Émilie ALI DRA

Head waiter : 1 restaurant

Presentation

A curious customer, Émilie Ali Dra has always been attracted to front-of-house service. "I said to myself, 'Why not be on the other side of the mirror?"After taking her baccalaureat L, she enrolled at the Institut Paul Bocuse, completing her studies with a professional degree in organization and management of establishments. It was during an internship as junior maître d'hôtel at La Samanna, a Belmond hotel in Saint-Martin, that she honed her sommellerie skills.

In 2017, Émilie Ali Dra moved to London, to the Roka Mayfair. There, she learned all aspects of a restaurant, from dishwasher to junior sous-chef, to front-of-house cleaner and receptionist. "It was an experience that trained me enormously and gave me credibility with my peers," she says.

After a year as room manager at the Coretta restaurant in Paris, she flew to New Zealand. No vacation on the agenda, as a position as head waiter of the gourmet restaurant at the Hans Herzog Estate vineyard awaited her.

A year later, she's off to Switzerland, to work as a room manager at the opening of Le Zingue restaurant in Orbe. Then, in 2022, chef François Pantaléon announced that he was leaving Correta and offered her a position as assistant maitre d' at his new restaurant, Roza, in Nantes. A job made for her, quickly rewarded with the Jeune Talent en Salle Centre-Val de Loire & Pays de la Loire Gault&Millau trophy.

I. B.