Alice Arnoux is the new chef at Le Mermoz in Paris

Mathilde Bourge | 11/6/23, 8:03 AM

After her residency at Le Perchoir in Ménilmontant, Alice Arnoux puts down her knives at Le Mermoz, in Paris's 8th arrondissement. She succeeds Thomas Graham, who has left for new adventures.

The chef mercato continues. After four years as head chef of Le Mermoz in Paris, Thomas Graham has bid farewell to this emblematic address in the 8th arrondissement. While we still don't know what the chef's next venture will be, we do know who is replacing him at the helm of this neo-bistro. It's Alice Arnoux, the 28-year-old itinerant chef, who will be swapping residencies for a permanent position from Wednesday 1ᵉʳ November 2023.

Product-based cuisine

The young chef, who trained at Alexandre Couillon and Noma among others, thus takes over from Thomas Graham and Manon Fleury before him. After several years of travel and residencies, notably at Le Perchoir de Ménilmontant and then in Indonesia, Alice Arnoux has settled at Le Mermoz. "I feel I've done enough wandering. I really want to build things that will last: personal relationships, with my suppliers, team management... Barouder also means not having a home or a place that's really your own. I really want to settle down," confesses Alice Arnoux, who is not ready to give up her freedom just yet. "The aim is to settle down in a stable place, build a trusted team and be able to free up time in parallel to continue doing small residencies or exclusive dinners. Try to get the best of both worlds."

Alice Arnoux is keeping her bearings, as Candice Brée, with whom she worked at Le Perchoir, joins her as second-in-command, while Laure de Kervenoaël, chef de partie at Le Mermoz, and sommelier Robin Gurgui remain in place.

In the kitchen, Alice Arnoux offers "gourmet dishes that you'd want to eat when you're not working. I've worked almost exclusively in Michelin-starred restaurants, where you'd have to make tiny, tiny plates at different times... It's a great way to learn, but it limits your freedom to create at a moment's notice. We're going to change the menu every week and do it all together, as a team. We'll have fun and discover new things. For example, I made my first lamb polpette for the first few days, and it was great. Some people thought it wasn't cooked enough, so we'll do better tomorrow. The aim is to have fun, we're not saving lives", the chef relativizes.

Cruise ships and gastronomy form a well-known duo. Both have been sailing the horizon since the early 20th century. Today, while the sector seems to be experiencing neither crisis nor slowdown, cruise lines are increasingly calling on chefs whose careers are already well established on land, to appeal to an inevitably volatile clientele.

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