Laurent PETIT
The son of butchers based in the Haute-Marne region of France, Laurent Petit confesses that he never really wanted to take over from his parents in a business he didn't consider rewarding or demanding enough. However, he still has many olfactory and gustatory memories of that time. Images of pies coming out of the oven and perfuming the whole laboratory, and of the raw sausage meat that had to be kneaded.
He was just 20 when he began an internship with Michel Guérard. Like many of his colleagues, it was to be a real shock. He would be a chef, and nothing else. He was fully convinced of this. Laurent Petit went on to work at Les Crayères, Barrier and Roger Vergé, all great chefs with whom he demonstrated an unquenchable thirst for learning.
In 1992, he and his wife Martine bought an old chalet in the hills above Annecy. The wheels were in motion. Honors were piling up for a cuisine that celebrates Savoie and nature, a cuisine that is both playful and charming, drawing its inspiration from the lake, of course, but also from the wooded mountains of the Bauges.
In 2015, he took his approach one step further and launched his "cooking-out", a term he uses to describe the rethinking of his own cooking. It's a process of reflection that has led him to "bare his soul" and reorient himself towards locavorism, abandoning meat and refocusing on "lacustrine" and plant-based ingredients.