Jean-Claude CAHAGNET

Chef : 1 restaurant

Presentation

Born in Paris in 1965, Jean-Claude Cahagnet spent over twenty years in the Chevreuse valley. Nothing in his childhood predestined him to become a chef: "But paradoxically, I was always watching Raymond Oliver's shows, and cutting out recipes for Modes & Travaux", he recalls . At school, he was told that he would be better suited to a manual rather than an intellectual profession. So it was "by chance" that he turned to cooking. As luck would have it, his mother knew a Maître Cuisinier de France chef, Jean-Pierre Philippe, who took him on as a trial student during the vacations in 1981: "He was my mentor, my spiritual father", he confides. During this brief experience, Jean-Claude Cahagnet was impressed not only by the chef's radiance, but also by his ability to unite people around a simple notion: sharing. In the same year, the young man trained as a chef at Jean-Pierre Philippe's La Toque Blanche in Les Mesnuls (Yvelines). He then went on to the CFA school in Versailles, then to the Tecomah hotel school in Jouy-en-Josas: "A great school, very human".

Two years later, he qualified for the Best Apprentice of France competition. In 1984, he joined Gérard Vié in Versailles. In 1986, he returned to La Toque Blanche, before flying off to Japan for two months. He then returned to France to join Jean-Pierre Cario's brigade, where he became sous-chef at La Corbeille.

After a number of different experiences in the early 1990s, Jean-Claude Cahagnet became head chef at the Relais des Gardes in Meudon (Hauts-de-Seine). He spent three and a half years there, before returning to the Vallée de Chevreuse as chef at Auberge Saint Pierre. He then took charge of Les Chanteraines in Villeneuve-la-Garenne (Hauts-de-Seine), until 1997, when he met André Gamon, then chef at Le Coq de la Maison Blanche in Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis): " That was the trigger.

As the story goes, André Gamon organized his retirement party at the restaurant where Jean-Claude Cahagnet worked. At the end of the meal, he entered the kitchen and advised the chef to move in. Two months later, the Auberge des Saints Pères opened its doors in Aulnay-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis). In the early 2000s, Jean-Claude Cahagnet was awarded the title of Maître Cuisinier de France. In 2022, he changed direction and turned to "relaxed bistronomy" , while retaining the original culinary DNA of his restaurant, and a sincere passion, which seems to be establishing itself as a cardinal value in his profession.

T. L.