Madeline BLAIS

Chef de service : 1 restaurant

Presentation

"I was born into the restaurant business," explains Madeline Blais. The daughter of restaurateurs who grew up above the establishment's kitchens, she was never destined for this career. "I'd seen all the flaws," she says, but fell into the pot all the same.

After passing her baccalaureate in technology, she enrolled at the Sainte-Catherine hotel school in Le Mans, where she met Corentin Courtien, her future husband. From there, the couple moved to Nantes, to the gastronomic restaurant Le Pélican, he as chef, she as room manager.

After two years in Geneva, Switzerland, Madeline Blais received a call from her father. "He heard about a restaurant for sale in Le Mans. He insisted... We visited it, and that's how we launched L'Insouciant... in the middle of the Covid period", she recounts. When it reopened in 2021, the restaurant joined Les 19 bonnes tables sarthoises, one of France's oldest culinary associations.

In 2022, aged just 26, she was awarded the Jeune Talent Service en Salle Gault&Millau Loire trophy. "I thought it was a scam," confides the young woman. "It's a pleasure to have our work in the dining room recognized; the eyes of the waiters help us report what's happened in the dining room.

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