Michel PORTOS

Extremely talented, Michel Portos has often bewildered us with his dazzling, avant-garde and mischievous cuisine.

Presentation

Michel Portos has always enjoyed the art of the counterpoint, of being where you least expect him. In our profile of him in the 2012 edition of our France guide, on the occasion of his being named Chef of the Year, we wrote that this was hardly a career-ending distinction. However, this singular talent, the opposite of the plural, the gregarious, the consensual, was to leave (definitively?) the world of haute cuisine barely a year later, surprising the entire small world of gastronomy. Tired no doubt of this life of ultra-performance, he left the Saint-James, in Bouliac, in full glory .

Anative of Marseilles, he trained with Toulousy and Troisgros .

Born in Marseille in 1963, this son of an accountant and a mother who was an excellent cook trained with Dominique Toulousy (at the Opéra in Toulouse), and with Troisgros, where he perfected his sense of detail and his knowledge of produce. At the turn of the 2000s, he made his mark at the helm of Côté Théâtre, in Perpignan, before settling at the Saint-James, in this magnificent residence designed by Jean Nouvel, perched on the heights of Bordeaux .

He leaves Bordeaux a few months after being named Chef ofthe Year

This passionate chef stayed for ten years, just long enough to win our title of Chef of the Year, and to decide that it was definitely time to return to his native Provence, as he had always promised himself. He opened Le Malthazar, then Le Poulpe, giving them up a few years later before putting his talent and experience at the service of others, here and there .