Toulouse: for multi-starred chef Pierre Gagnaire “the health crisis has reminded us of the importance and usefulness of restaurants”
The multi-starred chef Pierre Gagnaire was on Thursday March 24 in the kitchens of Fouquet’s at the Barrière casino in Toulouse. The opportunity for this chef with an impressive career to look back on his 50 years in the kitchen.
What is your link with the Fouquet’s restaurants at the Barrière casinos?
We have a history together for seven years now. Le Fouquet’s is above all a brasserie that was doing very well, belonging to the Barrière group. The idea with this collaboration was to project the brand internationally, to revitalize it by rebuilding a beautiful French-style brasserie. It’s not a bling-bling, inaccessible place. There are about ten Fouquet’s around the world, from Courchevel to La Baule via Toulouse. Each brewery has its particularity. Store openings are also performed in New York and Abu Dhabi in the coming months. It is simply exciting.
How is Toulouse’s special?
It is a reasonably priced restaurant with a strong Southwestern identity. Stuffed cabbage, foie gras, Armagnac, it is a territory rich in gastronomy. Here, Loïc Muller, chef at Le Fouquet’s, pays tribute to this richness and this region.
The gala dinner on March 24 is also an opportunity to meet the chefs from Toulouse…
With Loïc Muller, we have a very special relationship. When I come here, we meet, we talk. I don’t come to read the meters but to share, it’s my driving force and my motivation. Initially, it is mostly a friendly story. And that’s what makes me happy. In addition, I find the same people in the kitchen as the previous time, it is also a guarantee of quality and seriousness. With this gala dinner, the aim is not to pirouette or shine, but to offer an example of all the work done throughout the year by the teams. We want to provide customers with a beautiful time. Part of the evening’s receipts will also be reversed to the “à tout cœur” association.
Like all restaurateurs, you have suffered the full brunt of the health crisis…
We did like everyone else, we bent over backwards, we adapted to limit the damage as much as possible. What we have learned from this health crisis is that restaurants are very useful. Anyone at some point has felt the lack of going to a restaurant. When it reopened, you also had to be good and stay that way. Customers may have developed their critical thinking even more during this crisis.
Do we manage a starred restaurant and brasseries differently?
In the end, the requirement remains the same. I’ve been saying it for 40 years, the key word and what guides me is that it must be good. Admittedly, in a brasserie, the crockery and presentation may be less sophisticated, but the taste must be excellent, and that doesn’t matter if it’s a neighborhood bistro or a starred restaurant. To last over time, you also sometimes have to know how to stop, take a breather and above all surround yourself well. When things don’t work, you have to know how to cut the dead branches. This does not prevent kindness and benevolence but it does not exclude clairvoyance and firmness either.
You have just obtained an additional star for your establishment in Nîmes…
When I look back on my 50 years of career, I sometimes say to myself that it is a priesthood. I recognize that it has not always been easy. Even if few people see it, work is freedom, it gives meaning to your life. Whether you own a three-star restaurant or a simpler restaurant, you have to give yourself to your job for it to work. Even if the pressure is still there, you can’t work permanently with fear in your stomach, you have to know how to get started, trust yourself and organization remains the key. Inevitably, in a career, there are failures but also a lot of happiness. The emotion even if we manage it, it stays there, it exists. With experience, you learn to understand it better. Whether you work in a gastronomic establishment or not, it is part of the job.