Arnaud BAPTISTE

Chef : 1 restaurant Former "Top Chef" Arnaud Baptiste has taken his career in a new direction. Today, he officiates at Le Colvert, a bistro belonging to the Les Becs Parisiens group.

Presentation

"Cooking was an obvious choice for me. I come from a family of restaurateurs: bakers, pastry chefs, chocolatiers, hoteliers...", says Arnaud Baptiste. It was therefore only logical that he should take a BEP and a vocational baccalaureate. After a prestigious internship at Guy Martin in Paris, he worked for a season at Brasserie Flo at Roissy airport. "It was a pretty hefty job," he says, "we were making cutlery all day long, 400-500 a day, just chopping away."

In 2006, he joined the Concorde Lafayette hotel, before moving on to Le Meurice, during the Yannick Alléno era. He continued his career at Alain Dutournier's Carré des Feuillants in Paris. "It was a family atmosphere, with southern cuisine. I was in pastry, then in sauce cooking." He became chef de partie at the Sofitel Arc de Triomphe. "It's from morning to night, banquets, service... It's a city within a city !" A few years later, he left for the Saint James, in the ^16th arrondissement, to work alongside Virginie Basselot, in the meat and juice position. "Me, I do a lot of meat, juices, cooking... My cooking today is based on that."

He takes part in the opening of Le Molitor with the Alléno Consulting group, then becomes sous-chef at L'Allénothèque. "Chef Alléno encouraged us to give our best. We had a lot of freedom of expression in our creations." During this same period, he took part in the TV show "Top Chef". "Thebest experience of my entire life, culinarily speaking, humanely speaking... It's a crazy career gas pedal !"

In 2022, he took up the position of executive chef at Jacky Ribault's Les Mérovingiens restaurant in Noisy-le-Grand. "I wanted to open something in Noisy-le-Grand, he did too; so I did his opening as executive chef for a year, because I had another project already waiting for me." Since 2023, Arnaud Baptiste has been head chef at Le Colvert, in the ^6th arrondissement, an address of the Les Becs Parisiens group. As proof of his talent, Gault&Millau has included him in the 2024 edition of 109 - Le Sang neuf de la gastronomie française.

I. B.