Maximin HELLIO

Chef : 1 restaurant

Presentation

Maximin Hellio fell into the cooking pot as a child. " I used to watch my father with admirationin his kitchens at La Voile d'Or in Les Sables-d'Or-les-Pins, nearCap Fréhel.Ialways knew I wanted to follow in his footsteps." While completing his BEP and CAP, the young apprentice sharpened his knives in the family establishment, but also trained with caterers, bakers and gourmet restaurants during the winter seasons.

In 1998, he joined his father's kitchens, before moving to Paris to work for Frédéric Anton at the Pré Catelan. "After a year, my father fell ill. At the age of 25, Maximin Hellio was forced to take over the reins at La Voile d'Or. " To bequite honest, I didn't have the backbone torun a hotel-restaurant on this scale, with 25employees. It was just too much."

With humility and passion, the young chef forged a culinary identity over the years, but at the age of 30, he decided to sell. He then took charge of the kitchens at Le Pavillon, in Argentan (Orne). "I wanted to take the establishment to the next level, but the owners didn't think so, so I decided to leave the adventure and embark on my own."

In 2016, after more than a year of research and thanks to the Gault&Millau endowment, Maximin Hellio set his sights on an abandoned house on rue Gambetta, in Deauville, to found a restaurant bearing his name. "Gault&Millau wrote at the time that Iwas ready to weather any storm", and indeed, in seven years there have been many, and Maximin Hellio has redone everything from basement to ceiling. After a rethink three years ago, the chef now defends "Norman gastronomy 2.0, focused on the land, sauces, the sea and pastures". This approach has enabled him to keep his 3 toques, awarded in 2017, and to receive the Cuisine de la Mer Bretagne 2020 trophy.

B. G.