Michel Trama forced to close L'Aubergade after 47 years in business
L'Aubergade, in Lot-et-Garonne, will not be reopening after its annual vacation. The announcement was made at a local ceremony by the mayor of Puymirol.
After forty-seven years of high gastronomy and culinary daring, chef Michel Trama is bringing to an end the adventure of L'Aubergade (5 toques, Member of the Gault&Millau Culinary Academy), his emblematic hotel-restaurant in the Lot-et-Garonne village of Puymirol. A major page in French gastronomy is turned, marked by the creativity and generosity of a self-taught chef who has become a benchmark.
An unexpected announcement
The announcement sounded like a thunderclap in the small world of gourmets: L'Aubergade, the legendary Relais & Château and decades-long rendezvous for lovers of haute cuisine, will not be reopening after its annual vacation. The decision, made public at a local ceremony, is linked to the sudden termination of a contract with a historic energy supplier, an event that precipitated the closure of the restaurant.according to the mayor of Puymirol.
The end of a long story
Born in Constantine, Algeria, in 1947, Michel Trama did not follow the classic path of a great chef. A former scuba diver, he discovered cooking by chance and passion after replacing an absent chef in a Parisian bistro. With his wife Maryse, he opened his first restaurant in Paris in 1974, before establishing L'Aubergade in Puymirol in 1978, where he fashioned an inventive and deeply personal cuisine outside the usual framework of fine dining.
Over the decades, Michel Trama racked up distinctions such as Gault&Millau Cook of the Year in 1987 and 1991. But L'Aubergade was more than a restaurant: it was a place where emotion mingled with taste, where the history and terroir of the South-West were celebrated in an exceptional residence redecorated by Jacques Garcia. Beyond technical excellence, Trama's table embodied a humanist philosophy, an art of entertaining and sharing that has seduced several generations of diners. The closure of L'Aubergade saddens Puymirol and the surrounding area, which saw the restaurant as a gastronomic beacon capable of shining the spotlight on an entire region.
at the age of 78, Michel Trama has not yet closed the book on his culinary life: he has announced that he will be speaking at a press conference in the near future about his future projects and his vision of gastronomy. ,;
