Laurent ARBEIT

Chef : 1 restaurant

Presentation

"I entered the kitchen when I was still crawling. I grew up above L'Auberge Saint-Laurent, in Sierentz (Haut-Rhin), which my grandmother founded in the 1970s and which my parents took over in 1984." Since 2010, Laurent Arbeit has been writing a fine gastronomic chapter: his own.

It all began in adolescence. Laurent Arbeit was convinced he was going to be a chef. Aware of the difficulties of the profession, his father advised him to do some training: with Olivier Nasti (at the Caveau d'Eguisheim) and Paul Haeberlin (at L'Auberge de l'Ill), two renowned institutions in Alsace. After graduating from the Guebwiller hotel school, the young clerk headed for the Alps. "I've always been attracted to the mountains, skiing in winter, cycling in summer: it's just happiness!" He settles in Chamonix and starts out at the Hameau Albert Ier, working alongside Pierre Carrier. "I sent out CVs to all the top establishments. He was the first to reply, and so much the better, I stayed for two years."

The man who regularly reads Alain Ducasse's books seized the opportunity to join the Louis XV (in Monaco) in 2015 as a commis. He became chef de partie in 2009. "I feel like I did my military service there. This rigor and respect for hierarchy did me a world of good and enabled me to make lots of friends in the business."

But his father, who still runs the family business, called him to the rescue. "I returned at the age of 25, but very quickly found myself the sole owner of L'Auberge Saint-Laurent. My father saw that I was doing well, so he definitely put me in charge of the restaurant. In 2012, Laurent Arbeit became the owner of the family business, with the aim of taking it to the next level. Gault&Millau quickly awarded him 3 toques and proclaimed him Grand de Demain 2014. Growing wings, the chef bought the neighboring house and transformed it into a winstub, À Côté, a wine lounge in the greatest Alsatian tradition. In 2018, the establishment continues to expand. The innkeeper, as he likes to be called, acquires the adjoining house and expands the hotel, building a swimming pool and enlarging the terrace. "Whether in the bistro or the gastro, I need to make customers salivate. In each of the lines on my menus, there's an element that links us to Alsace."

B. G.