Hervé CUNE
Chef : 1 restaurant Hervé Cune, chef at Les Bas-Rupts (2 toques) in Gérardmer, offers a simple, generous cuisine where the product is king. After a career spanning more than thirty years in the Vosges and beyond, he has now returned to the passionate family spirit that has inspired him since the beginning.
"I started out as a pastry chef, with a CAP in 1985" Hervé Cune's adventure began behind the sweet stoves, but it was an unexpected detour that changed his focus to savoury dishes. After the army, a friend who was relaunching a restaurant asked him to help out: "I put my hand in and liked it," he recalls. The desire to work in the kitchen never left him.
From pastry-making to cooking
Although he still had one foot in pastry-making, Hervé Cune gradually turned to cooking: "I felt fewer limits," he confides. His apprenticeship culminated with Régis Marcon (5 toques), from 1994 to 1996, the year of the chef's Bocuse d'Or. "It was a real family atmosphere, despite all the hard work we had to put in. He was there from morning to night, eager to share his knowledge... For a young chef-patissier, it's the best possible experience. "
Hervé Cune admits that although his style is not that of Régis Marcon, he has retained the chef's mindset from this experience: "The product comes first", he sums up.
From the Vosges to the top hotels
After this immersion, he returned to the Vosges and worked with his parents-in-law, before taking charge of the kitchen at the Grand Hôtel de Gérardmer, first as pastry chef, then as head chef. He then moved on to the Manoir aux Lacs, where he remained until 2004.
It was in that year that he joined the privately-run Compagnie des Hôtels des Lacs, where he took charge of the kitchens, notably at Les Jardins de Sophie (2 toques) from 2006. He stayed for 17 years, developing a generous cuisine that respects the product. In 2021, he left classical gastronomy to open a restaurant with a friend, before trying his hand at culinary consulting for various establishments, a project that was ultimately aborted.
Since 1ᵉʳ July 2025, he has been officiating at LesBas-Rupts (2 toques), where he offers "simple cooking, with a flagship product on the plate, lots of vegetables, especially mushrooms.I also love working with meat juices, which are very concentrated", he explains. For him, gourmet pleasure and customer satisfaction come first: "I prefer to use a less expensive product, but one that' s just as good, and to put it on the plate. Generosity is his signature, without ever overdoing it.
Hervé Cune likes to sublimate the simple product: "I've always been told that potatoes are cheap and fill the stomach nicely", he laughs. His biggest fear? Customers who leave still hungry.
In 2025, he was awarded the Trophée Cuisine de la Mer, des Lacs et des Rivières at the Gault&Millau Tour Grand Est, in recognition of his natural cuisine, focused on taste and simple pleasure.
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