Christophe ROHAT
Chef de service : 1 restaurant Christophe Rohat is the restaurant manager at L'Astrance in Paris, winner of 4 Gault&Millau toques.
Born in 1971, Christophe Rohat turned to the hotel and restaurant business at an early age. Trained at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines hotel school, he did his military service at the Cercle national des armées, where he discovered the world of reception.i worked as a receptionist there," he recalls, "and it was a great school of rigor. as soon as he was released from his duties, he moved to Switzerland, to the Beau-Rivage in Geneva, where he trained in the refined service of Le Chat Botté.
in autumn 1995, he joined Alain Passard's Arpège (5 toques). First as head waiter, then room manager, he made a decisive encounter with Pascal Barbot, who had arrived a year and a half earlier. "We worked together, and that was a key date in my career," he recounts. When Pascal Barbot left for Australia in 1998, Christophe Rohat pursued his career, briefly working for Pierre Gagnaire (5 toques), then participating in the project to relaunch Lapérouse. But by 2000, the idea of striking out on their own had taken hold.
L'Astrance, 25 years of shared adventure
It was on rue Beethoven, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, that the two partners found their first setting: a former decorator's premises, enthusiastically transformed into a restaurant. "A real coup de coeur", says Christophe Rohat. L'Astrance opened in October 2000, and quickly became a cult address. The duo's singular style is unmistakable: Pascal Barbot's free-spirited creativity in the kitchen, Christophe Rohat's warm precision in the dining room. For twenty years, they welcomed a loyal clientele, while coping with the logistical constraints of limited space.
In 2015, they decided to look for a new location. After years of searching, fate led them to Joël Robuchon's former Jamin, still in the 16th arrondissement. "This is where we came to celebrate the purchase of rue Beethoven in 2000. I had kept the image of a dark, narrow place... when we revisited it, we discovered a beautiful surface area, cellars and a salon upstairs", he confides. The fund was acquired in 2019, but the health crisis delayed the opening. The time was used to transform the space: light, comfort, refurbished cellars. In the meantime, Christophe Rohat and Pascal Barbot are embarking on a consulting project for the Céna restaurant. At the end of 2022, Astrance was finally reborn, with a renewed team and a setting to match their ambitions. "Today, we have a bright, comfortable and very pleasant place," he concludes.
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