Gérald AZOULAY

Chef : 1 restaurant Chef and owner of the Hiély Lucullus, in Avignon, Gérald Azoulay offers a "Pérouvence" cuisine, a mix of Provence and Peru, with chili pepper as the common thread.

Presentation

A self-taught chef, Gérald Azoulay has always had one foot in the kitchen: "My father ran a travel agency, so we traveled a lot and discovered different types of cuisine," he explains. My mother was a true cordon-bleu, and my brother took over management of the Le Saule Pleureur restaurant in Monteux (Vaucluse). When it was my turn, I had no choice but to get my hands dirty. "The teenager entered the Avignon hotel school and graduated with a BTS in 2000, after having zigzagged between the kitchen and the dining room in a number of prestigious establishments, including the Maison Troisgros in Roanne. A rather atypical career path followed.

With his diploma in hand, Gérald Azoulay flew to the United States. For two years, he worked as a management controller at the Sofitel in Houston. He continued in this vein in France, at the Domaine de Beauvallon, near Saint-Tropez, and at L'Impérial Palace in Annecy. In 2006, he joined his brother at Le Saule Pleureur in Monteux. "But all he could think about was getting back into the kitchen. To fulfill his dream, he and his brother bought Hiély Lucullus, the legendary Avignon restaurant with an 85-year history. "Initially, we wanted to perpetuate the tradition of the roborative, bourgeois cuisine that has made the establishment such a success", Gérald Azoulay soon delegated the management of the dining room to his wife Patricia, and took up the piano.

In 2018, the chef clicked and invented the "Pérouvence" cuisine, in homage to Provence and his partner's Peruvian origins. "It took a while to adapt, as importing products from Peru was out of the question. We had to grow some of them ourselves in our kitchen garden, especially the herbs and chillies that are the hallmark of my braise cuisine."

B. G.