied by a dozen other best workers in France (baker, ice cream maker, sommelier, cheese maker). A gastronomic and ambitious evening in sight. Between contemporary dance and traditional music, a sale will auction a work by Rosmery Mamani Ventura as well as several meals in beautiful regional tables like this lunch for two at Alexandre Mazzia in Marseille.
See you on Wednesday October 20 at 7 p.m. at the Palais des Papes; info and reservations on 06 37 65 88 60.
Photos Clément Puig and DR