Pascal BONAMY

Chef : 1 restaurant A pure Hyerois product, Pascal Bonamy has been the 2-toque chef at La Colombe since 1987.

Presentation

Pascal Bonamy, who describes himself as "pure Hyérois", comes from a family of bakers on his mother's side. A first step towards a certain idea of taste, which is completed by family meals, where porcini mushrooms and anchovy pasta mingle. At the age of 15, while living in Marseille, he had no interest in school. When it came time to choose a career, cooking came to him "really by chance".

In 1981, Pascal Bonamy did his apprenticeship in Nice, at the Rôtisserie de Saint-Pancrace, in the kitchens of Laurent Tamisier, before becoming pastry chef at the Auberge Saint-Nicolas, in La Londe-les-Maures. He returned to work there after a year's military service. He left in 1987 with chef status.

In 1987, with his wife Nadège, he opened La Colombe, in Hyères: "We set up the restaurant together." He expanded in 1998, then again in 2003, and established himself as a chef influenced as much by his travels as by his heart: "I cook what I like when I want to cook it."A precept that complements that of Gui Gedda, an emblematic figure from Bormes-les-Mimosas, whom he evokes like an echo: "You have to cook for your sky and your earth."

T. L.