Florent PIETRAVALLE
Chef : 1 restaurant Florent Pietravalle has been Chef at La Mirande in Avignon since 2016. You can find out more about his career, which has included a stint on Top Chef, here.
" Ever since I was a little boy, I've been drawn to restaurants, and I knew I was going to be a chef. I've always liked to be able to express myself through cooking, to have the plates speak for me," recalls Florent Pietravalle. So he trained at the Montpellier hotel school and did an internship with Yves Thuriès in Gordes. it was a revelation," he says, "I knew that what I wanted was the quest for perfection.
With his professional baccalaureate in his pocket, he wanted to continue with a BTS, but his meeting with MOF Raoul Reichrath changed all that. That's how, in 2006, he came to work for him at Le Grand Pré, in the Vaucluse region. " I was only supposed to stay for a summer, but I ended up staying for three years.
Back to his roots
In 2009, he joined L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, for a year. " It was there that I understood what rigor and precision are all about ". A year later, this native of Montpellier felt the need to return to his native South. He headed for Arles, as sous-chef to Jean-Luc Rabanel. " He was a pioneer in the world of vegetal cuisine".
After a stint on season 3 of Top Chef, he moved back to Paris, to Pierre Gagnaire's restaurant on rue Balzac. He trained there, trying out all the positions, but four years later, the desire to open his own restaurant caught his eye. While scouting the region, he stopped off between two visits to La Mirande, in Avignon, where he met Martin Stein, the owner of the premises. It was a friendly and decisive encounter that led him to take charge of the establishment's kitchens in 2016. Here, he develops a lively, instinctive cuisine based on local produce from the Mediterranean region. Awarded the title of "Grand de Demain" in 2022, with a 17/20 rating, the Chef is determined to build on his success over the long term.
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