Damian SANCHEZ PEREZ

Chef de service : La Passagère Belgian-Spanish chef Damian Sanchez Perez, who has been the executive chef at the three-toque restaurant La Passagère in Juan-les-Pins since 2022, cut his teeth in Brussels and London, including six years working with Hélène Darroze.

Presentation

“ Until I was a teenager, I had never set foot in a fine-dining restaurant. I was a complete novice in that world.” It was thanks to a friend that Damian Sanchez Perez took his first steps in the industry. “ This friend’s parents owned a brasserie. To earn some pocket money, he regularly washed dishes there and invited me to join him. That’s how my passion was born, and I decided to enroll in the hotel school in Anderlecht, a suburb of Brussels.”

From Brussels to London: A Journey of Guts

During his three years of study, he worked every weekend at Le Bon Bon, then one of the country’s finest restaurants (19.5/20 in our Belgian edition). “I got the job through sheer nerve. I called the chef to ask for a job. He told me to show up that very evening, in uniform, at 6 p.m. I was barely 15 years old, and I stayed there until my 20th birthday, after completing a specialization in sommelier training. ” Since his English was practically nonexistent at the time, his chef found him a position at Gauthier Soho in London. He stayed there for more than thirteen years—including nearly six as Deputy Restaurant Manager alongsideHélène Darroze at The Connaught—until the pandemic and Brexit prompted him to cross the Channel once again.

At La Passagère, the understated luxury of the Riviera

Back in France, he settled on the French Riviera, where his wife is from, and helped open the Maybourne Riviera in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. His friend Tom Meyer, then chef at Granite in Paris, spoke highly ofAurélien Véquaud, chef at La Passagère (3 toques) at the Belles Rives hotel. “It was Tom who brought me to the Belles Rives in April 2022. It’s a place of understated luxury with a family-like atmosphere, where I truly thrive alongside a close-knit and motivated team. ” His elegance and natural ease go over wonderfully with a discerning international clientele.