These great chefs, who had a completely different job before
Merchant navy officer, basketball player, cellist... Before making cooking their profession, these chefs had a first professional life far from the stove.
Alexandre Mazzia, Hugo Roellinger or Alessandra Montagne... These names, which you're likely to know if you're passionate about gastronomy, weren't originally destined to shine in the kitchen. Former professional athletes, outstanding musicians or even journalists, these restaurant professionals have swapped their former lives to don the apron and flourish behind the stove. So, what careers were these great chefs originally destined for? here are some answers.
Hugo Roellinger - Le Coquillage, Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes, former merchant navy officer
Son of multi-award-winning chef Olivier Roellinger, Hugo Roellinger grew up in the world of Les Maisons de Bricourt, above the family restaurant. Between the kitchens and winter travels in search of spice producers around the world, his childhood was already steeped in gastronomy. However, the young man was not immediately destined for the kitchen.
Attracted by adventure and the sea, he chose to study for four years in Le Havre to become a merchant navy officer. He then embarked on various ships, first scientific for Ifremer, then on cable-laying vessels tasked with laying underwater optical fibers, notably in the Baltic Sea and along the African coast. After graduating, he sailed for another year and a half.
But as he sailed on, one thing became clear: "On the water, you have time to think about your childhood and what's happening on land. I realized that I didn't want to see the world my parents had created disappear, and I also felt the need to express myself," he explains. so, at the age of 24, he decided to turn to cooking. After a CAP at Ferrandi and several experiences with Michel Bras, Michel Troisgros, Pierre Gagnaire and Michel Guérard, he joined Le Coquillage in 2014 and gradually took over as head chef.
Even today, Hugo Roellinger has no regrets about his detour to the sea: "This first life enabled me to approach cooking with a different open-mindedness and a particular sensitivity to the oceans and the environment," assures the 2022 Chef of the Year.
Maxime Meilleur - La Bouitte in Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, former biathlon champion
While Maxime Meilleur grew up in the family home that became La Bouitte (4 toques), he grew up surrounded by mountains, in the heart of the Trois Vallées ski area in Savoie. From the age of 9 to 21, he was a top-level biathlon athlete with the French national team. But at the age of 21, Maxime Meilleur joined the family restaurant, never to leave again. "It's a period I don't regret at all. Sport taught me rigor, which I still use today in the restaurant," confides the chef. "The awards I couldn't get in the biathlon, I got here. It's a real dream!"
Alexandre Mazzia - AM in Marseille, former professional basketball player
Standing 1.95 meters tall, Alexandre Mazzia once embraced a career as a professional basketball player. The chef, who still wears colorful sneakers, was selected for the French U15 team as a shooting guard. A fine start to his sporting career, before Alexandre Mazzia turned his attention to cooking and won all the honors, including 5 toques from Gault&Millau. In 2024, the chef was even able to combine his two passions by cooking for the athletes at the Paris Olympic Games.
Nicolas Thomas - Ineffable in Barbentane, former cellist
Before becoming a chef, Nicolas Thomas(Ineffable, 2 toques) was a professional cellist. Trained for many years, he began playing at the age of 18 and performed until he was 25 with several national orchestras, in Toulouse, Montpellier and occasionally in Paris, with numerous trips to Europe, Russia and Iran. Coming from a background with no culture of haute gastronomy, he discovered this world almost by chance, watching a report on a local Toulouse TV channel that followed "the day of a chef, from the morning market to the evening service". He saw "the set-up, the rhythm, the thought behind every gesture", and this immersion awakened a new curiosity, to the point of pushing open the door of a gastronomic restaurant for the first time. The experience left a deep impression on him, particularly through "theattention paid to the customer", and the sensation of experiencing "a moment at odds with time", which he compares to an evening at a concert. For Nicolas Thomas, the links between music and cuisine are natural and essential: "discipline, daily work, whatever the purpose of the job", but also the constant questioning, the search for direction and harmony, and the sense of teamwork - "life in a brigade like in an orchestra". Finally, he emphasizes how powerful minimalism can be: "with few ingredients, as with few notes, you can sometimes work wonders".
Alessandra Montagne - Nosso in Paris, former assistant director
Alessandra Montagne was born in Brazil, in an environment where women cook for the rest of the family, not to make a living out of it. Arriving in Paris at the age of 22, she first worked as a baby-sitter, housekeeper and then executive assistant, before being urged by those around her to take up cooking professionally. at the age of 32, Alessandra Montagne took the plunge, passed a CAP (vocational training certificate) in cooking, and apprenticed with William Ledeuil and Adeline Grattard, before opening Nosso (2 toques). It's been a remarkable rise for the chef, who explains that her restaurant and entrepreneurial adventure have helped her to emancipate herself.
Sylvain Renzetti - Son' in Bordeaux, from music to the oven
Before becoming a chef, Sylvain Renzetti(Son', 2 toques in Bordeaux) spent a long time composing outside the kitchen. For almost three years, he and his brother set up a small creative agency, initially focused on sound mixing: "We recorded people and mixed them," he explains. The project soon expanded into graphic design, artwork for EPs, illustrations, and then B-to-B websites, with a deliberately "fairly generalist" approach. It was to finance his own studio that he returned to the kitchen, which he had abandoned for a time, as chef of a small bistro. In the end, Sylvain Renzetti never left the stove! For him, the links between music and gastronomy are obvious: "An album is like a tasting menu: it has to be coherent, from the first piece of music to the last, just as in cooking, from starter to dessert". He speaks of frequency balance, of "catchy" refrains counterbalanced by sometimes softer verses, exactly like a menu with "moments of calm before throwing the sauce". Even today, this technical creativity feeds his cooking: Sylvain Renzetti is developing an in-house R&D tool, with jelly calculators and a touch screen that lets you sketch a plate directly. A very personal way of reminding us that, for him, cooking is first and foremost a composition.
Thierry Marx - ONOR in Paris, former soldier
Thierry Marx (ONOR, 3 toques) has regularly talked about his career path before entering the restaurant business. at the age of 19, he enlisted as a paratrooper in the Marine Infantry, first for his military service, before finding himself a blue helmet, in 1980, during the war in Lebanon.
Marked by this experience, Thierry Marx insists to this day that the army taught him leadership and teamwork. In the kitchen, he rediscovers this spirit of brigade and discipline, which he is now careful to pass on to the young people who work with him.
