Christophe HAGNERELLE

Chef : 1 restaurant From Lille to Beirut, by way of Connecticut, chef Christophe Hagnerelle has deployed his techniques of excellence all the way to Val d'Auge, where he is now head chef.

Presentation

If there's one thing that has guided Christophe Hagnerelle since his earliest childhood, it's gourmandise: "When you're a gourmand, you want to know why it tastes good," he explains. The man who wanted to become an Avenger to save people has found cooking to be a weapon in his own way.

At the age of 18, he took his first job as a commis at La Devinière, in Lille, before working at Le Flambard. A year of military service later, Christophe Hagnerelle joined Gérard Boyer's prestigious kitchen at Les Crayères in Reims. Here, the young man worked mainly with fish, as he did at Robuchon, whom he joined in 1991 as chef de partie. The following year, Frédéric Anton informed him of an opening for a chef at the Auberge de la Forêt in Lille. Here, Christophe Hagnerelle recreates menus, and learns "the autonomy of the manager".

In 1994, he flies to Beirut, hired as head chef at the Jardins du Plaza. On his return, he spent six months in the United States, in Connecticut, working in a Relais & Châteaux establishment. At the same time, he married Élisabeth, who played an essential role: "She still works in the shadows, but she's as important as I am to the establishment we have today, if not more so..." The establishment is Le Val d'Auge, which the couple opened in 1998, after the chef's last experience at the Relais Saint-Victoire in Aix-en-Provence. Today, his techniques of excellence are combined with a vision of cuisine that is more unifying than ever: "There's no other activity that brings all the senses together. "Gault&Millau logically awarded him the Techniques d'Excellence trophy Hauts-de-France 2023.

T. L.