Michaël ARNOULT

Chef : 1 restaurant

Presentation

"It'snot about making the best food in the world, it's about making your own," says Michaël Arnoult. The chef has applied this vision from the moment he arrived at Les Morainières, the establishment he has run with his wife Ingrid since 2005.

His first job? As a commis at the Italian gourmet restaurant La Romantica, in Paris. He stayed for two years, leaving in 1998 as chef de partie. "But Parisian life wasn't for me, and I wanted to learn something new. So I left for England",and headed for Windsor, to the Oakley Court Hotel. He took up the position of saucier, then sous-second: "A great experience", he asserts. But military service called him back to France.

In 2000, he became pastry chef at La Châtaigneraie, near Nantes. "I found myself alone at a job, and I worked a lot. The advantage was that I had a lot of freedom. Then, a year later, he and his wife Ingrid joined chef Emmanuel Renaut's prestigious Megevan restaurant. "I open the L'Hôtellerie newspaper on the map of France, close your eyes, put your finger down, and it lands on the Alps. We look and come across an advert for Flocons de Sel. We call and we've been recruited."

It was this last job that enabled him and his wife, four years later, to open Les Morainières, in Jongieux (Savoie). "We started out with just two people, and today there are between 20 and 25 of us," he enthuses. Gault&Millau crowned him Jeune Talent in 2008 and has awarded him 3 toques since 2019.

I. B.