Jean-Yves SCHILLINGER

Chef : 2 restaurants

Presentation

"I come from a generation where, when your parents owned a restaurant, you had to take it over," says Jean-Yves Schillinger. But life has its share of good and bad surprises... Years after the arson attack on the family restaurant, in which his father died in 1995, he opened JY'S, in Colmar: a success and a personal revenge.

It all began in 1980. With a view to taking over from Jean Schillinger, the flagship of Alsatian gastronomy in Colmar, Jean-Yves studied at the Strasbourg hotel school. Graduating in 1982, the young commis honed his skills alongside Gérard Boyer at the Domaine Les Crayères in Reims, at the Crillon in Paris, and then at the Atelier Joël Robuchon Saint-Germain.

In 1986, he returned home, but the Schillingers, father and son, were both strong-willed, so Jean Yves quit and set off for adventure in New York. At Festival, a fish restaurant in the heart of the Big Apple, he took his first chef's position, unaware that he would be buying it back years later. "Eventually, my dad came looking for me. His future seemed set, but on December 27, 1995, an arson attack on his family's restaurant took the life of Jean Schillinger.

Devastated, Jean-Yves took over the grocery-catering business he inherited. "But it wasn't my business, so I sold everything and called my former chef back to Manhattan. His establishment had closed, but as he owned the walls, he offered to open his own in 1997. He named it Destinée, a French bistro-style restaurant echoing his own story. Building on this success, he opened a second, Olica, in 1999, followed by a third, JY'S, in 2002, this time in Colmar, in the heart of La Petite Venise. "For this creation, I did things the American way. In 2004, Jean-Yves Schillinger sold his two New York establishments to devote himself fully to JY'S. "When I came back to Colmar," he says, "I was very happy with the way things were going. "When I returned, I couldn't see myself offering Alsatian gastronomy; naturally, I turned to modern world cuisine tinged with Asian touches, in line with what I was offering in the United States."Gault&Millau immediately awarded him 2 toques, then quickly 3 toques, as well as the region's Innovation Trophy in 2013.

In 2020, making way for Bord'eau, a bistronomic address still owned by Jean-Yves Schillinger, JY'S moves to a new contemporary setting designed by Olivier Gagnère, in the heart of the Champ-de-Mars park.

B. G.