Marie Gricourt wins the Grand de Demain 2026 trophy at the Gault&Millau Tour Centre-Val de Loire & Pays de la Loire

Marie Gricourt has made a name for herself with her convivial cuisine in the heart of Orléans. A lively cuisine that brings generations together, which earned her and her team this trophy at the Gault&Millau Tour Centre-Val de Loire & Pays de la Loire, held at the Little Atlantique Brewery in Nantes.

A remarkable career, a shared cuisine

Originally from Estouy near Pithiviers, Marie Gricourt followed in the footsteps of her father, a chef. She trained at the CFA Médéric and progressed from year to year with great chefs, including Frédéric Anton at the Pré Catelan, Jean-Yves Leuranguer at Fouquet's and Éric Frechon at the Bristol. She then joined Guillaume Gomez 's brigade at the Élysée Palace, becoming the first woman to hold this position. In 2020, she joins the team at Christophe Hay's restaurant La Table, becoming his chef.

In 2024, she opened her own restaurant, Gric, with her team-mates Maud, Maëlle and Dorian. Today, the team is made up of eight people, four of whom have been loyal since the beginning, forming what she likes to call "a beautiful little family". Gric is a bistronomic restaurant offering a menu that changes every month, and a warm, seasonal cuisine that combines conviviality and creativity. " My father was a chef, so I grew up with the great classics of French cuisine. I wanted to revisit them and offer them in an open kitchen [...] a slightly reinvented bourgeois cuisine ", she confides.

An evolution that paid off

For the chef, who has changed course by moving from gastronomy to bistronomy, receiving an award was unexpected: " I had kind of mourned all that, mourned the guides, and now I realize that it's totally false. Above all, it's the pleasure of making food that she " loves to eat " that guides the chef of the Orléans restaurant: " I'm even happier to enjoy my work, to offer food that I love to customers, and to all generations".

The Grand of Tomorrow title: a personal distinction, but a shared source of pride

" For me, it was unimaginable to win such an award, so when it was announced to me, the surprise was even greater ". Today, Marie Gricourt has won the Grand de Demain Centre-Val de Loire trophy, an individual distinction that she wears proudly and collectively: " It's undeniably a collective award. It's also a great source of pride to show that there are four of us women in the kitchen ". But she also owes this award to her family heritage: "a little nod to my dad, who's been with me from the start, so I'm delighted to bring this prize home ".