Émilion BUISSET

Sommelier : 1 restaurant Émilion Buisset, Sommelier Hauts-de-France 2024, runs a cellar full of lovely nuggets at La Madeleine, after having cut his teeth with Florent Ladeyn.

Presentation

Born in the suburbs of Lille into a family where, as he himself admits, "we preferred beer and uniform wines", Émilion Buisset didn't become interested in the wine trade until quite late in life.Émilion Buisset didn 't become interested in the wine business until quite late in life. "I followed a classic schooling path, graduating with a Baccalauréat ES, then enrolling in a STAPS college. I dreamed of becoming a PE teacher, but the course content was too scientific for me. After two years, it was clear to me that it would be better to take a different path.

After failing STAPS, he turned to cooking

After spending a year as an educational assistant, the future sommelier decided to go back to school and enrolled in a vocational diploma (BP) in cookery.a cookery diploma before joining Florent Ladeyn's team at Bloempot in Lille, where he experienced a real revelation. He discovered fermentations and fine produce, and became friends with Pierre Bleuzé and Antoine Dacquin, with whom he would open Saisons - Cave à Manger a few years later.

He met his two future partners in Florent Ladeyn's kitchens.

"Those were years during which I worked a lot. My partner, who is not from the wine world, made a lot of sacrifices so that I could live my passion. As my taste for wine continued to grow, I took advantage of this period to obtain an additional qualification in sommellerie. "Émilion Buisset, a wine enthusiast without being an extremist, admits to an original penchant for Gamay and Beaujolais reds. Émilion Buisset is actively involved in creating the cellar of the restaurant where his two colleagues work, while at the same time managing the cellar he opened a little further down the road in early 2023. Gault&Millau awarded him the Sommelier Hauts-de-France 2024 trophy. It's a lot of hard work, and you have to keep at it, but this recognition from Gault&Millau is a real breath of fresh air for me", he admits.for me", admits the man who now offers between "100 and 150 references and a few fine local beers".