Sport & chefs: on your marks, get set, fire... Get set!
In their own way, the grandes toques are everyday athletes. Their place in the Olympic Torch Relay is not stolen, as there is a close link between the catering professions and sporting competition. In fact, many chefs have incorporated physical activity into their schedules.
There's the challenge of surpassing yourself, when the hours of service pile up as much as the fatigue. There's the teamwork required to lead the entire brigade towards the restaurant's success. And then there's the precision of the gesture, that of delicately preparing the sprout that will underline a seasoning. The chefs are champions in their own way, as their profession shares many similarities with the world of sport. " We practice forced marching," laughs Laurent Trochain, of the Numéro 3 restaurant in Tremblay-sur-Mauldre. " I take at least 6,000 steps a day," adds chef Jean-Michel Lorain of La Côte St-Jacques, who counts them using an app on his smartphone.
Each in their own way, the toques have appropriated the values of sporting competition. They even maintain their fighting spirit by including hours of physical training in their busy schedules. Some are even seasoned athletes, like Jean Sulpice who has just completed his first Pierra Menta, one of the world's most difficult ski mountaineering races. The chef of the Auberge du Père Bise recounts his journey in his podcast "Au cœur des Alpes".
For others, sport appears to be a solution to decompress and relieve contractures caused by repetitive service. No surprise, then, to find chefs taking part in the Olympic torch relay. With the Paris Olympics just around the corner, we asked some of them about their relationship with sport.
In Valence, Anne-Sophie Pic and pilates
"I've been doing pilates for many years. I still manage to do it whenever my schedule permits. It's an interesting practice for its work on breathing and connecting with the body", confided the great Valence chef. Anne-Sophie Pic is also thinking of resuming her training more assiduously in anticipation of the Olympic flame's passage through her hometown. Indeed, the chef has been chosen to promote the values of Olympism in the Drôme region. For Anne-Sophie Pic, the practice of sport is first and foremost a question of life philosophy and mental attitude: "In our profession, our relationship with physical activity is extremely necessary. It's very demanding and requires a lot of energy. I regularly advise my teams not to put aside this aspect of their personal lives. Sport helps you regenerate and clear your head", she explains. A former skier, the chef with four toques and an ultra-millimetre diary now enjoys hiking in the mountains. "I go out into nature for two or three hours at a time. The city exhausts me and I need to reconnect with nature. I feel weak when I haven't done any sport for a long time".
In Arles ,Céline Pham and team sports
"I've been a sports fan since I was a little girl. When I heard that the Olympic flame was going to pass right in front of my restaurant, I was so happy! (laughs)" recalls Céline Pham. She even confides that "sport was an addiction at a certain point in my life, when I got hooked on indoor cycling! Now based in Arles, at the Inari restaurant, which has taken up residence in a former 13th-century chapel, the chef who has long preferred to use her talent to fuel ephemeral gastronomic experiences finds the best parallel with cooking in team sports. When she was younger, Céline Pham played basketball and soccer. "I love the team spirit of these sports. There's the adrenalin, but also the fact of being able to count on others during matches, which I find incredible to experience". In fact, the Vietnamese-born chef, who grew up in the Val d'Oise, even set up a soccer team with some friends." We had a lot of energy, it was great, even if we didn't play many competitions", she says, "In the end, I feel like I'm continuing the team sport with my restaurant team. I'd like to reproduce this atmosphere, which I love, outside the restaurant, so that we can do other activities together".
In Tremblay-sur-Mauldre, Laurent Trochain and golf
"In this region, you're either a golfer or a cyclist," says this native of northern France, who settled in Tremblay-sur-Mauldre, in the Yvelinoise countryside, 21 years ago, alongside his wife Julie, who runs the club. I preferred option one," he jokes, "because it was less risky and it was easy to get started, since there's a golf course in every village here! Above all, Laurent Trochain took up golf five years ago as a way of decompressing. "Golf is all about concentration, otherwise you miss the ball. And it promotes relaxation," explains the chef, who structures his dishes around plants and uses meat and fish as condiments, if not seasonings. He admits that as the years go by, physical exercise can also help him keep up with the pace of the shot: "I'm going to be 53 soon and I've just joined a gym to do some cardio exercises. I also need to correct my posture, because in this profession, you can quickly suffer from back pain" confesses the chef of restaurant Numéro 3. But no pressure! Sport is about pleasure, not competition.
In Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or, Olivier Couvin and Thai boxing
100 years after its foundation, Paul Bocuse's house is still in the starting-blocks! At the Auberge de Collonges (4 toques), team cohesion is based on a surprising ingredient: Thai boxing." Two years ago, one of my colleagues took up the discipline, inviting every member of the brigade to join him," says Olivier Couvin. He adds with a great deal of humor, "and one day, one of them said to me: 'Chief, aren't you going to come with us to training so that we can beat you up a bit? Behind this ironic joke, it's important to understand just how much goodwill unites Olivier Couvin's brigade. "There's a good-natured atmosphere and no vindictiveness during training. We all make a clear distinction between what goes on behind the stove and the boxing sessions," he explains. A keen runner and cyclist, the Meilleur Ouvrier de France sees this discipline above all as an opportunity to forge links: "I can capture each person's character in a different way. Some have a spirit of surpassing themselves, while others reveal their desire to succeed," adds the chef, who in another life dreamed of joining the paratroopers. "Effort reveals a lot! You discover people for who they are!" he stresses. And he concludes, "As they say: a healthy mind in a healthy body! In other words, the head can't keep up if the body isn't there".
In Sauternes, Jérôme Schilling and tennis
The chef at Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey (4 toques) is no stranger to the top level, and not just because he wears the collar of the Meilleur Ouvrier de France title. Jérôme Schilling is also an experienced third-series tennis player. "I'd like to move up the rankings to regain my level, which could give me the opportunity to take a coaching diploma," confesses the Lalique restaurant chef, who has no plans in that direction for the time being, but is simply aiming for the pride of achieving such a goal. This admirer of Roger Federer admits to taking pleasure in competition, a state of mind he finds as much in cooking as in sport. " I'm a risk-taker. I'm a perfectionist, so I only like to score good points with winning shots," he says. A tennis player since the age of five, Jérôme Schilling also finds in his favorite discipline a way to externalize and clear his head, even confessing that he doesn't feel well when he's not physically active. Nourished by the emotions generated by sport, thanks in particular to a father who was French junior track and field champion, the chef hits the ball at least twice a week to maintain a healthy lifestyle. " Our job requires us to taste preparations regularly, even at times when we're not supposed to be eating ", explains the tennis player.
